free cad or drawing progam for visualizng layouts

[Opcom]

What is a free 3D mechanical or cad or design program I could use to visualize layouts for a 7 FT tall rack in which I want to build a 3CX3000 amp? I have put this off for a long time because of the weight and size of the parts. Trying to move them around repeatedly is a major effort and I'm not up to it any more. The plate transformer is 300 lbs. ugh.

I'd like to make very simple cube and cylinder-shaped "3D models" representing the rack, and then the transformers, tubes, coils, capacitors, panels, and other things, and place them inside the cabinet on 'shelves', which would be simple rectangles, etc.

Being able to move them around and 'stick' them in place where they are dropped on any surface would be important.

I would prefer to try a 3D program. I only need accuracy to 1/10 inch or so for this purpose.

The idea is to see what will fit, without having to lift 100 LB things and have said huge things scattered around the floor.

I had an old solidworks at one time but it is long since gone because the key was lost.

I now some of you guys have built beautiful things, maybe with just a drawing, but this is a totally from-scratch idea and I am not very mechanically inclined. It would save many, many hand drawings on paper if I could see what can be fit where, then try to do a sketch after.

[KL7OF]

Pat...you are building an amp in a 7 ft rack...you should have lots of room.. layout of the power supply(s) could be on 2 levels and another level for control circuitry..... the blown tube on another and the tank on yet another...Get your components together and stare at them for a while....Good Luck..Steve

[NE3U]

Perhaps the free CAD program that is most talked about is Sketchup:
http://www.sketchup.com/products/sketchup-make

Here's another one that is free:
http://www.freecadweb.org/

You should also look at the following Middle Atlantic drawing software (again free - and from a rack manufacturer!!):

http://www.racktools.com/index.htm
http://www.middleatlantic.com/resources/designer.aspx

Doug NE3U

[Opcom]

There might be enough room for a matcher in the top, I hope. The power supply I want to use chokes and a 13KVA variac with.

[Opcom]

I'll try the sketchup-make and the FreeCAD 0.13. If they do what i want easily, i can try posting a picture. The rack programs do not seem to allow other things.

edit: Sketchup-make I made a nice 3CX3000. It took 2 hours including learning how to make circles and cylinders, was decently to scale regarding mountings, and looked nice due to the shading features built into the program. It seemed promising, even if it was not quite evident how to develop a set of parts and use them among several drawings. It was also fun. It would have taken much less time to do the next item.

The program, upon trying to save this one simple set of cylinders, crashed and said it had experienced a 'bug splat'. It recovered what I had done, but then crashed again and lost it. The tube drawing is gone. I don't see any reason to try that again here. Maybe it works better on other PCs. YMMV.

FreeCad is more complicated, but I will try it next.

[KL7OF]

Glad you tried it Pat,,,If it was fun it was worth it...Let us know how free cad works..

[Opcom]

FreeCad is very complicated to me. I tried the other program, Sketchup-Make, on XP instead of 7 and it did better, but still the need to save very often and to click out of any special tool onto the select tool (and save) when the screen bogs down. It gets stuck. This is on an emulator or VM, running on a couple 64 bit cores on a win 7 PC. Anyway on this XP virtual machine it has worked enough to do the job. I drew some parts. They are not really to scale but I can do them over after measuring them and the rack, etc. The pictures show the results. I do not know how to turn them yet, that is, the variac would obviously be turned 90 degrees to mount behind a panel so the handwheel sticks out the front. Oh, the girl comes with the program and is 2 dimensional. She is apparently for comparison to doorways, etc. I think she can be deleted from the project. Someone should try it on a standard 32 bit XP installation. I will upload the file for playing with.

[Opcom]

more. I am going to try this program, it is easy if crashes can be worked around. Making each part a 'group' prevents them from sticking together. Otherwise things drawn on or placed on each other will stick and not be movable again for re-arrangement. I can not upload the CAD file. it is not a type accepted file.