Making My CAD Drawings Available (some in .pdf format)

[pierredekat]

This started off as me uploading my CAD drawings onto my website so that I could work on them back-and-forth between my desktop computer at home and the laptop at my Girlfriend's place.

But the project has expanded a bit, as I thought it might be helpful if I could share some of my CAD drawings of various off-the-shelf vulcanite stems with my fellow pipemakers -- no reason for us all to keep reinventing the wheel, I figure.

I discussed in a previous thread some of my experience with CAD software and how I had recently picked up new-in-the-box TurboCAD version 11.2 on Ebay for $9.99 plus $5.95 shipping. And apparently you can still find it on there in the $15 price range.

I am not sure if there is much interest here on the forums, but I know that I have certainly found Computer Aided Design/Drafting to be a significant boon to my own pipemaking efforts. So maybe there are a few folks who might be interested.

TurboCAD does a pretty decent job as a CAD program, and it allows users to save their drawings in a huge variety of file formats:

* .tcw (TurboCAD's native format)
* .dwg (AutoCAD's native format and the de facto industry standard)
* .bmp (bitmap -- leaves a lot to be desired)
* .dgn (Intergraph standard file format)
* .dwf (design web format)
* .dxf (design exchange format)
* .plt (Hewlett-Packard graphics language)
* .jpg (jpeg -- leaves a lot to be desired)
* .pdf (Adobe portable document format -- actually renders halfway decently)
* .3ds (3D Studio format)
* and so on

For better or worse, I have been working with most of my drawings in .dwg format. On the upside, .dwg has become a de facto industry standard. But on the downside, it is a proprietary file format, so you have to use software that is licensed through AutoCAD.

That, at least for the time being, pretty much rules out opensource software and most of the lower-budget upstart applications. But, like I said earlier, TurboCAD can be had for cheap, so ... well, it's not too awful bad.

I have a few drawings, so far, available on my website, and I will be making many more available as time goes along. Please be my guest and download, use, and/or distribute the drawings however you see fit.

One of my goals is to draw and upload as many off-the-shelf vulcanite stems as I can find time to do. Those can easily be copy-and-pasted into your own CAD drawings to save a bunch of time that would have otherwise been spent measuring and drawing an off-the-shelf stem.

But I also wanted to share some of my pipe drawings, as well. Those I am making available in both .dwg format for anyone interested in experimenting with CAD drawing and .pdf format for anyone interested in simply seeing what is possible with CAD software or else printing out a drawing, taping it to a block, and starting-in shaping.

Note: TurboCAD does a pretty good job of rendering the actual drawing into .pdf format, except that it creates a blank page-1 and puts the drawing on page-2 -- and I do not have any simple way to fix this -- so you will have to scroll down to see the actual drawing. And it really buggers text and dimensions, so I deleted all of that before saving to a .pdf file.

You will just have to snoop around on the Apache-automated file index and see what is available. I am going to try to keep most of these files as you find them there now, but there may be a few that I am working on that might be a little on the transient side.

My point being: if you see something you like there, go ahead and download it and save it now, just in case I end up changing it later on down the line.

Cheers

[Nick]

Awesome bud. You know what would be really neat? I seem to remember a few of the freeware/shareware Computational Fluid Dynamics software packages being able to use CAD drawings. That would be totally cool to see the flow of a particular pipe in a CFD program.

I'll see if i still have access.

[pierredekat]

Sounds interesting, Nick. Let me know if you find the application.

[Briarfox]

I was just considering using a CAD program last night and figured I'd run a search here to see what the pros were using. Thanks for the info!

[potholer]

pierredekat

a great idea for a newbie like me your drawings tell more than a thousand words especially on how to drill draught holes and mortices in bent shank pipes

regards
potholer

[MadTinker]

Nice Work...

[Abi Natur]

Hey Robert,
some great drawings you got there and thanks for sharing your knowledge !

Best,
Abi

[pierredekat]

Thanks, guys.

You know, it's wild that this thread came back around, because I actually have a little bit of an update.

Back in a previous life, I was doing design work for a boat company, and I worked with AutoCAD -- the real deal -- quite extensively. Man, I really thought AutoCAD was the foshizzle.

Fast forward 20 years, and I finally reached the point in my life where I could get my own copy of AutoCAD.

Well, I installed it last week, and Jeez Louise, I am not impressed.

You would think, in all this time, that they would have a pretty slick user interface and whatnot. Like, you would really be getting a nice application for the scratch you're spending on an AutoCAD license.

Not.

It's a real steaming pile of borrego droppings, as far as I'm concerned.

I guess TurboCAD has really spoiled me for how customizable the interface is. But come on, AutoCAD developers, couldn't you figure out a way for us to use the same button for "Shrink" and "Extend"?!

It's the same freaking deal: you're moving the endpoint of a line over to some other line. What difference does it make which way you're going with it?

Well, the TurboCAD folks figured this out, anyway.

And what's up with the clumsy menus and freaking submenus to edit a spline curve? I just want to be able to grab the nodes and move them, just like I do in TurboCAD.

And I could just go on and on and on with this. "Flyout Menus": TurboCAD has them and AutoCAD doesn't. Fully customizable flyout menus are the real foshizzle.

Yeah, I will probably keep tinkering with AutoCAD for awhile and see if it grows on me again.

But I just wanted to reiterate my earlier recommendation for TurboCAD.

Even setting aside the price difference, TurboCAD is just a better application. It's way, way faster to use: no clumsy submenus and crap to do things that simply don't need submenus.

And you get the exact same drawing when all is said and done.

There's not 5 cents worth of difference between a TurboCAD .dwg file and an AutoCAD .dwg file, and there sure as heck isn't $3,000 worth of difference.

[MadTinker]

Yeah I downloaded the Trial version and I am trying to figure it out... I am use to Corel Draw and this is a Different World...LOL

[FredS]

. . .Fast forward 20 years, and I finally reached the point in my life where I could get my own copy of AutoCAD.

Well, I installed it last week, and Jeez Louise, I am not impressed. . .

Did you install ACAD 2011? I spend about 6 hours a day sitting in front of the tube using ACAD. I need to migrate from '07 to '11, but I HATE the new structure. Sooner or later I'm just going to have to bite the bullet and take the productivity hit and make the switch, but I'm not going to be happy about it.

[pierredekat]

Did you install ACAD 2011? I spend about 6 hours a day sitting in front of the tube using ACAD. I need to migrate from '07 to '11, but I HATE the new structure. Sooner or later I'm just going to have to bite the bullet and take the productivity hit and make the switch, but I'm not going to be happy about it.

I installed AutoCAD 2010, which has a "Classic" interface option that I have gravitated to. But I'm afraid I can't tell you much about 2011 versus 2007.

[FredS]

Did you install ACAD 2011? I spend about 6 hours a day sitting in front of the tube using ACAD. I need to migrate from '07 to '11, but I HATE the new structure. Sooner or later I'm just going to have to bite the bullet and take the productivity hit and make the switch, but I'm not going to be happy about it.

I installed AutoCAD 2010, which has a "Classic" interface option that I have gravitated to. But I'm afraid I can't tell you much about 2011 versus 2007.

FYI - 2010 is the last version to give you the classic menu option. 2011 and all later versions force the new ribbon menus.