Free CAD

[Retired]

Hi,

Thanks Lawrence & Gary. Yes I do have ideas of how 3D would be of use to me and I did hope to demonstrate whilst adding a thread covering my Union Jubilee woodturning lathe upgrade. Unfortunately the Jubilee project has stalled until I sort out why I am unable to save my drawings in a file format suitable for this forum to accept; then I could explain in better detail.

Oh dear; poor David being banned from the workshop on a Sunday afternoon due to visitors; please accept my deepest sympathies. What are the maximum dimensions of the Murphy back panel David or perhaps you could add a few relevant dimensions on the drawing as it would make an interesting exercise for me to have a go at. Email would be fine. Nice effort though David.

I too have tried using MS "Paint" over the years but with little success; lines would not meet and circles were drawn having a mind of their own and nowhere near where expected; just drawing a single slot as shown in the back panel could take a day of nothing but frustration; scaling was a joke as was trying to join circles to straight lines; straight line lengths to three decimal places; oh yeah!! Using the rubber as a child would in order to erase bits of unwanted drawing; totally un-intuitive in use leaving me feeling thick and useless. All I used Paint for was to sketch a rough (very) idea so that I could print out and add dimensions thereby allowing me to make up a materials list; as to accuracy I would have possibly been better using a pencil and paper with my eyes closed. This is my own personal take and I'm sure I'm being grossly unkind but MS Paint joined the rest of the drawing programs I've tried and failed with.

Now if as David says; I too had the beautiful young EMS teacher by my side I would not fall asleep during lessons; I think this young lady looks full of mischief and fun. I've got my own lovely lady in Bron but she knows even less than me about CAD.

This morning I tried adding a snap ring groove to one of my drawings only to end up with a 3D washer; more practice is called for.

Right Joe I can give details of the problem I experience whilst trying to save the 3D file.

I do the drawing in 3D and can view in 3D mode without trouble; then I wish to save the drawing as in "Save 3D Preview". Exactly as shown in your email Joe. The destination is "My Documents" the file format is "bitmap" I enter a file name.

Next I click "Save".

This causes a box to appear containing the following;

"Your video adapter driver is not configured properly for the EMS software. To resolve this there are three options.

1/ Activate software (Unaccelerated) rendering mode. At the side of this is a box showing "Activate" so I click this and receive next message "To use hardware (accelerated) rendering mode the software should be reloaded. What software so I reloaded both EMS and used the motherboard disc to reload the video.

2/ For older windows (mine) set control panel/display/settings/advanced/troubleshoot hardware acceleration to "none"

I can't locate acceleration?

3/ Upgrade your video driver software using device manager or at your video adapter vender's website.

In Device manager; sound; video and games controller all show to be working properly? You Tube and EMS sound reproduction is poor as it breaks up. As I said I've spent days and had a lot of help from you forum members but the problem remains.

Kind regards, Col.