Why I think the Economy is slowing

[Seamajor1]

I too own lots of gold coins and older silver coins, because they have value. Not so sure about the US dollar. Real Estate is my other interest.

[Oliver the Second]

So Ollie, what software packages do you use at work?

I'm curious. Lemme know.

I'm tryin' ta learn some new software products.

I'd like to know to match those which are used in the industry.

I saw a series of solidworks courses, but they are 3 of them taught over a year. Must be a hard program if it takes that long to gain a basic understanding of it, eh?

It's a 3d CadCam package, don't want to say the name because the boss gets really mad if we give out 'proprietary information'. I once described one of our processes to a customer and almost got fired for it.

It's not a solid modeler but has 3-d surface support and a decent renderer so we can show the customer what it will look like. Once it's approved we just apply the machine paths and CNC it. We looked at Solid Works but the boss didn't like the price nor the learning curve so oh well.

Look for software that gets the job done but isn't as expensive as the big packages. I haven't had a boss yet that liked to spend money.

You can find a lot of good info here - https://www.cnczone.com/forums/

[JOE]

It's a 3d CadCam package, don't want to say the name because the boss gets really mad if we give out 'proprietary information'. I once described one of our processes to a customer and almost got fired for it.

It's not a solid modeler but has 3-d surface support and a decent renderer so we can show the customer what it will look like. Once it's approved we just apply the machine paths and CNC it. We looked at Solid Works but the boss didn't like the price nor the learning curve so oh well.

Look for software that gets the job done but isn't as expensive as the big packages. I haven't had a boss yet that liked to spend money.

You can find a lot of good info here - https://www.cnczone.com/forums/

yeah I understand as you have to be concerned about your job, keepin the boss happy. I suppose one beneift of proprietary in house software is it prevents copying or pirating by competitors. so if it's in a format that no one else has or recognizes it's harder ta pirate. Plus I suppose it avoids these subscription only models like Adobe or Autodesk which charge an arm and a leg for their subscription software. No Adobe or Autodesk - no subscription, eh?

I bet you know Solidworks quite well eh?

I suppose after a while these CAD/CAM packages are or become pretty similar.

While it's a bit late in life to master something as complex as Solidworks, I'd still like to learn its basics.

Actulaly I'm kinda interested in learning MODO, a 3D software package, Ollie.

They gotta plugin for Solidworks:

https://www.foundry.com/products/modo/addons/solidworks

I'm really more intersted in the 3D visual aspect than CAD itself.
so I probably won't invest too much time in learning solidworks. maybe an intro course and find out how it integrates or imports into MODO

[Oliver the Second]

I've never used Solidworks but I have done some solid modeling in AutoCad. Our CadCam does import solids but doesn't really work well with them so we rarely use them. Except when the manager wants me to design a chicken coop for her backyard of course...

If you don't have much experience with 3d modeling itself then definitely start with Blender, it's open source and has a very large community eager to help.

https://www.blender.org/

Or if you're really feeling adventurous you can download a CAD package from the Internet Archives... for as much as you trust software uploaded by who knows who that is...

https://archive.org/details/software?query=cad

Good luck!

[JOE]

I've never used Solidworks but I have done some solid modeling in AutoCad. Our CadCam does import solids but doesn't really work well with them so we rarely use them. Except when the manager wants me to design a chicken coop for her backyard of course...

If you don't have much experience with 3d modeling itself then definitely start with Blender, it's open source and has a very large community eager to help.

https://www.blender.org/

Or if you're really feeling adventurous you can download a CAD package from the Internet Archives... for as much as you trust software uploaded by who knows who that is...

https://archive.org/details/software?query=cad

Good luck!

Thanks for the link Ollie

yeah I posted it over at a sub-forum I have over at VF.

The Resource. It's intended as non-political forum that I post links like that.

I put anything in there which might be of interest to the hobbyist. collecting, gardening, homebilding, computer tutorials, software, free tv/radio channels, free stuff, whatever.