Anybody know of any good free CAD software to use? I'd prefer not to drop $1k on AutoCAD to barely use it. 3D CAD would be awesome, but 2D would probably get the job done.

And please, don't tell me to just torrent it. If I wanted to do that, I wouldn't be asking this question.

 

good and free... no. Hpwever you could try using sketchup for your purposes. Sure, it's not CAD, but you could get something done in it.

 

Well, I meant comparatively good... usable, if you will.

All I need to do is design some aero parts... splitter, belly pan, and a few different diffusers. I'll check into sketchup and see if it'll be useful or not.

 

You can design it in sketchup... I know people who do. Do you just want drawings out of it or G-code?

 

Drawings... I'm just trying to get an idea of how my rear diffuser is going to work out so I have an idea of what direction to go in once I get the car set up to fabricate one.

 

You can add dimensions in sketchup. For free you can't really beat it even though it's not CAD.

 

I've never seen a good free cad software. Even mediocre CAD software is pretty expensive.

Your best bet is to find a friend that goes to a college or university that has a software discount program. You can get student versions of the software for really cheap. The versions will do more than enough for what you want to do. My school has a software store that has a lot of those kinds of programs for next to nothing compared to the normal prices

 

check around auto cad's website, they might offer a free trial

you can test aerodynamics in autocad? when i had that class, all we did was make houses lol, i diddnt know i could get any useful things out of it.. now im pissed i diddnt learn anything useful in that class haha

 

You can't test aerodynamics (actually, I don't know of any programs off-hand that you can), but you can design the parts.

And thanks, gene... I played around with sketchup a little last night... it's good enough for what I need.

 

I think you can test aerodynamics in SW...well Cosmos part of it.