Kansas City Tacoma Crew - 816/913

Floor pour was yesterday. Concrete is curing, ordered a ton of lighting yesterday and stuff for the shop bathroom.
And another "equipment item" as well......

 

Dibs on being the first renter

 

Since some of you are familiar with digital to physical CAD production methods, I'm going to gripe about work and I expect pats on the back and general condolences coming my way afterwards lol

Historically, I have had the pleasure of being able to use Adobe Illustrator at work to edit certain maps and apply our logo or other designs to custom things we want made and all other whatnots. Today, I went in to do a little design work and Lo! Behold! My employer is no longer paying for my license. So in addition to losing Inventor last year, now I am without a graphic editor... le sigh. I'm already preparing my responses to "Why did they bid so high on these widgets?" questions. My favorite so far is, "Because you paid them to design it instead of me."

If only these software companies would release a standalone perpetual license product not limited by a software as a service model... "[/rant]"

Does anybody have a recommendation for a good alternative to either Illustrator or Inventor that is affordable (for my meager budget) and not Fusion360?

 

Sounds like ms paint fits your budget


SaaS licensing is really starting to piss me off.. I want to buy the license and pay for SnS if i want it..

 

Paint.net is a million times better.

 

I haven't used any of them in a while, I went to school for CAD and design like 15 years ago. Inventor was really cool, it had just come out I think but it's been
so long I wouldn't know what's out there at this point......

 

I'll do my next assignment in MS Paint. We'll see how that goes over lol.

We have Autodesk and Adobe licenses, just not for my department anymore. I guess since nobody in my department is listed "on paper" (boss' words, not mine) as needing the programs, they decided to cut it before budget finalizing this year.

If I were back working this sort of thing all the time as a drafter/ operator, I'd be pushing to move to Solidworks. SaaS is so bad for the customers. Just like the Autodesk graveyard is bad for customers. At a past job, we had a program called ArtCAM that a bunch of similar businesses depended on. Autodesk bought it, then promptly shut it down without incorporating it's features into F360 or anywhere else. Pretty sad IMO because it served a really good purpose to smaller sign businesses.

 

@Sociopenguin Inventor has incredibly powerful modelling and testing functions (that I got used to using) and if you are already using AutoCAD (if you're drafting, you are) it meshes perfectly. I've used Solidworks very little, but it's attractive as a perpetual license option. Other than that, there aren't very many commercially viable options that are approved to output files that government engineers require.

I love this part of my job and I'm concerned that they are shifting it away from my position.

 

That sucks if they are. Sorry bro. I really enjoyed it as well, I just fell into what I do now and pretty much got out of it at that point.

 

I would really recommend downloading paint.net over trying to do anything in ms paint. It is basically everything ms paint should be but isn't.

 

I'll check it out, but I really need to be able to output certain vector file types. So if its raster only, it won't work. The MS Paint thing will be a troll in my next meeting. I'm sure some manufacturers receive weird stuff like that sometimes lol

 

You should see some of the "designs" I have scrawled on my Note with the S pen when I have an idea.
Look like something a 2nd grader drew for an assignment......

 

I appreciate that I'm not alone in understanding this struggle lol. I have a small library of CAD files for aftermarket and stock parts for my truck that I have collected or designed. Some of them I can't even access anymore because I need to convert them from .ai or .ipt to even open them.

 

When I worked for a metal fab place, we had guys give us stuff on a napkin, cigarette pack, cardboard, all sorts of stuff lol. I remember the cigarette pack design was for a front end weight box for a diesel tractor pull rig. There was drama around it eventually as well... long story.

 

@Juisebocks SaaS is awful, you have my sympathies. I miss the days of owning the software you bought

On that note, any recommendations on a cheap/free AutoCAD-esque program? I'm not doing any real crazy drafting, just hammering out some 2d diagrams. Still need a lot of the drafting functions to do it, though, and still need to be able to import/export AutoCAD files. It's not worth their price even on the company dime, and the few alternatives I've tried have not quite sufficed.

This guy knows what's up

 

Lots of people use sketch up
https://www.sketchup.com/

 

For reals. Autodesk have the top level CAD market cornered so hard that there really is no competition. SaaS is a disgusting business practice. And we can talk about Fusion 360 too. AD will allegedly implement customer's private postprocessor code and functions into future updates because they have access to all of your designs and data stored on their servers...

I equate it to paying your drill manufacturer monthly to allow you to use your tool. Then they will also change how your drill works overnight without asking you how or if you want it changed (with no guarantee that the features you depend on will be there afterwards). AND THEN when you get a new drill, you can't use any of your old screws or bits because the old drill's license expired. Forget about making modifications to anything you built. It really ropes you into being isolated in their ecosystem.

 

A lot of architecture people use sketchup. Last time I used it, it was still just a mesh generating program. No solid bodies.

 

Just drop this here.....

 

I literally just drove by your work to honk at y'all, but you guys never outside.