3D PRINTING...NOW!

Update...He just emailed me, my parts are DONE!

He said it would take 3 hours to do them (I ordered 6 louvers), but compared to some of the wait times we see from parts vendors I can live with the 3 hour wait

Bill just posted a photo of the louvers in O, S, and HO:

Dave, I looked at the prices plus, my computer is still running win xp.

I'm trying to decide if I want to wait to get win10 for full price (I don't think they're going to offer an upgrade to xp) or buy win7-8 and get the free upgrade, or buy a new computer with win10 on it.

I was a draftsman back in the day (1970s) when we used pencil and paper, but the concept of using software to design a part is intriguing to me (so is making a part on a printer) so I may have to get something in a lower price range and give it a try.

Bill says with the printer he's got (not sure what type, didn't ask) that he can make parts that are not a brittle as the Shapeways parts.

Hopefully I'll get the vents next week and can see what's possible.

I can think of a ton of stuff I'd like to have made, if only I could draw it and put it in a file.

I've got a 22" monitor but from there down is at least 7 years old.

My computer has got a new power supply and a fairly new video card (I upgraded it so I could play ONE game ), but the rest is original stuff running xp.

I've bought from Newegg before but I'll look at slickdeals, thanks.

I work on CAD for a living as a design engineer at Caterpillar & it is my opinion that SolidWorks is one of the easiest 3D CAD applications to learn. The reason might be that they don’t have all the bells & whistles like the more powerful CAD packages like CREO (formerly known as Pro/Engineer), CATIA or Siemens NX (formerly known as Unigraphics). When I looked at getting a SolidWorks subscription 3 years ago for designing model train related parts, the annual subscription was around $3000 for just simple part design / assembly, drafting to around $9000 including mechanism design, wire routing & some other advanced functionalities. Since I have full-time job, I just didn’t think I would be using it enough to justify paying that price.

But I must warn you that most of these CAD packages have migrated to a annual licensing subscription as opposed to buying them. So even if you spend $3000 to $9000 for this application, the license might expire in just 1 year unless you agree to buy an annual subscription costing anywhere from 10% to 30% of the initial price (based on the number of licenses). If you have a business then Dassualt / SolidWorks might help you find the appropriate tax documents to help you at tax time.

Thanks,

Naveen Rajan

I'm currently learning Autocad 123D, which is essentially free for most applications.

Big monitors are always good to have, and dual monitors are

also very useful for many reasons. Two decent monitors are more useful

and efficient than one giant one, IMHO. For years, I have been running two 24

inch LCD's running at 1920x1200 in landscape mode. They were expensive

when I first got them, now they are nothing special budget-wise.

Bob,

you cannot 'upgrade' from Win XP to any of the newer MS operating systems. Your installed applications will not function afterwards.

You have to perform a clean install of the newer operating system and then RE-INSTALL any applications you want to run.

My entire office runs 64 bit Win XP SP3 and this upgrade scenario is a real PITA. I have several suites of graphic design software, plus our financial systems. I am not looking forward to this process.

I'd look into Google SketchUp or AutoCAD123 if you want to test your sea legs in CAD.

Chris,

Sketchup won't install on my computer because of winxp.  My computer guru buddy said to wait until win10 gets closer to release then decide.

I might be better off to get a new computer with win10 already on it, then the old computer.

I do have a laptop with win8.1 so I may see about upgrading it instead.  Win 8.1 isn't bad now that I have Classic Shell installed.  The talk is Microsoft will be offering a free upgrade for win7/8 to win10, we'll see.