Software for used model aircraft design: CAD/CAM/3D printing/HotWire/Laser and more

[NM156]

Here is the start of (hopefully) a curated list of software:

PAID SOFTWARE

Solidworks - An all purpose high end 2D/3D parametric modelling software.
Veterans program $20/year
Student Edition $60/year (cloud based) $99/year (desktop)

LightBurn - Designed for laser cutters, but has nice vector editing capabilities

Wing Helper - Software to specifically design built-up wings

CamBAM - Designed for CNC machines. Is scriptable and user plug-in capable (.NET). Post processor control

DevCad Products - Software expressly designed for building model airplanes. Also mold and foam construction variants.

Fusion 360 - A totally end to end CAD/CAM/CAE/PCB design solution


FREE OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE

FreeCAD - An open source 2D/3D parametric modelling software. Still in early development, but functional. Similiar in workflow to Solidworks.

Inkscape - An open-source vector graphics editor similar to Adobe Illustrator, Corel Draw, Freehand, or Xara X

PrusaSlicer - Slicer for 3D printers

Cura - Slicer for 3D printers

OpenSCAD - A solid 3D modeller with a programmer's interface


FREE TO USE SOFTWARE

DesignSpark Mechanical - A direct modelling CAD program. Push and pull objects. A derivative of the high end Ansys Space Claim

Sketchup - An easy to use push-pull modeler

TinkerCAD - A web based application for 3D design

Fusion 360 - Free for hobby and personal use version

Wing Designer - Wing Designer for 4 axis cnc foam cutter


OTHER SOFTWARE (tangentially related)

KiCAD - Software for electronics design. Schematic and PCB layout

DeepNest - An open source nesting application, great for laser cutters, plasma cutters, and other CNC machines

Virtual Here - Software that runs on a Raspberry Pi to extend a USB device over the network. (I use this to control my laser and vinyl cutter)
(Free to use for a single device per RPi)


--- Original thread starts here ---

I'm not really sure where to start this thread, but this category seems the best fit. I saw a few threads on software, but I wanted to create a dedicated one on what is available and what we use.

Example software: Designing 2D/3D CAD, Manufacturing CAM, Hot wire, 3D printing, Vinyl cutting, etc.

I use a computer on almost all of my projects. I'll usually design in a 3D parametric tool called Solidworks
It is expensive, but if you are a veteran you can get a renewable 1 year student license for $20! This is an exceptional deal!
(They also offer an educational discount for enrolled students).

A free open source one that can also be used is FreeCAD.
Powerful, yet with the same steep learning curve. (If you have not used that type of software before).

I have found a very interesting piece of software called WingHelper that almost eliminates the learning curve, while retaining the power
of parametric modelling.

It is in a state of (slow) development, but is fully functional for use. Before you get too excited, it is paid software at $80.
A fully functional demo download is available.

I not hawking this, nor do I have any affiliation with the creator. I am just a satisfied user.

From the website:
Wing Helper is a state of the art 3D CAD program for design of RC plane models. Wing Helper is oriented towards ambitioned RC modelers, who are beyond building models according to ready made plans, and who want to start designing, building and flying their own creations. There is nothing more thrilling and joyful than seeing the result of hours and hours of hard work taking off into the blue skies and magnificently soaring through the air, knowing that it is the result of own engineering knowledge, efforts, and diligence!


In less than 1 hour in my first starting the software I designed these for my scratch built 30cc sized Pitts Model 12.

Unsheeted lower wing:

Sheeted upper wing

If there is any interest on this thread, I'll keep it going with other software I personally use, and others that I am aware of.

 

[Turbojoe]

Outstanding post! Being a veteran, I'm going to look into that Solidworks deal. I do OK with (don't laugh too hard) TinkerCad but I need to learn a real CAD program so I can design more than just the very basic things for 3D printing. Looks like I have a busy next few weeks ahead of me.

Joe

 

[cyclone3350]

Thank for posting this. I would like to move from the decades of using this old drafting board & go to something a bit more modern. I don't have the time to go & take a full CAD course & was looking for something that might get me started with a more user friendly version tailored for this. I will look into Wing Helper.

 

[Merv]

Great idea about a software thread

I use Sketchup, the free version, TinkerCAD and OpenSCAD. Each has strengths and weaknesses. Still looking for the one that does everything well.

 

[Monte.C]

Great idea about a software thread

I use Sketchup, the free version, TinkerCAD and OpenSCAD. Each has strengths and weaknesses. Still looking for the one that does everything well.

Can you unwrap skins in the free version of Sketchup?

 

[FlamingRCAirplanes]

Great thread! I use a lot of software so here we go, I use DesignSpark Mechanical for all of my designing stuff, it is free and it is a VERY good piece of software! Next is Inkscape, but we ALL know what that is. After that is LightBurn, I use it for my needle cutter, but it has a few drawbacks, one, is that it is $$ second is that it is made only for lasers and does not support the Z axis, this is a huge problem as that is how you get your cuts! Well I still wanted to use this software so I made a shell script that take the code for the laser machine and converts it all into code that works with the Needle Cutter. After that we have Openbuilds Control, this is the GUI that I use to send the finished gCode from my shell script and send it to the Arduino that is controlling my machine. That is about it besides Cura but we all know what that is…

 

[NM156]

Thanks everyone for their input! I started updating the first post with additional software

 

[Monte.C]

Can you unwrap skins in the free version of Sketchup?

 

[NM156]

@Monte.C

Sorry, I have to defer that to someone familiar with Sketchup. I haven't used it in many, many years. (Google still owned it back then).

 

[Merv]

Can you unwrap skins in the free version of Sketchup?

No, not in the base program. I think there is an extension that will unfold skins.

I've been using an extension to produce STL files for the 3D printer and another extension produce Gcode for my cnc mill.

 

[Bo123]

FYI Fusion 360 is free for hobbyists like us.

 

[Taildragger]

FYI Fusion 360 is free for hobbyists like us.

that's what I use!

 

[NM156]

Thank you! Updated Free to use category with Personal Fusion360

 

[NM156]

Updated list to include:

Wing Designer - Wing Designer for 4 axis CNC foam cutter

 

[Inq]

Kind of off the subject of airplanes...

I want to build a robot for my granddaughter that will draw pictures that she can color with crayons. Basically a pen plotter on wheels. It will have a web interface and I want to be able to drag and drop a file on it and it start drawing. I can do all the 3D CAD, electronics, mechanical design and programming of the bot.

What I'm interested in is a piece of software that will take an image BMP/JPG/PNG and convert it to a line drawing and then a series of strokes... something like Cura does to convert STL files into GCODE commands, but in a more 2D sense. I imagine that old pen plotters had some kind of file standard just for this... selecting a pen, setting and lifting it and driving it in the X/Y plane.

 

[Mr NCT]

I've started using Exactflat online and it's plug-in for Fusion 360 to flatten curved panels. @Whit Armstrong has a good tutorial on how it works.

 

[NM156]

Hi Inq,

Been down a similar path, only using both a paper plotter and laser. I used Plotting - mitxela.com for the conversion (not written by me). A photo with better contrast works best.


This is my granddaughter laser etched on canvas using the squiggle algorithm. (She was born while I was camping at flite fest last year and that cut short my stay, although I'm not complaining about it!)

Source code for plotterfun is here. A bonus is that it is written in javascript for easy web integration.

This is a quick rendering I did from a random google search image. There are many artistic options for the plot.
Nothing can beat a true artist's line draw, but maybe this would work for you...

The output is SVG, you can easily post process in Inkscape to get a vector file format more common for motor control, i.e. HPGL or gcode. (or roll your own SVG parser for vector conversion as needed for your application)

Keep me posted on your progress! I love the integration of all my hobbies as well.

 

[Inq]

Hi Inq,

Been down a similar path, only using a paper plotter. I used Plotting - mitxela.com for the conversion. A photo with better contrast works best.

Source code is here. A bonus is that it is written in javascript for easy web integration.

This is a quick rendering I did from a random google search image. There are many artistic options for the plot.
Nothing can beat a true artist's line draw, maybe this would work for you...

View attachment 232674

The output is SVG, you can easily post process in Inkscape to get a vector file format more common for motor control, i.e. HPGL or gcode. (or roll your own SVG parser for vector conversion as needed for your application)

Keep me posted on your progress! I love the integration of all my hobbies as well.

OUTSTANDING! I'll have to look at the source code and possibly integrate that into the webserver.

I have to make the care and feeding as simple as possible. Stuff like Disney characters images to a file that can just be dropped on the robot. My son and daughter in law will being doing that part until she gets a little older, but I imagine she'll take to it, if she finds in fun.

Thanks.