AutoCAD

[jolly22]

Anyone know of an online autoCAD program for FREE?

I just started doing AutoCAD in school and i absolutley love it. So i just need some help finding a decent one.

[Dichotomy]

not that I've found

You love it? Fantastic!!! I've got a desk full of stuff you can practice on    A part of my job that I truly hate. 

[ToeTag]

I got architectural desktop 2000.  I can try and send it your way.

[lengro]

Anyone know of an online autoCAD program for FREE?

I just started doing AutoCAD in school and i absolutley love it. So i just need some help finding a decent one.

Not free, but Autodesk used to have a student license program, where schools could get licenses at much reduced price.
Sometimes they also have time limited trial versions.

For 3D modelling they used to have GMAX, but i don't think thats available anymore.

[uptown]

If you're taking AutoCad and the instructors are using what to teach it....etcho-sketch? I'm not trying to sound like an arse here, but I don't understand what you need it for, when you should already have a program for it in order to complete labs and assignments.

Anyway, i'd stay away from the free versions anyhow. I'd just wait until your student loans come around again, and buy a good copy with those funds. The courses I took this term that needed a computer program came with the disk included when I bought my books.

[grizz441]

Anyone know of an online autoCAD program for FREE?

I just started doing AutoCAD in school and i absolutley love it. So i just need some help finding a decent one.

Go to autodesk and sign up for a student account.  I know for certain you can at least get a 30 day free trial with 2011 but maybe more.

[grizz441]

If you're taking AutoCad and the instructors are using what to teach it....etcho-sketch? I'm not trying to sound like an arse here, but I don't understand what you need it for, when you should already have a program for it in order to complete labs and assignments.

Anyway, i'd stay away from the free versions anyhow. I'd just wait until your student loans come around again, and buy a good copy with those funds. The courses I took this term that needed a computer program came with the disk included when I bought my books.

Uptown, autocad 2011 costs $800-1000 dollars retail.  No student should have to pay that.

[Dichotomy]

Maybe he likes it so much he wants to goof with it on his own time? I've got a design program at work that I'd LOVE to have here at the house.  In fact designing the structures we build is my favorite part of my job.  Just learned how to do wind turbine poles last week and, to be honest, if I had the program here I probably wouldn't have spent much time here posting my usual drivel.

Scary thought huh? As you drive down the highway, go to a high school or minor league game, and now with the growing popularity of wind turbines, you MIGHT lighted by or be very close to one I designed.  

Just a thought to keep you up nights  

[grizz441]

Maybe he likes it so much he wants to goof with it on his own time? I've got a design program at work that I'd LOVE to have here at the house.  In fact designing the structures we build is my favorite part of my job.  Just learned how to do wind turbine poles last week and, to be honest, if I had the program here I probably wouldn't have spent much time here posting my usual drivel.

Scary thought huh? As you drive down the highway, go to a high school or minor league game, and now with the growing popularity of wind turbines, you MIGHT lighted by or be very close to one I designed.  

Just a thought to keep you up nights  

I read that the break even point of wind turbines is the same as its design life.   

[mipoikel]

http://sketchup.google.com/

[68ZooM]

Anyone know of an online autoCAD program for FREE?

I just started doing AutoCAD in school and i absolutley love it. So i just need some help finding a decent one.

What kind of Cad work will you be doing?   there are some free trial Cad programs out there , but there going to be limited usage, i have several Cad programs ( i design custom homes and custom landscapes ) and as Grizz stated there pricey, mine all start at around 1200 dollars there non transferable sense they all use a printer hardlock key to operate the program, the program itself is free, its the hardlock key that costs the bucks, after you Post what kind of Cad you plan on doing i might be able to steer you in the right direction 

[Jebus]

http://sketchup.google.com/

Yep Mipoikel is right.

I used AutoCad in high school and some in College.  After being out of it for 12 year I was lost when I tried using it recently.  About 2 months ago I read about Sketchup in a Firehouse magazine to do preplanes and some 3d training.  I downloaded it to my laptop and after watching a couple instruction videos and playing around (30 mins).  It was like I was taught this instead of autocad.  It is easy and FREE!

Here is a quick house drawing someone did, but I have seen people do robots and cars as well.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJcMe1OFBRQ

[Dichotomy]

I read that the break even point of wind turbines is the same as its design life.   

Well I typically design well short of the design life.  Costs some sales but I sleep better at night

Something that disturbs me but I've never been able to wrap my mind around is harmonics.  Granted it's almost impossible to design something to harmonics that haven't been studied or determined so you always have to lean towards the conservative side and use a higher wind speed than is called for in EIA / TIA 222G or the isotech wind map.  But, as stated above, I might be over killing a project. 

What code do you use?  I'm not a fan of IBC, UBC, or any other code than AASHTO for light pole and traffic systems.  Even when the request calls for commercial I make sure it conforms to AASHTO 1994.

 According to the PE I consulted with Friday EIA / TIA 222G is the current governing code for wind turbines. 

[grizz441]

Well I typically design well short of the design life.  Costs some sales but I sleep better at night

Something that disturbs me but I've never been able to wrap my mind around is harmonics.  Granted it's almost impossible to design something to harmonics that haven't been studied or determined so you always have to lean towards the conservative side and use a higher wind speed than is called for in EIA / TIA 222G or the isotech wind map.  But, as stated above, I might be over killing a project.  

What code do you use?  I'm not a fan of IBC, UBC, or any other code than AASHTO for light pole and traffic systems.  Even when the request calls for commercial I make sure it conforms to AASHTO 1994.

 According to the PE I consulted with Friday EIA / TIA 222G is the current governing code for wind turbines.  

Well, I do buildings, but we use IBC and ASCE to design.

As far as harmonics are concerned, I assume you mean excitation of the super structure?  I actually just took Structural Dynamics this semester which was a very good class.  You'd probably have to set up a finite element model for your wind turbine, or do it by hand.  The tricky part is that the stiffness varies through the entire structure.  In a nutshell, you just have to design the structure so its natural frequency (sqrt(k/m)) is greater(with FS) than the forcing frequency that the design wind speed creates.  I would guess that the forcing frequency of wind can be idealized by a po*sin(wt) function.  I have all of my class notes (very organized and informative) in pdf form if you are interested.

[Dichotomy]

of course I'm interested.  I have a ton of programs and such on aerodynamic engineering that I'd be happy to share.  Probably not much use in our fields but interesting nonetheless. 

I'm just now getting into the turbine stuff and I have a lot of concerns about the short meeting I took with the program designer.  I'm much more familiar with static loads at the top or top and down the pole. 

Harmonics is funky in this field because it's impossible to predict.  I designed a spread of poles for an AFB a couple of years ago.  Critical stress ratio was 87% and they were in a line not too far apart.  ONE of them started doing the hula due to the harmonics and we wound up putting vibration dampeners on all of them. 

I have to say I'm pretty happy with the fact that when all of those light poles were falling a couple of years ago none of them were mine

I'll shoot you a pm with my email addy <S>