Cloud based CAD/CAM services

[paulkerton]

Currently our design technology department have a 2D Design > Boxford workflow, which we are barely able to keep working on Windows 7 machines, let alone getting it up and running on 8, 10 or 11.

Does anyone use any CAD/CAM services that are cloud based for their design technology workflow, and does anyone have any recommendations as to what we should be asking DT to do in 2021/2022 instead of holding out on Windows systems that we soon won't be able to afford to support in the future?

[Andrew_C]

2D design has had an update recently. Works fine on Win10 for me. I don't have any Boxford knowledge for that side of it.

[simpsonj]

Similarly, getting 2D Design to work on Windows 10 isn't a problem. Getting a laptop to talk to our half Chinese half English 'No Softdog' laser printer however has been a nightmare...

[Driftingforlife]

I'm not sure if its of any help but the only one I know of is https://www.tinkercad.com/

[3s-gtech]

Similarly, getting 2D Design to work on Windows 10 isn't a problem. Getting a laptop to talk to our half Chinese half English 'No Softdog' laser printer however has been a nightmare...

Ah, you have a wonderful Chinese laser too? Many 'no softdog', many times. Ours is still running on 7, completely off network. Getting projects onto that PC is a nightmare!

 

TinkerCAD is also used here, had good feedback.

[paulkerton]

So I've got TinkerCAD and Sketchup for Schools on the list, and we're now looking at the Makerbot Sketch Classroom kit.

 

The biggest problem we have is trying to get staff to realise that they don't need commerical grade software as 11 year olds!

[fiza]

Have you looked at Onshape? https://www.onshape.com/en/education/

Free for education.

[TechMonkey]

So I've got TinkerCAD and Sketchup for Schools on the list, and we're now looking at the Makerbot Sketch Classroom kit.

 

The biggest problem we have is trying to get staff to realise that they don't need commerical grade software as 11 year olds!

 

We have the same for even younger. Must have Photoshop to teach the y3 kids how to scribble on a picture.

[Davit2005]

Ah, you have a wonderful Chinese laser too? Many 'no softdog', many times. Ours is still running on 7, completely off network. Getting projects onto that PC is a nightmare!

 

TinkerCAD is also used here, had good feedback.

 

I have a Chinese CNC machine at home, got Mach3 running on a Windows 7 PC (Windows 10 I've found a bit flakey and MACH 4 does not want to seem to connect to the CNC due to driver) . I've made sure the CNC cannot talk to the Internet but given it read only access to a share which I then dump the CNC programs onto from PC running CAD/CAM package then jus pick them off from the share. I'll keep me going till I replace the controller on the CNC and maybe build my own eventually.

Edited October 14, 2021 by Davit2005

[Reverend_Dan]

We have one of those, i managed to get it working by installing the software as the real local admin account. Then joining the pc to the domain then making the program always run as local admin. I really hope that PC doesn't die or need a rebuild any time soon. When I looked into it you can replace these controller board with a non softdog one