New user - newbie for sure!

Heya I am Jayne Dickinson, I have never used CAD software , however I have used drawing software for my firmware software development. I plan to use libreCAD to draw garden tools. I have a proportional divider to help me scale my illustration. Are there other tools I should utilize in order to replicate the image ? Is there a basic tutorial for newbies?
Thanks so much,
Jayne

Hi Jayne,

Welcome to the LibreCAD Forum.

What is the goal you wish to reach by using LibreCAD?  I'm interested in the relationship between firmware development and garden tools.  And, how CAD will play a role in this.  Also, I don't know what a "proportional divider" is.  Maybe you can provide more details.

Here is a link to the LibreCAD user manual.  It's a little outdated but it will get you started.

https://wiki.librecad.org/index.php/LibreCAD_users_Manual

There is a newer manual but I don't have a link to it.

Again, welcome.

Philip

Hey Philip,
Thank you for the warm welcome. I am interested in libreCAD in order to model a garden tool. This will be my first practice project. It has nothing to do with my firmware engineering skills, that's just my career.

I want to use the CAD program with 3D printing, not sure if libreCAD can do that .

What is a proportional divider? I also am a beginner botanical illustrator. To make my illustrations realistic , I need to scale and measure my living plants or photos. There are other drawing tools I use to copy a photo or plant models ( I don't draw people or places ).

In firmware engineering I am used to collaborating with my hardware engineers with CAD, but those tools are sooooooooooooo expensive. Before I commit myself to one CAD program for home, I want to evaluate.
So far I am evaluating Fusion-360, TinkerCAD, and LibreCAD. I have ruled out QCAD, Solidworks, and Keyshot already.

I should be finished with my eval this week. I can post my results or send an email if anyone at libreCAD is interested.

Cheers,
Jayne

Hi Jayne,

3D printing.  I don't believe LibreCAD has that ability.  LibreCAD is a 2D program and as such has no Z axis which is necessary for 3D printing.  TurboCad does 3D printing and is reasonably priced at around $150.00 USD.  Of course, these is always Autocad but not reasonably priced.

Dnd, please do share your results.  I, for one, am interested.

 

Welcome Jayne,

it's true, that you can't draw 3D parts with LibreCAD.

But I know there are people out there, including me, who use LibreCAD for 3D printing.
The work flow is to draw 2D shapes in LibreCAD and then linear or rotate extrude them in OpenSCAD.
In OpenSCAD basic 3D entities like cubes, cylinders, spheres and more can be combined with extruded 2D volumes too.
Finally in OpenSCAD a 3D model in STL format can be exported for slicer input.

Imho the learning curve for pure 3D software is much tougher than for LibreCAD/OpenSCAD combo.

Armin

Thanks Armin,

Good stuff to know.  I might have a need to print in 3D someday.