Best software for pedal enclosure layouts and design's

[Hupla]

Hey guys.

Does anyone know of a free software that is good to do this. Doesn't need to be too fancy.

[Skruffyhound]

Google "Sketch up" easy to learn at least to make drilling patterns, 3D takes a little longer, but still easier than other programs. Good Luck

[Ibanezfoo]

Inkscape, Gimp, Scribus, etc... these are all great open source applications.

[aziltz]

Google "Sketch up" easy to learn at least to make drilling patterns, 3D takes a little longer, but still easier than other programs. Good Luck

i second this.  i use it weekly to make to-scale drawings with easily added dimension measurements.  great for drill patterns.

[Hupla]

Google "Sketch up" easy to learn at least to make drilling patterns, 3D takes a little longer, but still easier than other programs. Good Luck

i second this.  i use it weekly to make to-scale drawings with easily added dimension measurements.  great for drill patterns.

Are you guys talking about the free 3d one?

[Paul Marossy]

I use AutoCAD. But it's far from cheap!

[Hupla]

Say if i wanted to make a template for etching enclosures would google sketch up be good for that?

[Ripthorn]

I use a free AutoCAD workalike, A9CAD.  It works similar to AutoCAD (what I learned originally), but it doesn't have some of the nice tools.  But hey, it's free.

[Jarno]

I'm a mechanical engineer, and I'm using Pro/Engineer at work (3d modeler). I've recently put all components in there and made a layout, so there's no headscratching when drilling each and every enclosure anymore.
Far from cheap! There was a free alternative at one time, I think it was called Pro Desktop Express, but I think they've pulled the plug on that one.

Does anyone know of a free alternative to Adobe Illustrator? (vector based graphics program)

[Fender3D]

Open Office Draw will allow you to do both drilling and designing ala CAD or Publisher

[markeebee]

I'm a mech eng too.  

I've got a bunch of fancy software that I use at work but, frankly, I find the drawing tools in Word to be perfect for doing really quick and simple layouts.  It's by far the easiest to learn - you probably know all that you need to know already.

Inkscape is a very good freebie alternative to Illustrator, by the way.

[Ripthorn]

+1 for Inkscape, too.

[Ibanezfoo]

Does anyone know of a free alternative to Adobe Illustrator? (vector based graphics program)

Inkscape:  http://www.inkscape.org/

If you use alternative OSs, theres these too:

Xara:  http://www.xaraxtreme.org/

Skencil:  http://www.skencil.org/

[jessej]

Inkscape and SketchUp here too.

[welcomb]

Google "Sketch up" easy to learn at least to make drilling patterns, 3D takes a little longer, but still easier than other programs. Good Luck

i second this.  i use it weekly to make to-scale drawings with easily added dimension measurements.  great for drill patterns.

I've just started to use SketchUp mainly to layout and squeeze all the components into tiny enclosures. There's a box template for our common Hammond enclosures online!

[obblitt]

How exactly do you draw a drilling template?

Is it as simple as drawing all the enclosure's sides that need to be drilled and drawing holes where it needs to be drilled and then implementing some kind of scale? I need to put 18 holes into a 1790 and I have NO idea where to start.

[aziltz]

Google "Sketch up" easy to learn at least to make drilling patterns, 3D takes a little longer, but still easier than other programs. Good Luck

i second this.  i use it weekly to make to-scale drawings with easily added dimension measurements.  great for drill patterns.

Are you guys talking about the free 3d one?

yes. The free version rocks my socks off.

[Hupla]

Google "Sketch up" easy to learn at least to make drilling patterns, 3D takes a little longer, but still easier than other programs. Good Luck

i second this.  i use it weekly to make to-scale drawings with easily added dimension measurements.  great for drill patterns.

I've just started to use SketchUp mainly to layout and squeeze all the components into tiny enclosures. There's a box template for our common Hammond enclosures online!

Have ya got a link to the box template or are they already on it?

[Jarno]

It's on RG's Geofex site, BB's are a favourite of his, so the layout is just for this size, no B or A layouts.

[Skruffyhound]

Actually it should be possible to import the Hammond AutoCAD drawings to sketch up. We've imported some CAD files at work but I haven't tried this yet.

How exactly do you draw a drilling template?

It's as simple as making a few calculations to divide the space up, so all knobs/switches/power jacks/jacks etc. are nicely placed aesthetically and functionally. You can do it with a pencil and a piece of paper,you only need to draw the face to be drilled and the center points of the holes you want, cut out the shape  and tape it to your enclosure.
     The difficult part is the 3D inside the box, imagining how everything will fit in. Will this perfboard go free of the jacks if I place it here etc.
As my builds get more complicated I think there's a tendency to try to build as tight as possible, it's not really necessary, but I can't help it. Thats where 3D technical drawings start to be required.