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Any free versions of CAD? That can be easily navigated by a sheamus soap
Sketchup has a basic free version. Fusion 360 is free for personal use and I think is the full product, just limited to the number of files you can open at a time or something.

Both are aimed more at the 3D side.

3d modelling is a skill I'd love to develop. I'd love to play with a 3d printer. Did tech drawing to leaving cert but never have found the time to sit down and learn CAD
 
How wide is that valley gutter? looks like you could clean it out with a yard scraper!
Narrow scraper only!! From recollection its 600mm wide. Ideally should be a stainless welded gutter but lets see how long this one will last, it should be replaced easily enough.
 
Any free versions of CAD? That can be easily navigated by a sheamus soap
Onshape is a free cloud based modelling software, used in schools here and no where near as hard to run as Solidworks. It's ideal dea for modelling 2d or 3d, have found it difficult to do assemblies.

On Solidworks, it's the modelling software of choice for Irish schools for probably the last 10 to 15 yrs maybe more, so probably explains why so many ate using it here. Buts it's outrageously expensive
 
Onshape is a free cloud based modelling software, used in schools here and no where near as hard to run as Solidworks. It's ideal dea for modelling 2d or 3d, have found it difficult to do assemblies.

On Solidworks, it's the modelling software of choice for Irish schools for probably the last 10 to 15 yrs maybe more, so probably explains why so many ate using it here. Buts it's outrageously expensive
Uumm, that would explain how the Solidworks salesman that I know, has quickly graduated from a BMW SUV to a Porsche SUV. There must be good money to be made from selling software!
I think that getting Solidworks into schools and third level educational institutions was the key to success for Solidworks. Once people were trained to use it proficiently, they got comfortable with it, and encouraged employers to invest in it as a design tool. Autocad adopted a similar strategy when we were in college nearly 30 years ago. However, Autocad never really kept up to date with the 3D modelling side of things
Solidedge is another common enough 3D design software and was available reasonably cheaply too.
Nowadays, in my own opinion people get too hung up on the 3D modelling side of the design process and completely neglect the drawing side of things. It truly is shocking how bad some people are at producing drawings, from the 3D models. Poorly planned out, or incoherent views, with inconsistent or meaningless dimensions are sadly all too common. At the end of the day, the 2D drawings are a crucial part of the manufacturing process, to convey the required information to the fitter/fabricator/welder or machinist who are manufacturing the required components/assemblies.
 
They do not teach the common sense approach to designing in engineering courses that is required, the lad from the farming background that has done a bit of welding or a lad that was on sites will be 10x the engineer of the lad that worked in a shop and then got a masters. Regularly see masters engineers in work unable to read a drawing.

I think solidworks has ruined design, any eejit can sit in and have it going in a few hours. The real tasty lads have the time done. Regularly see drawings by engineers that are unmanufacturable .product design course in Limerick seems to give a serious grounding in cad.

A lot to be said for t square and pencil. I firmly believe engineering should be an on the tools apprenticeship rather than 4 years of maths, design and critical thinking are skills from experience not from a text book.
 
Anyone that may be looking for solidworks, there is a free student version available which is valid for two years.

A quick Google will bring up links for the download and a valid student key.
 
Anyone that may be looking for solidworks, there is a free student version available which is valid for two years.

A quick Google will bring up links for the download and a valid student key.
One thing to beat in mind, is that 3D models/work done on the student version might not be compatible with the actual fully active mainstream version. We had that very experience with Creo recently. An engineer was working on 3D models that were inadvertently saved as lightweight student versions. The models could not be downloaded or used on our mainstream version, so the models in question had to be completed in the new again, which was rather frustrating.,
 
I think solidworks has ruined design, any eejit can sit in and have it going in a few hours. The real tasty lads have the time done. Regularly see drawings by engineers that are unmanufacturable .product design course in Limerick seems to give a serious grounding in cad.
We had a lecturer wanting us to design a multi stage turbine in a way that the vanes and shaft were all made from the one piece, pure stupidity and no consideration as to how it could be made
 
We had a lecturer wanting us to design a multi stage turbine in a way that the vanes and shaft were all made from the one piece, pure stupidity and no consideration as to how it could be made
Sadly, a lot of the lecturers in our educational institutions lack practical knowledge/experience. Some even make the transition from completing their diplomas/degrees/phd's straight into teaching/lecturing positions, without going out into industry first, to gain the practical experience in order to become a good engineer. As a result of such short-sightedness, we have the scenarios above that you describe.
 
As the old saying goes, God loves a trier.
One of the best ones was, he was using the powerhouse and the hose burst on the lance side, I arrived back to see that he had used about 6 jubilee clips along the burst to try and fix it. Thousands of people lives depend on this persons engineering daily 🤣
 
As the old saying goes, God loves a trier.

But that is the crux of the problem with a lot of these "engineers ".
They haven't Tried , and failed. Or tried and succeeded . You can't beat a lad making something out of a few bits of scrap , and it working out .
I know a man well who is now 78 . He made a turf hopper , and the drawing for it would have fitted on a postage stamp , in duplicate . All in his head . He went to school "an odd day " , and left school altogether at 14 .

There was a manned level crossing beside a bit of land that I have a mile away . 25 plus yrs ago, they dug it out and replaced it with a tunnel under the railway. There was a river within 100m , to take the water away that would be in the tunnel ,as it was in a hollow with roads water coming into it .

The engineer involved managed to lay it out , so the drainage pipe was 6 inches too high , so we have a wheelbath for half the year . Now the pipe is treble the size that would ever be needed , but just laid too high.

Men hundreds of years ago built castles , churches etc , with no CAD ...
 
But that is the crux of the problem with a lot of these "engineers ".
They haven't Tried , and failed. Or tried and succeeded . You can't beat a lad making something out of a few bits of scrap , and it working out .
I know a man well who is now 78 . He made a turf hopper , and the drawing for it would have fitted on a postage stamp , in duplicate . All in his head . He went to school "an odd day " , and left school altogether at 14 .

There was a manned level crossing beside a bit of land that I have a mile away . 25 plus yrs ago, they dug it out and replaced it with a tunnel under the railway. There was a river within 100m , to take the water away that would be in the tunnel ,as it was in a hollow with roads water coming into it .

The engineer involved managed to lay it out , so the drainage pipe was 6 inches too high , so we have a wheelbath for half the year . Now the pipe is treble the size that would ever be needed , but just laid too high.

Men hundreds of years ago built castles , churches etc , with no CAD ...
There was a model build where the river that runs through some of our build in 1921 that worked perfectly and had a lake size of 30acres but some time in the 80s it broke up so Clare co co decide last year to put a new one in the old one was a u shape about 9ft height and 8ft wide. They put in a 1800mm pipe but the best part is the bottom of it is about 1 to 1.5m too height so now the lake is about 300 acres when it floods and when we get a bit flood it takes lad a week to drain vs a day or 2 before… but we have gps and diggers today vs common sense and shovels in the 1920s. Can kind of see in the photos attached at it’s best it’s still worse than when there was no model
 

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Sadly, a lot of the lecturers in our educational institutions lack practical knowledge/experience. Some even make the transition from completing their diplomas/degrees/phd's straight into teaching/lecturing positions, without going out into industry first, to gain the practical experience in order to become a good engineer. As a result of such short-sightedness, we have the scenarios above that you describe.
“Those that can do those that can’t teach”
 
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