CAD Forum

I'm starting this thread to share calculators, PSA documents, etc. Feel free to contribute!

First up is a machining calculator. It's not fancy but it works well for comparing different methods side-by-side, such as HEM vs. traditional roughing. Second is an Excel calculator I made. It's mostly for hydraulics, but it also has a bunch of other little widgets. I'll be posting some more as I get time....

(edit: realized attachments were switched around)

A handy Conversion tool widget. It's much nicer than Winduhs calculator (ugh).

Here's a zip file with references on HEM, insert wear, and threadmilling for the machinists out there.

And the other one is a regular gold mine that a friend put together while he taught at MCC.

I guess this is tangent and let me know if this belongs in a separate thread.
Some of the open source software I use is listed below:

• TexStudio - Great for long documentation, if you know HTML or coding, it's pretty easy to pick up. Otherwise, it has a steep learning curve.
  https://www.texstudio.org/
• Notepad++ - A great text editor with a lot of plugins
  https://notepad-plus-plus.org/
• Screen to Gif - Great to get in-line animations that not only work on this forum, but for internal documentation.
  https://www.screentogif.com/
• Handbrake - Video compression tool that just works.
  https://handbrake.fr/
• LibreOffice - Yeah, MS Office is the default, but Libre Office handles some things better (been a while, but their equation editor was easier to use because you could type out the equations. MS at the time had a point and click setup.)
  https://www.libreoffice.org/
• Paint.net - Paint on steroids, but much simpler to use than Gimp.
  https://www.getpaint.net/
  https://www.gimp.org/
• Open Shot Video Editor - I used to renew Sony Vegas, now owned by someone else, every couple of years. But this software seems to be able to do simple editing.
  https://www.openshot.org/

• Windows Sysinternals - Computer tools for monitoring and edit Windows settings you can't easily get to.
  https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/

• Windows Powertoys - Bunch of little utilities but mostly get it for Power Rename.
  https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/powertoys/

• Ultrasearch - Search your hard drive fast and quick, and did I say fast, I mean unbelievably fast?
  https://www.jam-software.com/ultrasearch_free

I'm a big fan of LIghtshot for Screen-shots. Can use Keyboard-shortcuts, plus it will let you do some basic annotation etc before it saves.
https://app.prntscr.com/en/index.html

Notepad++ as previously noted, is great. One of my favorite features is you can have mutliple tabs open, and you don't need to save them; or more accurately, if you don't save, It will remember what you were working on from previous session.
https://notepad-plus-plus.org/

Does anyone know of any open-source tools for laying out parts (nesting) for cnc waterjet cutting etc? I know my clients have nesting algorithms as part of their CAM packages, but it is sometimes good to send pre-nested sheets.

mattpeneguy wrote: ↑Mon Mar 22, 2021 7:59 pm

• TexStudio - Great for long documentation, if you know HTML or coding, it's pretty easy to pick up. Otherwise, it has a steep learning curve.
  https://www.texstudio.org/

Wow, never thought i would see LaTeX folks here .
My LaTeX got a bit rusty after I left uni, but it is indeed a great tool.


Some other open-source software that is on my favorite list:
1. Greenshot
https://getgreenshot.org/
→ Great for screenshot and basic edit

2. Autohotkey
https://www.autohotkey.com/
→ For shortcut and easy to learn

3. Notion
https://www.notion.so/
→ Not really an open-source, but a pretty good knowledge management tool

Zhen-Wei Tee wrote: ↑Wed Mar 24, 2021 4:39 am Some other open-source software that is on my favorite list:
1. Greenshot
https://getgreenshot.org/
→ Great for screenshot and basic edit

I also use Greenshot and absolutely love it.

I like to use Virtual Box on my work station so I can have a Linux machine for the occasional need to use some tools that are not available in Windows. Also I do API work in a Win10 VPN edit: not VPN, I meant VM.
as I'm testing my add ins that register dlls and so if I bugger something up I can just go back to an earlier snapshot instead of the risk of reinstalling a bunch of stuff on my host machine.

@Marshall Wilson I came across this tool while sending some stuff out to a local laser shop for a personal project: https://deepnest.io/

It uses a genetic algorithm (GA) approach to nest 2D shapes into a sheet. It wasn't capturing some "obvious" layouts for me at one point but I went in to the settings and cranked up the # of mutations and it got much better.

MarkMorreale wrote: ↑Mon Apr 05, 2021 4:46 pm @Marshall Wilson I came across this tool while sending some stuff out to a local laser shop for a personal project: https://deepnest.io/

It uses a genetic algorithm (GA) approach to nest 2D shapes into a sheet. It wasn't capturing some "obvious" layouts for me at one point but I went in to the settings and cranked up the # of mutations and it got much better.

Very Cool! Thanks @MarkMorreale ! I'll check it out.

-m

MarkMorreale wrote: ↑Mon Apr 05, 2021 4:46 pm @Marshall Wilson I came across this tool while sending some stuff out to a local laser shop for a personal project: https://deepnest.io/

It uses a genetic algorithm (GA) approach to nest 2D shapes into a sheet. It wasn't capturing some "obvious" layouts for me at one point but I went in to the settings and cranked up the # of mutations and it got much better.

So, this is autonesting software. Very nice to see this functionality at this price (functionality/price = 80/0 = infinity. Cool!)

I worked at a place that did a HUGE amount of sheet metal. I did two things that immediately saved us a ton of money. First, was to research our material thicknesses and tooling and use that information to develop accurate K-factors. With this we were able to make very accurate sheet metal and incorporate more features such as pre-punched holes on bent flanges. HUGE benefit, but hard to measure monetarily. The other thing we did was buy some autonesting software. This wa in 2007. The software cost $20k with another $5k for training. In hard dollars alone we saved over $225k in the first year, but we also eliminated our bottleneck, reduced WIP and all but eliminated our inventory of parts.

I no longer work there, but the value of this type of software is incredible! Thanks for sharing your link!

Lantek nesting software (which is what we use) costs ~$3K per seat for lifetime. That is the best I've ever used, way better than ProNest which is $15K .

But for a free program, that's not bad. At all.

I once left deepnest running all night - not only did it find some really great nesting arrangements, I didn't have to turn on the heat in the office the next morning because my poor PC was running full tilt and putting out a lot of heat. Talk about efficiency!

I got couple of contributions aswell:

• Inkscape - "Inkscape is a Free and open source vector graphics editor for GNU/Linux, Windows and MacOS X."

• Dia - "Dia is a program to draw structured diagrams."

• ShareX - "Screen capture, file sharing and productivity tool"

• FOSSHub - Great listing for various free open-source software!

• AlternativeTo - "Crowdsourced software recommendations"
  Not all are FOSS, but great source of alternatives.

And my personal favorite:

• nomacs - "nomacs is a free, open source image viewer, which supports multiple platforms."
  I learned to hate the default picture viewer on Windows 10. I found it to be frustrating and unreliable. nomacs fixed that and gave more.

edit: added one more item, nomacs

I've been enjoying LICEcap https://www.cockos.com/licecap/
This is what I use to capture my animated gifs. The forum uses thumbnails for big images, so you have to click on the image to play the gif. Software is very easy to use, and I haven't found any trojan crap with it yet.

I guess I forgot this one:
VLC, plays any video file https://www.videolan.org/vlc/

mike miller wrote: ↑Fri Mar 19, 2021 3:35 pm I'm starting this thread to share calculators, PSA documents, etc. Feel free to contribute!

First up is a machining calculator. It's not fancy but it works well for comparing different methods side-by-side, such as HEM vs. traditional roughing. Second is an Excel calculator I made. It's mostly for hydraulics, but it also has a bunch of other little widgets. I'll be posting some more as I get time....

(edit: realized attachments were switched around)

I use NOVO by Kennametal fairly often for HP, Torque calcs https://www.kennametal.com/us/en/resources/novo.html

The one thing this doesn't have is a thrust calc, which is odd, but their online Engineering calcs does have this, again odd, since those are probably a decade or more older. https://www.kennametal.com/us/en/resour ... ators.html

Not a calculator per say but if you do anything with Extruded structures, like enclosures, simple tables etc I highly recommend May-Cad. http://may-cad.org/ it's an entire CAD system specifically for Maytechs extruded products. Not only can you create what you want, export it in STEP, SW and a few other formats, but it also can give you a complete BOM WITH pricing. The prices are kept up to date and typically match within 10% or so of what my distributor gives me.

If you do alot with servos Mitsubishi has a nice calculator for their products and then you can usually cross reference to others https://www.mitsubishielectric.com/fa/p ... pageUnit01 This is especially nice if you're messing around with motor sizes, gear boxes, belt ratios etc. I didn't see a link to the software there though...and Mit's site is a bit of a mess...not as bad as Allen-Bradleys but still hard to find things.

Ditto. It's a Clipboard Manager; can't live without it!
https://apps.microsoft.com/detail/9NBLG ... n-ca&gl=CA