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NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 18 Jun 2025 23:16:23 +0000
From: Joe Gwinn <joegwinn@comcast.net>
Newsgroups: sci.electronics.design
Subject: Re: SolidWorks is cool, sort of
Date: Wed, 18 Jun 2025 19:15:50 -0400
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On Tue, 17 Jun 2025 11:01:10 -0700, john larkin <jl@glen--canyon.com>
wrote:

>The Edrawings viewer thing is fun, except for all the insane licensing
>nonsense.
>
>https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/3a9yf2njwiqckn45v2rvy/B_RF_2.jpg?rlkey=9tqkuebhakre46irxdqvdx89n&raw=1
>
>This is two little RF boards in a Raspberry Pi based host box. My
>mechanical designer guy is tweaking clearances and such.
>
>We can ask him "what happens if we move that connector 40 mils?" and
>it's no big deal to try.

About all the consequences of lock-in: one can lose everything in a
flash.

One can store models in formats that all such tools are capable of
importing and exporting. so one isn't totally trapped.

What I used for a while was Alibre, this having been recommended by
mechanical engineer colleagues, as the best choice for personal use
and self-teaching.  I learned a lot on how these things are
structured; this is necessary to be able to create 3D drawings in the
first place.  It isn't obvious.

I spun to a stop for a few years due to the demands of my day job, but
still maintain a licence.

Joe