MCAD Shootout! - Rhino vs Solidworks vs OnShape

[EEVblog]

David Ledger compares three mechanical CAD packages - Rhino, Solidworks, and OnShape using 3 typical design examples and discusses the usability of each package.
Which is the most suitable for electronics part modelling or industrial design use?

[sleemanj]

I use OnShape for pretty much all my 3d printing and for creating - rough - 3d models of components for using with DipTrace, and on the odd occasion for creating DXF to import into DipTrace as board outlines or custom pad shapes.  Of course this is not very taxing work.

One thing at least with DipTrace for 3d models is that because OnShape can't apply appearance to specific faces is that you need to have each different coloured "thing" (ie, pins vs body) be a different part, of course this is no problem at all in OnShape, but when you export the step and load it into DipTrace if you have "too many" parts (I don't know how many) then things get screwy. 

The workaround is to reduce the parts count in your model by, for example putting a thin extrusion hidden inside your IC or whatever which connects all the pins into a single part, so instead of 16 pins and 1 body part, you have 1 pin part and 1 body part.

Hopefully OnShape will be able to implement appearance-for-face sometime to make that easier.

The only time I've had to resort to Fusion360 (which seems to have been the most obvious omission from this video) was for creating some headers due to the "ParaParam" plugin which made it much easier to auto-generate hundreds of the bloody things in various styles (and yes I know that there are already header 3d models, DipTrace even comes with them, but I didn't like them, NIH syndrome really, but once I got the bit between my teeth).

[jm_araujo]

I think Autodesk Fusion 360 should have been included. It has the best features combined: I can do parametric design but can be turned off if you don't want it, it has great modeling features borrowed from T-Splines, a popular extension for Rhino aquired by Autodesk, and has CAM, also from another aquisition, HSMWorks (originally for Solidworks). To top it off it is free for students, hobbyists and small companies (making less than 100k$/year).
Also recently also found the simulation tools in Fusion, great to test stress and deformation in parts under load, and also has a new sheet metal feature that still haven't used/needed.

I'm a hobbyist and a noob using CAD. When I started I tried various CAD packages and had to fight them to get the results I wanted (my fault for sure), but then Fusion came out and never looked back (also because of license costs, had to resort to shady methods to try Rhino and Solidworks).

[Barny]

Its nice to see a electronic guy working in the CAD / CAM area.
Its clear visible that you are quite skilled.
But not in the way someone is who works all day with CAD.

Is it possible to make a shootout about the engineering drawing part?
This part was the most clunky part when I had to work with Dassault Systemes software.


I'm quite comfortable with NX from Siemens, but I think its out of question because it's quite expensive.
As far I remember, Solid Edge from Siemens is free for Students & Private users.


A important thing is to set up the CAD system correctly.
For example the constrains in sketch mode.
There is a possibility to automate some parts of constrain settings to speed up the sketching part.
I spend nearly a whole day to set up all my settings within NX to fit my workflow.
Now it runs very smoothly.
I don't knew how it works on other systems, but this part makes quite a difference in workflow and speed.


Another thing is how the 3D Part is build.
I build the shown transformer during lunchtime as a little test.
I needed next to 4 minutes to rebuild the part without hurry.
But when I would had build it the way to be able to reuse and change it easy, I would had to invest 10 to 30 minutes.
(The time depends on how detailed and versatile the part should be.)
To include it in the company-database for reversion control, manufacturing, reusability,... it would have taken several hours.

[NivagSwerdna]

vs Fusion 360?

[PeterL]

I think DesignSpark Mechanical is also worth looking at.
This is a crippled version of Spaceclaim, which is provided by RS-components for free.

I seldom do mechanical stuff, but I find DS-mechanical very easy to work with for simple stuff.
(Unlike DS-pcb which is horrible...)

see: https://www.rs-online.com/designspark/mechanical-software

[John Coloccia]

I've been using Rhino for a while now. While it lacks constraint based modelling, it's really excellent for modelling organic shapes, like guitars and things like that. I use it to make DipTrace components as well. I can round trip a board shape from Rhino to DipTrace, do my design work, populate it, and then export it and bring it back into my DipTrace model to sanity check it. I'm sure you can with the other ones too, but it's just an example of how you might use a CAD program for electronics. I predominantly use it to design drill patterns for enclosures and things like that, but I also use it to design production fixtures, and used to use it for guitar CAD/CAM work (with madCAM). Very cool program.

[plantgrower]

Do you have a link to the Onshape document and the Wurth transformer document ?

[NivagSwerdna]

Do you have a link to the Onshape document and the Wurth transformer document ?

Link to the transformer doc would be good... I might see how long it takes me in Fusion 360.

[MT]

Thanks David L for your shoot on MCAD tools! Pleas do more.
In pure desperation back in stone age days i used True space and Corels 3D which i dont even remember the name of.

[GreggD]

What about file size between the 3 cad models. Some simple solidparts have huge file size.

[frozenfrogz]

Some simple solidparts have huge file size.

That all depends on the operations you were doing in Solidworks. When talking about file size of Rhino .3dm and Solidworks .prt / .asm files, it is pretty much comparing apples to oranges.
Rhino files consist of geometry data without feature history, where Solidworks files keep a record of the whole feature tree and geometry data.

Edit: (OT) Magical post number reached!