I need to create a dxf file- what's the cheapest program ?

[Malcolm Schweizer]

Good day all:

I am building a boat with a steel centerboard. I have access to a CNC plasma cutter, but I need to create a dxf file. It's a very simple shape. Can I do this in Sketchup and convert it to a dxf file? What's a cheap program that I don't have to pay some insane subscription price to use? I'm okay with buying something because I can play around with it, but I really don't want to spend an arm and a leg. Maybe a finger.

Apologies if this was asked before. I did a search and found a few things but not specific to this.

[Bill George]

Just about any CAD program will generate a DXF file. Easy to use and free I don't know.

[Chuck Saunders]

CAD Standard www.cadstd.com autocad like and free. Will export DXF
Chuck

[Gary Campbell]

DraftSight is free cad

[Peter Kelly]

AutoCAD LT is $390 for a 1 year subscription or $370 for multi-year. Should do everything you need. https://www.autodesk.com/products/autocad-lt/subscribe

Can't help but think that parts for boats would be easiest to draw using splines in Adobe Illustrator though. Just a matter of converting the splines to polylines to generate the necessary gcode.

[Brad Shipton]

I would suggest draftsight as well. Solidworks would like to hook you into their 3D tools, so they give this away. ACAD Lt is good, but if you want to use more than say 1/3 of the features you need some sort of training. My nephew has a plasma and it uses some version of corel draw. It sounded painful to me, but it did not require much learning to draw simple shapes. The plasma machines seem to keep the software end of things easier for their users.

[Rick Whitehead]

If your shape contains arcs or circles, remember that Sketchup treats them by default as 24-sided polygons. They will come across as polygons in your DXF file.
The solution is to change the circle and arc settings in Sketchup to as many sides as you can, or to convert then to true arcs in your DXF file, if your program allows it.
Sketchup Pro allows you to export a Sketchup file as a DXF directly.
Hope this helps.
Rick

[Bill George]

I had forgotten about Draftsight its free but they do a little nagging from time to time in the constant emails. Since it has everything AutoCAD LT has why pay $400 for a year to do one project? It has Snap and Coords which you will need so you can draw to scale and then DXF out. I purchased and use ViaCAD2D-3D because I need the 3D for my 3D printer.

[Mike Heidrick]

Ask the plasma owner to draw it if it is simple.

[Malcolm Schweizer]

Thanks everyone for the feedback. I do plan to pursue some of these programs. A very kind member has reached out to me and offered to input the drawing into a DXF File. The information here has been very helpful. I really need to get ahead of the learning curve on this, so I'm going to download the free program and play around with it.

[William Adams]

Another option is to use a vector editor / drawing program such as Inkscape and then save/export to a DXF.