VacuCAD

[Tom McCarthy]

Hi all,

Does anybody know if Kurt J. Lesker's "VacuCAD" is still going? VacuCad: https://www.lesker.com/newweb/cadregist ... secure.cfm

After looking for software for drawing chambers on the forum I found a link to VacuCAD in this old post:viewtopic.php?f=10&t=3659&hilit=vacuum+ ... abrication

I immediately went to try and design a chamber, entered the information for a simple,, 1-port chamber to see how it panned out and when done, a notification on the website itself told me that "KJL servers currently down….you'll be emailed as soon as drawing finished. I'm assuming that the drawings are generated automatically ( they're free: if people were working on them wouldn't pay be required?), so is it just that the KJL servers switch off from x o'clock to y o'clock or is the drawing generation discontinued?

Thanks,
Tom

[JakeJHecla]

You're a student, right? Pick up a copy of autodesk inventor or solidworks and use the files they have available. You may need to do some file-type wrangling, but it will work out (PM me for help if you need it). It seems rather impractical to use a web-based tool to CAD something as complex as a chamber.

[Tom McCarthy]

Great, thanks for the tip Jake. I knew about Solidworks student version, but I'm using a Mac system and I find that running anything through Boot Camp or a different Windows 'emulator' completely slows up the computer. The Autodesk inventor Student versions for Mac are a welcome surprise however.

Thanks,
Tom

[Andrew Robinson]

Tom, I'm not sure how old you are, however, if you're currently at a university, you should be able to get access to an engineering system at the library. If you're an engineering student, there will be a lab on campus somewhere dedicated to engineering with several powerful CAD systems that will most likely have SolidWorks, AutoDesk, etc loaded. Give that route a try. If you're in grade school, you might also try getting in touch with your advisers and or councilors and ask about some of the engineering/technology specific classes. They might have a class in your school that has a CAD system.

[prestonbarrows]

Lesker offers .stp files for 90% of their hardware. This is an agnostic 3D CAD file that can be imported into any decent program such as SolidWorks, AutoDesk, etc. Same idea as a .csv file with Excel spreadsheets.

You have to sign up for a free Lesker account to get access, then there will be options for 3D files and 2D drawings next to the price listing of all available parts.

You only have to mess with custom generation of parts if you are looking for a non-stock chamber. If that is actually the case, expect to be laying out a few grand; call them up and talk to a real engineer for custom hardware.

[Tom McCarthy]

Andrew, I'm 14 - school's finished for the Summer here in Ireland, so I'm out on that option. However, an English company - Hivac Engineering, have agreed to make me a full 12" Lesker spherical chamber for the price of only the spinnings and flanges, which they receive at a discount anyways. The chamber I'm getting is the SP1200S which is listed as €4,200 on the KJL site: http://www.lesker.com/newweb/chambers/s ... hamber.cfm

Preston, I had signed up for the VacuCAD account after the original post and figured it out. Either way, thanks for the tips.

So, all is good on the CAD side of things as the drawings were ready to be downloaded and sent off from there. However, I'm going to keep self-educating in the area as I'm sure it'll be needed again at some stage.

Cheers,
Tom

[Jeroen Vriesman]

Tom,

just tried the files from Kurt J. Lesker in medusa4 (free for personal use: http://www.cad-schroer.com/products/medusa4.html) works fine.