Software for box/enclosure design

[hkBattousai]

Hello,
I'm designing hobby projects, and I'm planning to engage to mass production if I manage to make a good one.

For this purpose, as you know, mere electronics knowledge and experience is not adequate. I need to handle other things, like printing labels, doing official paper work (taxes, license, etc).

One another challenge is enclosure design. I don't know anything about this one. Until now, I bought standard rectangular boxes and scaled my PCB to fit in it. But from now on I want to work like a professional and used custom-design boxes. After a quick search on the net, I found names of these software for this very purpose:

-Solidworks
-Maya
-Autocad
-3DS Max
-Microsoft Visio

Which of these would do my job best? One of my friend said that "3DS Max" was too good and complicated for simple box design, and Solidworks was relatively simpler and easier to learn. Is that true?

Can you please compare these software, and select the best one for me?

 

[canadaelk]

Software

I am familiar with Solidworks and Visio Technical (both 5 year old releases).
Solidworks is a great program with many features, therefor not easy to learn. I particularily like their 3D that lets you rotate and operate a design (say a piston to see that it actally works). With it comes a drawing viewer you can give a customer/fab-house to review/change (limited capacity) your design.
I find Visio good for 2D work. It is easy and has many pre-built symbols. Being an MS product it imports easely into other MS (ie Word) products.

 

[hkBattousai]

I am familiar with Solidworks and Visio Technical (both 5 year old releases).
Solidworks is a great program with many features, therefor not easy to learn. I particularily like their 3D that lets you rotate and operate a design (say a piston to see that it actally works). With it comes a drawing viewer you can give a customer/fab-house to review/change (limited capacity) your design.
I find Visio good for 2D work. It is easy and has many pre-built symbols. Being an MS product it imports easely into other MS (ie Word) products.

Thank your for your reply.
I'm a subscriber to BizSpark, I will download and try Visio.
For Solidworks case, I will try to find a trial version.

I have another question,
Are there any standard file format for designing 2D or 3D models? I mean, if I design an enclosure with Solidworks, and after that, find a manufacturer for it who demands for Autocad file format? Will my design in Solidworks be wasted? Or is there any tool to make conversion between these file formats?

Thanks in advance.

 

[canadaelk]

Most machine shops will use a CNC format to program their milling machines or lathes. You will need to ask them what they need to see.
ACAD and Solidworks can import each others files. Not well from my experiences. rework on the drawings is required.
Befor you buy a cad program talk to a number of machining shops, ACAD and Solidwork reps an maybe your local tech college to find out what is available in your area so you do not spend $s wrongly.
Cheers, Elk