CAD Program

[dollaman]

What is the best program to make a scaled drawing of my control panel and cabinet.

[Dustin Mustangs]

Autocad is certainly the best, but it is big bucks and has a pretty steep learning curve.  I have heard a few people rave about google sketchup but I have not tried it myself (I've got autocad 2004).  It's free and seems to be a bit easier to use...

http://sketchup.google.com/

[BobbyG66]

I would reccommend Sketchup as well.
There is a bit of a learning curve, but alot easier than learning AutoCAD.
There are even some cabinets built and online for Sketchup.
Check them out to get a start.

[Jimbo]

Sketchup is the way forward!

Once you get the basics its very easy.  Without it I'd never have got my own cab project started!

[dollaman]

Thanks, checked it out. Looks like it will work perfectly!!

[richms]

I would suggest that you see if you can borrow a machine with solidworks on it and give that a blast. I found sketchup weird to use, but solidworks seems a breeze.

[shardian]

I would suggest that you see if you can borrow a machine with solidworks on it and give that a blast. I found sketchup weird to use, but solidworks seems a breeze.

I used solid edge in college (alot like solidworks). It is a super expensive program that has a very intuitive 3d interface.
However, sketchup can do alot of the same things and it is frikkin free. For the average user, sketchup can do anything you can dream up.