Any CAD Technicians on here?

[pattieG]

Currently employed as a CAD technician and the pay isn't great (just under 25k). Thinking about buying a license to use at home and doing some ad-hoc evening work for myself but I have no idea how much to charge? Would I charge by the hour or set a fixed price per drawing? Having done this job for a while I can make a pretty accurate guess at how long things will take.

[pattieG]

I currently work in civil engineering doing hydraulic structures like dams, weirs, etc. I can't imagine there is many local people who need a dam drawing. The packages I use are vanilla AutoCAD and Civil 3D and a little bit of sketchup in the past. I have done a few 3D renders as well.

May I ask what you moved onto from being a CAD Technician and how you got there?