autoCAD

[PУCCKAЯ_e30ka]

If anybody is using AutoCAD, professionally/aspiring,
-what would you suggest for somebody who wants to get to know it?
-books?
Everybody I know in engineering/design/arch fields use this soft, so I thought while still in school(soph. in univ.) I'd get a head start, and it seems interesting by itself.

[der affe]

when my dad was practicing he used it a lot (he is a retired architect)

i had a friend find him some pirated autocad in the latest release so he could play with it if he wanted.

i took some drafting classes 15+ years ago and used it, it was pretty easy to getr the hang of it.

[Streichholzschächtelchen]

Get used to hotkeys. All I gotta say.

[fowacee]

It's not that hard. If your school has an engineering department the computers there will have it installed. There should be a class you can take as well to learn the program.

[Hick]

if you have a student email you can get 13 months of free use

https://www.autocad.com

AutoDesk Inventor FTW, its geat

[snitzer]

i use it and microstation ...i prefer microstation it puts out a better product .... both programs have focused apps depending on your field of expertise ...civil, mech, arch, electrical.... what program are you in?

[etxxz]

there's other cad programs that are much more valuable and have the same capabilities, even to save files in the same format. ie solidworks, inventor, alibre, proEngineer etc

In any event, they all come with tutorials. Video tutorials i found to be the most useful to start out. Seat time and personal interest will make you very articulate in time. Coming out of college its extremely valuable when applying for a first job.

My unversity tought us proE course. Soon after, i discovered solidworks (in illicit ways) and started modeling everything. That took me to its cad capabilities (same thing as autocad), stress analysis -haven't done flow yet as i have CFdesign for that- and now do the occasional drawings and toolpaths for my c.o's cnc router, mechine shop etc...but i do not want to make myself the cad/drawings person for my Co. I'm much too happy having someone else do that while i do other engineering.

[tg318is]

i jsut did a term of autocad n a term of archicad. dont know which i like better. theyre too different. as its been said before, get used to the hotkeys

[shiftbmw]

If you want a headstart from an engineering standpoint, spend your time learning Pro E.

[george graves]

You'll get a lot of conflicting advice on what program is better. Cad programs are not that hard to learn, but hard to learn right.

I'd look for a night class at a city college. It will be worth it to get a solid foundation IMHO.

[Lames]

I can use autocad/easycad/allencad/delta cad. They are easy to use, just a bit tough to learn at first they can be a bit to take on all at once. I am self taught on all them. I run a CNC machine and need to know how to make it work with my machine.

My best word of advice is learn a simple dumb'ed down version of any CAD. Then just use the same things in other programs. They are very much the same, they just use different command names. Once you are able to take what you have in your head and translate it via the program you can work on getting faster by knowing what to do and when. Then move on to a bigger "better" program and learn the different names, but the same general controls will be there.

http://www.deltacad.com/demo.html

Here is a free trial version of Delta CAD. It's graet to learn on. Just play with it. If you need it longer than the trial version un-install and then re-install.

[AndrewBird]

AutoCAD is an amazing tool, but can be a bit overkill for most things. It's kind of like Photoshop. You can do 8 million things with it, but sometime it would be nice just to have it simpler.

All of Autodesk's products come with great tutorials that will teach you pretty much everything you will need to know.

I HIGHLY recommend using AutoCAD for ONLY 2D stuff. Even the newer versions of AutoCAD SUCK when it comes to 3D. Use Inventor or Solid Works for that. The bad thing is, the 2D stuff in Inventor and Solidworks is really clumsy, so I use Autocad to draw any 2D stuff I need then use those drawings in Inventor to draw the 3D models that I need. Here is a miniature steam engine I designed from scratch using AutoCAD and Inventor:



I have 2D drawings of every part in multiple views, plus the assembled 3D model.

[mck]

Yeah I use AutoCAD for drawing buildings and some other design work.
Depends on what your using it for, great tool for many aplications. Hotkeys are the only way to go.

[PУCCKAЯ_e30ka]

thanks for all replies! I'm going for mechanical w/some petroleum classes. Focus is on mech. though.

[BeirBrennerE30]

if you want it for practice for the professional world i would use Solidworks. Most places that are on top of things use Solidworks or are switching to it.

Once you learn one though you can basically figure out any program as they are all similar.