its a feild thats always intruiged me folks ,

and im looking at using some fo my spare time to fill it with something more substantial ,

whats involved with learning auto cad or similar program

is it a case of full tuiton needed , or could i get a book and teach mysef the basics and work my way though to poss save time if/when i found possible training ?


what would your recommend program & litarature wise ?


beef

 

You can probably get yourself on an AutoCAD course FOC dude, most of the colleges will do something.

I use it a bit in my job but 2D only, and am a total novice really. I taught myself with a bit of guidance from a couple of the lads at work when I got stuck. You can certainly pick it up yourself but you might end up missing the best way to do things.

 

exactly what im thinking mate ,

just looking for people whove been n done it

 

There'll be a few lads on here who are proper draughies I bet.

Like I said, I need L plates, all I do is schematics and the odd equipment rack layout, total noddy stuff.

 

http://www.cadtutor.net/

this might give you an idea mate.
Also try downloading the free 30 day trial and see how you get on with it.
I would try and get enrolled on a few courses though as its a bit tricky to
try and pick up without training

 

cheers trev ,

going to download the cad program trial tomorrow and spend a few hrs reading thru the site

beef

 

autocad,solidworks and catia are the most popular programs
edgecam and mastercam are the best for cnc but it will take ages to learn them

 

AutoCad isn't the hardest thing to learn, quite easy in 2d formats but i wouldn't use it for 3d.
So long as you've got a good guide you can teach yourself.

Catia is a programme you should learn, good interface and has so much to it. The first being its 3D, you can also contrain your part design and a really usefull tool is seeing how the part would deform under load and wear the maximum stresses are.

I myself did a little bit of training of CAD at uni but they teach us more CATIA since it is widely used in the industry.

 

jonny would you recommend a basic knowldge of auto cad beofre tackling catia ?

beef

 

Catia is one that is used quite a lot. I'm not using that though. I'm using something called ProE at the minute (Pro Engineer). You can learn these simply by doing tutorials and messing around so not that hard I'd suggest starting off like this and if you find it too challenging you can get tuition if you like. Pro Engineer is cool, can simulate a lot of things on it too. I'm using it to simulate stress/strain analysis on a piston at the point of combustion.

 

Depends what industry you're interested in really:

- Construction - AutoCAD
- Architecture - AutoCAD + Bentley Microstation
- Automotive - Catia
- HVAC - AutoCAD + CADuct
- Small Multi-part Products - SolidEdge / SolidWorks
- Electrical - AutoCAD Electrical / Eagle
etc

Chris

 

i'm in engineering and use autocad all the time for the 2d work, it's easy to pick up and can be totaly icon based for easy use or comand based if you prefer, or a mixture of both.

catia is the most popular data transfer format in the automotive/engineering sector, as its a very stable 3d program.

mechanical desktop (autocad 3d) is ok for the 3d work but not as versatile as some other design packages.

i've used solid works and hypermill for my cad/cam work but i think the best 3d package is vero.

vero can be used as a fully integrated cad/cam package and is the best on i've seen and used in the 12 years ive used 3d design software.

the easiest and cheapest would probably be hypermill, followed by autocad/mechanical desctop, solidworks, catia then vero being the most expensive.

depends if you want to use it as a hobby or as a career, there are loads of training courses about but none of them are cheap mate.

 

As said, depends what industry you want to work in.

Add Aerospace to the Catia using list - some aerospace firms also use Pro-E, Unigraphics, SolidEdge etc. Some old school repair and mod specialists (Police helicopters etc) use AutoCAD still but the work is limited and the old hands just do the rounds.

Any industry is difficult to get into at the moment though, even if you did an Airbus accredited Catia course through TATA, Xype or CIMPA a company could pick from thousands of Catia Design Engineers already with 000000's hours using it.

My advice? Think long and hard as to why you want to learn, what industry you want to go into and take it from there.

Ben

 

I`m a CAD draughtsman, I use AutoCAD all day long. I had no proper training when i started. I picked it up along the way, that was about 10 years ago now. 3D Cad would be different tho, thats alot harder to learn and do correctly.

Get a copy of AutoCad, and just have a play, and get a book, and you will pick it up quite quickly.

 

Looking forward to touching on this in uni!

 

it was more to better my own knowldge of something , not really aiming to do it as a career ,

was more to try my hand a desigining things , car parts , brackets , adapters ,

just set myself small engineering challenges so to speak and see how i get on ,


beef

 

If thats what you want from it, then got for Autocad. It will do everything you want really. And will be easy to learn.

I use my CAD at home for stuff like that, Kitchen layout, Garden layouts, and i did start designing VVT for the cosworth head for fun, and an auto bonnet raiser for when you need that extra cooling in the engine bay.

great fun once you get into it.

 

For your use Beefy, agree with the above. AutoCAD

Ben