Low budget cad for design and build - sharing plans.

[Pete's Metalshaping]

Originally Posted by FriarTuck

I agree with whose who get frustrated with the learning curve. I have spent hours with TurboCad Pro 10.4, and with my copy of Alibre Designs that we got free last year during their initial giveaway to guys who registered. Both appear to be great programs, but just don't have the grey matter or ability to stick to it long enough to use either for anything practical. Wish I did.

Tuck

I also got a copy of Alibre, last year. Installed it onto my computer, but couldn't ever get it to work. All of the commands were under intesified, so when you clicked on them, nothing would happen. I sent an email to the folks at Alibre and got no response, so after spending some more time gave up. I would imagine that it is a configuration problem.

Over the years, I've spent a lot of hours getting my computer to work correctly. Now days, I just don't want to deal with many problems with the computer.

[Avalonjr]

The older we get, the less trainable we become. Not because we are less smart, but because we are more experienced! Experience teaches you what to expect. It gives you insight regarding what is to come and how to achieve your goals.

Unfortunately we're not hunting anymore. We're at the mercy of somebody elses version of a great idea... Sadly, Software isn't constrained by convention or standards. It is partly why progress has been swift if not smooth in this arena.

If the designer of the software doesn't have similar experience, you will find the package illogical and difficult to work with, because you're expecting something else. It seems contrary to your experience. Along comes a kid, with no expectations, and he's up and running in no time.

For this reason, it is better to just get what ever programs those around you use. At least you can share the experience and hopefully figure out the how and why.

[Gene_Olson]

I went to the soldworks Hands On demo.
That was kind of fun.
I picked up a few points on how a "real" cad program works, as opposed to my friendly home turf of Rhino.
Some of the info I picked up helped to understand how to approach some stuff in the Alibre download.

I was pretty impressed with the Solidworks interface, and layout. Things seemed to flow pretty well, BUT . . .
There were configuration issues.

The version on "my" machine didn't have the same settings as the instructor's machine. Things worked, but differently. Twice we had to go thru a short tree of long lists to change the setup options.

As with any complex program. one could get lost.
It is one thing to sit in the cab shifting gears, and quite another to open the hood take a screwdriver and change something, (let's see was that screw on the hose clamp or the carburator)

When you see the canned demos things go so-o smooth.
Here it went pretty smoothly but one got a feeling of the huge pile of options under the hood. There appeared to be a lot of preferences that could be set. Knowing where those controls are seems important, though that knowledge also seems a bit beyond the experience of a beginner who doesn't yet realize the tool exists let alone whether it's sharp or not.



Gene

[Boogiemanz1]

Hi John, I wholeheartedly agree with what you said. Kinda, how dumb you are depends on where you're standing.

When I hired people for my bike shop, I would rather hire someone that had no experience so I did not have to "unlearn" them of their bad habits.

I'm interested, but I don't need a new thing to learn..................

[briggsy97]

I learned AutoCad V14 at the university. It was the last version where you created a part in 2d and then manipulated it into 3d. I've also been forced to learn CADKey98 for work. It is another 2d to 3d program. (You'll never click the mouse more to make a rectangle than in this program) Now the university has switched to Pro Engineering Wildfire. It is the standard around here, especially for the mold and die shops. My company has moved on to solidworks and it is great. I still don't have a full version, but do get to use it on anothers pc once and awhile. For my limited experience I prefer solidworks. Here is a link the instructor at the university gave me.

http://www.journeyed.com/department....=DPengineering

This is where the university gets all of their materials and software for the class. The same books that they use at the university are on the site too. I don't know about the others that have had a college CAD class, but mine was light on the instruction and heavy on the application. The teacher did little lecture, but set the pace. We just worked our way through the book, and he was there to answer any questions. Most of the time a fellow classmate helped. I think most of us could learn soldworks with just a book, and helping eachother.

Robert

[Avalonjr]

Gene,

I love your analogy:

It is one thing to sit in the cab shifting gears, and quite another to open the hood take a screwdriver and change something, (let's see was that screw on the hose clamp or the carburator)

Can I use that?

I agree with you about setup issues. Usually its done once and forgotten about.... until you upgrade your machine and find out that you're out of the technical support window. Arrrrgh!!!

[Gene_Olson]

Originally Posted by Avalonjr

Gene,

I love your analogy:

Can I use that?

Help yourself, I think just about anybody here might have written that.