chrisdicko

iTrader: (21)

Can anyone recommend, or know of any good CAD courses?

Work is willing to pay for me to do one as no-one there can do anything with CAD which makes us look unprofessional at time.

No-one including me really has any idea what to do with it, so it would have to be a basic course to start with. We mainly need to draw Third Angle projection and circuit diagrams for when we modify machines etc. I don't think we need 3D CAD although it may be useful?


Cheers

speedking

What software?

TBH for what you want you could start with AutoSketch and work through the examples.

That would at least tell you whether you need a course and what you expect to get out of it.

scooby1929

iTrader: (1)

Catia V5

chrisdicko

iTrader: (21)

I'm not sure really speedking. We do have AutoCAD95 (don't laugh), but we aren't sure where it came from, but the company will be willing to purchase up to-date software.

I have tried messing around with the autoCAD we have, but I don't have a clue what to do and things take hours to do instead on minutes.

What is Catia V5?

Tidgy

I think it will depend on what you want to get from the drawings. If your wanting pro and construct-able then plans, sections and elevations are the way to go.

Autocad tends to be generic industry standard, but its just lines and circles, and can cope with some 3D.

but that might be OTT for what you need.

Some packages will do design verification, 3d renders etc etc, but the price tends to reflect it.

p.s. im CAD coordinator with 10 years + drafting experience in structural detailing, mechanical electrical and process drawings

stilover

Most colleges do Autocad 2D courses.

Autocad is the most available and mostly used CAD about. Start with a course on that, but TBH, once you have AutoCad, most things are pretty straight forward anyway. I learnt more sat playing about in the office than I ever did on any course.

Courses are only any good for showing a few tips and trick, or the odd short-cut.

stilover

If you don't need 3D, just get the company to buy AutoCad LT

legacy_gtb

iTrader: (3)

As said, courses get you started, but its the work you take on after that gives you the real ability!

Im a cad contractor at Bentley, i now use catiaV5, but well versed in solidworks and inventor too .... but to be honest, these options are expensive and too in depth to fit your needs!

A good way to start would be autocad, im out of touch with what versions let you do what as i havent used it since i progressed to modelling software. but this only gives 2d capability and its suprisingly easy to progress from 2d to 3d, so you might need a full blown copy of autocad.

Neanderthal

iTrader: (6)

You can download a free 30 day trial of the latest versions of AutoCAD from http://usa.autodesk.com/autocad/trial/
Don't put your proper email address in otherwise you'll get hounded by one of their resellers!

dukeoffenland

local college do a city and guilds? I done the Level 2 and 3

RobJenks

PDMS is the way to go .
Proficient operators with the right experience can get 70 GBP / hour.

chrisdicko

iTrader: (21)

Thanks for the replies guys

I contacted the two local colleges yesterday afternoon, but neither of them offer any type of CAD course So I will have to look further afield. I was wanting to do it over a period doing evening classes rather than a 3 or 5 day course for example.

We don't need anything technical as we aren't designers or anything, but do get things made for machines if we modify them etc. Plus we make electrical panels etc so it would be nice to put them down on the computer rather than drawn.

I will give Draftsight a look seen as it's free, and download a free demo of AutoCAD.

I will look in to CatiaV5 and PDMS, but I imagine that is going to be too complex for me?

Did you guys do any courses anywhere to learn?


Thanks

Tidgy

I did an initial course with autodesk years ago, best bet would prob be try to get hold of the course material and just work through that. Its pretty good material, starts out step by step with pics of what to click, after a few times it then just tells you with words what to click by which time you should be ok to carry on.

chrisdicko

iTrader: (21)

I see, I will have a look cheers.

We do have autoCAD 95 which is massively outdated, but I have used it a few times but get frustrated as I don't know where to find things etc. I don't even know how to create a title block etc, so really need to learn the basics.

TimH

iTrader: (11)

Try SolidEdge 2D - it's completely free and has built-in tutorials, and lots of info and help on the web. I used to be an AutoCAD LT user and found SolidEdge much nicer...and I recently upgraded to SolidEdge 3D which is ace, although not exactly cheap

Tidgy

Autocad 95 isn;t that disimilar to 2013 despite what they say.

Its had graphical updates (ribbon), additional features added, but still based on lines and circles.

If you get up to speed on 95 it will easily transfer to 2013, i would advise learnign the keyboard comands, i find it alot quicker than hunting down icons, plus they dont tend to change version to version

chrisdicko

iTrader: (21)

Will have a look at that too Tim.

Thanks Tidgy. Found a City & Guilds night course about 25miles away which runs for 30 weeks. Shame it start 6 weeks ago now Might have to wait until next year when they run another one.

speedking

PDMS is way out of your league.

Why not try "AutoCAD for Dummies"? That should give some insight into the concepts like snapping and dimensioning, model space / paper space etc. and cost a lot less than a 1 day course.

scooby1929

iTrader: (1)

I am an aircraft design engineer and all the big aerospace companies use Catia V5 and its superb. There are so many very well paids jobs available in the UK and further afield if you have experience in V5. I have 8 subcontractors working for me at the minute in Belfast and they are on £34 per hour

Tidgy

catia isn't typical CAD though, pretty heavily specialized. For the purposes required i'd sugest its OTT

chrisdicko

iTrader: (21)

Thanks Speedking and scooby1929. This isn't something I am looking at doing full time or anything, just some form of training to allow me to draw simple 2D projections etc.

By the sounds of it Catia V5 will be far too complicated for me! lol

CrisPDuk

From what I'm understanding, AutoCad LT will probably be more than sufficient for your needs Chris, it's what most of our panel builders use. If you're using the same component parts all the time, it's very easy to build up a block library and then pick what you need per build.

Most of the draffies at our place now work on Inventor which is a 3D modelling package, but I'm old skool, I still do my 3D on AutoCad

If you decide to go for a full AutoCad package rather than LT, avoid anything newer than 2011 2012 & 13 both have massive machine requirements to run properly and are riddled with annoying little bugs

Unless your planning to get heavily into either the automotive or aerospace industries, Catia is whole levels above what you'll need, it is awesome though

Tidgy

my guys had issues with 2012 till the RAM got upped to 8GB, thats sorted out 99.9% of the issues we had for day to day 2D stuff.

So as you say resources requirements are going up.

Should see the recomended high end spec for revit 2013

CrisPDuk

Our IT muppets forced 2013 on us about 3 months ago

We don't really understand why, because we're still saving at 2007 because none of our customers or suppliers can read anything newer

Apart from the usual 'changes for changes sake' there are now several issues where previously common shortcuts either no longer work, or cause the PC to freeze.

The only think the AutoDesk help comes up with is;
Problem - you tried to do this, solution - don't do it

CrisPDuk

I think you mean masochist STI, and I would partially disagree with you

It's horses for courses really, for architectural stuff, and for laying out things like pipe and cable routes through or between buildings and other structures, AutoCad is far faster than Inventor

Where the Inventor monkeys come into their own is on the machinery design side. On a decent CAD machine* the capabilities of modern 3D modelling packages are very impressive

This is where our IT muppets really screw up though, they keep forcing newer, larger and faster software on us, but expect the archaic hardware to cope
I had to fight tooth and nail for my 64 bit machine, the b@stards have tried reallocating it twice in the last three months alone

nik52wrx

I work in the construction industry and we use Revit structure for all our work.
Autocad is rarely used anymore.

Nik

Tidgy

um revit is autocad

Neanderthal

iTrader: (6)

Revit never used to be an Autodesk product, like many decent CAD packages before it, Revit had some great ideas, Autodesk saw that, and bought the company, increasing their stranglehold on the industry....

Tidgy

to be fair to autodesk they are throwing way more development behind autocad and the family of products than any other developer. alot of the other packages are autocad bolt ons anyway

CREWJ

If you are going into 3D engineering then you would have to choose one of these;

Catia V5
ProEngineer Creo
NX 7.5

If you are a beginner then either of these would be a fine starting point;

Solidworks
Solidedge
ProDesktop
AutoCAD