Anyone willing to give me a few pointers?

I'm proficient in AutoCAD in 2D (civil engineering stuff) but the 3d modeling is a slow learn for me.

Thanks

I'm working with 2002, take the tutorials it'll help make sense. Keep an eye on your orgin, it'll be more important when you start working with assemblies.

Also tube seems to be a real beetch. I'm fairly new to the software, but it seems that SW has trouble understanding joining the end of a tube to the face of another.

Joe

Tubing is what I'd like to work toward. Wonder why. I may need to order a book.

Originally posted by LCOwner
Anyone willing to give me a few pointers?

I'm proficient in AutoCAD in 2D (civil engineering stuff) but the 3d modeling is a slow learn for me.

Thanks

I'm goign through the same thing... a few weeks ago I started to mess around with it, and got pissed off, and now it's finals time so I'll hit it over my break to see if it'll come together for me... it'd be real cool to be able to learn it and do cage designs with it... just for the hell of it...

check out my thread in gen4x4
"4link opinions" those drawings were done with sw2001. Its a cool program. I have also drawn some cages/tube beds.
greg

when i was transfered over to SW From AutoCad the hardest part for me was thinking about how it had to be built. Autocad lets you start with a square and create a block, then create another block and "union" the two together to make an object with a boss. SW on the other hand works from the machinits point of view. Take this block, and mill away what you dont need so that the boss is created.

Once I changed my mindset to thinking from the machinist POV SW kicked ass!.

I have been useing it everyday for the past 3 years, and love it. It is kinda hard to understand at first but once you catch on it is very powerfull tool. Do tube like cage and bumper design can be a pain in the a$$, But you will learn little short cuts to make it easier. Get the tutorials and go through them they will give you most all the basics and then go from there. You will find that there will be alot of functions that you will never use.

got any pointers to getting SW 03. :D:D

All I have is 01 or 02...don't remeber.

Originally posted by Weasel
got any pointers to getting SW 03. :D:D

All I have is 01 or 02...don't remeber.

alt.binaries.warez.autocad :D If you know what that means good for you, if not figure it out! :p

Originally posted by TPIJeep


alt.binaries.warez.autocad :D If you know what that means good for you, if not figure it out! :p

Most of my software comes form those stores. :D

I used Acad for 5 years. Sw took me about a week of pure frustration to learn. The hard part is ditching the Acad mindset. You don't need to add perfect dimensions right away since you can change them so easy in SW. Here's my dream project if I ever find the time and money:

http://www.azrockcrawler.com/_images/projectmp/projectmp2/projectmprev5.jpg

http://www.azrockcrawler.com/_images/projectmp/projectmp2/projectmprrev5.jpg

My latest version has axles and more detail.

Anyone interested in .pdf manuals/tutorials?

Originally posted by dreamerof1
Anyone interested in .pdf manuals/tutorials?
yeah

I'm also interested...

sign me up!!

I'm in.

Originally posted by dreamerof1
Anyone interested in .pdf manuals/tutorials?

Sign me up also would like Autocad manuals/tuts.

e-mails have been sent to those interested. BadDog, you're e-mail isn't shared, but e-mail me @ pbbcadshare@attbi.com and I'll hook ya up.

Drew

Im currently a TA for a solidworks course....for the students,with the text books they include a 6 month free trial software...but SW's policy is to NOT provide it for the instructors?!?!?...Drawing cages/tube is all about reference planes.
Here are some $hity images of what I might do to my 4runner. You can get an idea of how many planes i use. the fastest way i have found is to draw 1/2 the image and the mirror it(for the symmetric stuff). to draw the cage, set up reference planes everywhere there will be a bend or node. Then, I position 2-D points on these planes where the tubing bends or nodes will be. Next, connect the points with a 3-d line. Fillet the bends. Then set up a reference plane perpendicular to the 2-d line and draw a circle. Sweep the circle along the path. Azrcrawler might have a more efficient way to do this, but thats how i do it.
hth-greg

thanks drew...
I got the email, but hotmail made me delete it... long story shor tI noticed you said you ad the tutorials on kazaa.. I think that'd be better for me to get them... but I gues I search for soldiworks tutorials?

I built a full tube chassis in Solidworks, I swept each tube induvidually as if I was building the real thing, then I went to to an assembly and put them all together. For those of you just learning solidworks, I found the easiest way to learn it is to draw the part as if you are actually making the part in the machine shop.

Originally posted by joes75bronco
thanks drew...
I got the email, but hotmail made me delete it... long story shor tI noticed you said you ad the tutorials on kazaa.. I think that'd be better for me to get them... but I gues I search for soldiworks tutorials?

Search under "documents" for solidworks.

Originally posted by Ant
I built a full tube chassis in Solidworks, I swept each tube induvidually as if I was building the real thing, then I went to to an assembly and put them all together. For those of you just learning solidworks, I found the easiest way to learn it is to draw the part as if you are actually making the part in the machine shop.

I've always found it easier to do tube structures in assembly. Creating parts there instead of creating in part and trying to get them to fit. Open a blank assembly, give it a name so you can save, INSERT>NEW PART>select a datum.

my $.02

Drew

here's my image i meant to post with all the planes i use.