Hey there! So I'm a (novice) AutoCAD user by profession, architectural. In my area there's been a lot more demand for mechanical Solidworks/Inventor drafters lately I have no training or experience in Inventor but I decided to use my Autodesk Education Community account to give 2013 a go. First thought... wow this is different! Anyway, I'm still slowly learning (Inventor seems to be about 1000x more complicated than AutoCAD!). I wanted to practice assemblies using multiple parts and decided to crap out a PS4 mock-up and see what I can do with nothing but a few hours practice and a couple of Youtube vids. Any drafters out there that can recommend some good books/training materials for Inventor? I'd love to dig deeper into this program. Anyway, here's what I managed to "invent"
I prefer Solidworks, I gave Autocad a go for about a year back in 2007 and basically realised that Solidworks would be better for myself as an Industrial Designer, never looked back. I think the boom in the requirement for Solidworks/Inventor Drafters is down to recruiters "thinking" that it what is required now.
AutoCAD to Solidworks convert speaking. Coming from AutoCAD is a big step, but SolidWorks has a really good library of tutorials built in. It would surprise me if Inventer did not?
Inventor actually does have some good tutorials built into it but I like to have a big book in front of me. Unfortunately my school focuses strictly on Architectural CAD so there are no resources on Inventor. Off to the bookstore with me!
You'll come back disappointed, unless you happen to find a "for dummies" book which are typically as useful as toilet paper. I'm afraid to say, that most of us learnt via trial and method, along with youtube video's
I will practicing then! Plenty of good video tutorials and like you sais, hands on learning! Sent from Bittech Android app
As mentioned by others your best bet is trial and error, maybe work through a design from initial concept to completion. I always suggest trying to draw a chess set to my new starters, as it covers all the basic features - extrude, revolution, chamfer, fillet etc. If you hover the mouse over each feature, it provides a brief explanation and if you hold it for longer it also provides a video of how to use it. With any form of feature based modelling software the two main ideas to conquer are the workflow (creating a 2D sketch and expanding it into a 3D object) and the fact that you can always create the same object through a whole range of combinations of different features.
