Beginner help needed!

[ZachTelchik]

Hello, 

I am currently a Sophomore majoring in Mechanical Engineering. This summer I have an internship in which I will be working with AutoCAD Mechanical. I am new to AutoCAD and the only experience I have with CAD software is through SolidWorks. The company I will be working with is aware I have no previous experience and is willing to teach me. With that being said, I still want to learn as much about AutoCAD Mechanical as possible before this summer. So far I have downloaded the student edition of AutoCAD mechanical and have been watching Autodesk's "getting started" videos, other tutorials I have been able to find online, and just fiddling around with the software. 
 

My question is does anyone know of resourceful websites that has tutorials or beginner guides? Or maybe even books that do? Really just any links to any type of guide/tutorials about AutoCAD Mechanical would be greatly appreciated! Thanks!

-Zach T.

[Bob_Zurunkle]

Wow. Well, for a little background, Mechanical is what is known as a vertical product, which is to say it is built on top of AutoCAD, with a set of powerful tools that are uniquely different from AutoCAD. There are a number of AutoCAD tools that are suppressed or revised in the Mechanical version. Still, to learn Mechanical is to learn AutoCAD. One of the biggest things about them are the ability to use command aliases to improve productivity. These are 1- or 2- or 3- button commands you type in with one hand, while mousing with the other. L is for line, for example...

Another thing to know is that you can fire up AutoCAD by itself without any of the Mechanical add-ons. This is done through the Start menu, under AutoCAD Mechanical you will find two different buttons -- one for starting Mechanical, and one for starting AutoCAD by itself. People will tell you that you can change profiles within Mechanical to use "vanilla" AutoCAD, but that approach still retains many things that aren't standard AutoCAD things. I only tell you this for informational purposes, should you ever have a need for "vanilla" AutoCAD drafting.

Lastly, I'd keep looking on this forum for answers to issues you may have as you go along. Good Luck!