Learning Inventor

[acad-caveman]

Gentlemen.

With many thanks to Matt at Imaginit, I'm actively in the process of getting to know Inventor in it's full form.

That is a complete software including Inv-Pro and Autocad Mechanical and is functional for the next 30 days.

I'm not asking for help to avoid formal training nor will I ask questions regarding how-to and what's next...

What I'm asking is if there are any books, training videos, PDF-s or any other form of information for an absolute beginner

in Inventor.

From experience, I do much much better getting through the initial hurdles on my own than to bug someone with stupid questions. I need to do this to evaluate IV properly.

I've just successfully completed my very first model and have ran into a few issues which I will need to read up on and figure out what and why is done this way. I'm not looking for a step-by-step instruction manual, rather a quick overview and a comprehensive command manual.

Any help woould be much appreciated.

As a sidenote, my interactive tutorials in Inv2011 are not funtioning. I see the animation bar moving as it should, but there is absolutely nothing in the display window. The testbed machine is an Intel DG31PR motherboard, OS is Win XP-pro SP3, video card is Nvidia Quadro FX570 with the absolute latest drivers, including the Autodesk performance drivers.

Any ideas would be very helpful.

Thank You

[cbenner]

Check into Autodesk University online training, or speak to a VAR about classroom training.  Both have advantages.  I'm sure there ore tons of books and videos for beginners, have you tried a Google search or Amazon.com?

[JDMather]

Go through these (subtle differences - changed over time)

http://home.pct.edu/~jmather/AU2006/MA13-3%20Mather.pdf

http://home.pct.edu/~jmather/AU2007/MA105-1L%20Mather.pdf

http://home.pct.edu/~jmather/SkillsUSA University.pdf

...then the Help>Learning Tools>Tutorials

...then look around http://au.autodesk.com online classes as suggested

...attach files here when you run into problems.

[Dennis_Jeffrey]

There are many resources available at http://teknigroup.com,  under the Training link.  Also, subscribe to The Creative inventor Magazine below. We will be starting a beginner series in the July/August issue due out arount August 10th.

Any class you take should come with at least 60 days on instructor/student mentoring. This is offered with all Tekni online Live or Classroom based ibstruction.

Make sure that your instructor teaches "outside the book" so that you learn the things you really need in order to use Inventor productively. 

Instructors should have manufacturing industry (real world) experience to back up the training. Anyone can learn the basics from a book.

Good luck!

[msklein]

Your can tell you why your tutorials are not working I had the same problem when we updated to 2010, it was a very simple fix. I wish I could remember what it was so I could tell you. If I remember correctly a file was not loaded correctly.

If you haven't had the dog and pony show by your Var and are looking at other software make sure you have then do the demo using a couple of your parts not their canned demo's, make all software Var's do same parts for comparison. Have each of your guys watch a specific thing in demo, ex drawing tree, modeling, 3 part or so simple assy dwg with parts list.

MSK

[BMiller63]

The tutorial file is likely an issue with Adobe Flash Player, update it to see if that will fix it.

Look on Youtube for all kinds of tutorial vidoes.

many of learned a lot from Mr. Dotson's tutorials:

http://www.sdotson.com/tutorials.asp

also if you use the Search tool on this forum you can learn an awful lot.

[vamolino]

this is by far the best way IMO......

http://cd.cadlearning.com/pd_inventor_2010.cfm

if you dont want to wait a week for the dvd by mail....

http://cadlearning.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=43&Itemid=175&5ca87114e716ecd575...

just what ever you do not take the 40 hour course at a reseller. Its too expensive and you will only absorbe a small fraction of the information. You need to do a self/slow paced course with as many hours of experience(trying out what you learned) as possible before you advance to the next lesson.

[mflayler2]

Those DVDs aren't a bad way to learn, but don't discredit the 40 hour type course so easily.  Apparently Matt got you on the right course and if you have a class with him that may be all you ever need especially if you ask the right questions.

Keep in mind that not all resellers and trainers are created equal (clearly vamolino didn't have a good experience or didn't ask the right questions).  This is all based on how quick you want to get up an running with the software.  A 40 hour course of expierienced training is 200% better than a college course over 15 weeks for the same price or a DVD that you cannot ask questions to and get a response.  Excuse me, mr dvd, why would you use a revolve compared to an extrusion and for what reason?  Why would you use a Feature pattern compared to a Sketch pattern?

Also, judging from your previous posts about ACADm with Inventor there are some nice interops built in there if you prefer detailing in ACADm and modeling in IV.  I don't think mr dvd would show you that.

[vamolino]

I wasnt speculating about the 40 hour course, I took it for Inventor 5.0, along with Autocad 2000 and Bentley plant XM.   Theres a reason why college courses are spread over a 4 month period instead of a week.

But the main incentive should be availblity-dates and cost $3000 vs $400.

As far as the student-teacher questioning goes, I would rather have the DVD as a resource 24-7 to answer my questions  instead of teacher for only a week, i mean how many question could you possbly have when your focus is just trying to absorb the info and keep up?

[mflayler2]

Well, I guess that also depends on the Student/Teacher relatonship.  I have never not answered a question by a student after the class, but then again, sometimes I am 30K feet in the air and not available.  It might be nice to have both.

[BMiller63]

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@mflayler2 wrote:

...  there if you prefer detailing in ACADm and modeling in IV. 

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Not to derail the thread, is the detailing in ACADm and modeling in IV really a solution you recommend? I've found this to be more marketing hype than real world solution.

[mflayler2]

It has been a real world solution based on econmoics.

I have a couple clients that have multiple departments.  Design has 4 seats of IV.  Drafting and Detailing have 10 of ACADm.  Rather than buy extra seats of IV they are designing in IV and detailing and collaborating with ACADm.  They use Vault which manages the Inventor Link and when the ACADm file is checked out it will pull a new copy of the latest IV file for updtating.  All in all it saves them a ton on subs and helps in the migration of all their 2D data into current projects.

If money was no object, they would all be on Inventor.  And they want to, but the market isn't allowing them at this time as well as the amount of translation they would have to do on the legacy data during the transistion.  Over time the goal is to be 100% Inventor, but right now it is on a as needed basis.  On the bright side, they are using Structure in ACADm so they are understanding the concepts found in Inventor but at the 2D level.

Unless you know about this particular need, yes it really does sound like hype.  But not for the users in this scenario.

[BMiller63]

Thanks for the reply. Good to know.

One more quick question, from your reply it sounds like this workflow is not using Inventor Link. We tried that once and it was impossibly slow.

Again, applogies to the OP for derailing the thread.

[mflayler2]

It is using Inventor Link and you are right, the setup of the Orientation is really the time sucker.  I didn't say I liked it 😉 its just what the company has to do right now.  They couldn't justify the ROI for the productivity over the price of the transistion of all seats, training, and update of frequent legacy data.

[JDMather]

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@mflayler2 wrote:

This is all based on how quick you want to get up an running with the software.  A 40 hour course of experienced training is 200% better than a college course over 15 weeks for the same price...

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thbbbtt.........

Not so sure - I've done both and the 40hr course seems to be overwhelming to most - I see them making the same beginner mistakes and stuck at that level months (years) later.  The 15-week course I see real progression in technique.

[mflayler2]

Pro and Cons both ways.  Most (not yours ) have instructors that are barely functional in the software and combined with the relience on others progressing in the class, most of the time the amount learned is about 2/3 of what is covered in the 40 hour course geared to people who already know engineering and have been using some sort of CAD for a while.  I am sure you have met your fair share of instructors that when the class is over they know more than the teacher.

I had to teach a college instructur in the 40 week class how to use the software and the next week he was expected to start teaching a class at his university.  I asked what his degree was in and the response was Fine Arts.

[BMiller63]

personally, I think the number/percentage of poor Inventor VAR instructors is probably right in line with the number/percentage of poor Inventor college instructors. There are some exceptions (like the 2 of you, I'm guessing) but I think in most cases (be it VARs or Colleges) it's just about making $$, not delivering good training.

[JDMather]

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@mflayler2 wrote:

I had to teach a college instructur in the 40 week class....

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40 weeks?

[Dennis_Jeffrey]

JD, I agree 100%.

That's why my courses are spaced out into 3 or 4 hour sessions once or twice a week. With 40 hours back to back you learn very little. This is much more for the instructor's convenience than for the student's benefit.

I've had no complaints with my method over a 20 year time period of doing 3D training.

[JDMather]

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@BMiller63 wrote:

 I think the number/percentage of poor Inventor VAR instructors is probably right in line with the number/percentage of poor Inventor college instructors.

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Near as I can tell the number of competent college instructors could be counted without using any of my toes.

I've been trying to convince Autodesk for years that they should hold a competitive summer-long training/think tank type session all expenses paid in an attractive location (like Hawaii).  Let the best grad students and new faculty compete for a slot - then when they get back to their home institutions they will spread the knowledge.  They had a presenter in the Manufacturing Track Keynote at AU that expressed something similar to what I had in mind. (I forget the presenter's name but he was in charge of the X-Prize foundation.)

I think it would be a real multiplier for Autodesk.  I like the fact that they set up http://engineersrule.org , but if you could spend any time over there.  Oh man is it scary...........