Inventor Tutorials

[Cadmanto]

This is my very first posting on this forum.

Being a Solidworks guru of 12 years I am now finding myself working in a position

that uses Inventor.  Can someone point me in the direction of how to find tutorial

sites or what is a good place to start learning Inventor?

I know on the Solidworks forum when people would ask such a question I would point them

to youtube or other various type sites.

Thanks

[mflayler2]

Welcome to the forums and welcome to Inventor usage!

I would start here with the Inventor basic tutorials.  Even though you have been using a compteting 3D product for years, it is a good place to get your bearings and fundamentals of the software.

http://wikihelp.autodesk.com/Inventor/enu/2012/Help/2144-Tutorial2144/2145-Inventor2145

After that you can definately look in the same areas you listed above such as YouTube for video tutorials.  You can also use plenty of blog sites and other forums like MCADforums and CADTutor for more assistance as you transition.

Remember Inventor is a definately a very similar program to the one that you have used, but there are differences in how each program does things.  You will also find with 2012 products you have a whole Suite available to you to help you design.  Keep an open mind and you'll do fine.

[stevec781]

I switched from SW because I needed the normal to surface option in sweeps.  I found Masteirng Autodesk Inventor Book by Chris Waguespack a big help. 

But.... along the way I found heaps of small but annoying things missing, eg ruled surface, symetry mates, width mates, assembly mirrors dont create mates, mutual surface trimming, cant set a drawing sheet scale, thin feature in extrude (I really miss this), no toggle buttons in distance fields (should be standard in a windows based app), I should stop now...

I doubt you will find small things like this in any book and they will depend on what and how you usually model. 

In general I have found that I need to use more features and create more work geometry to get the job done, which means it also takes longer, so just be prepared to change your workflow, ask your work mates lots of questions, and get a spaceball

Oh and if you use intersection curves across parts in assemblies, the equivalent project cut edges in Inv is not associative when used across parts when modelling top down.

[JDMather]

You didn't state what version of Inventor you are using.
If 2012 the tutorial files are a separate download (search Google).

You might start here

http://home.pct.edu/~jmather/skillsusa%20university.pdf

And also search Google for Rob Cohee YouTube Inventor videos.

Curtis has some good stuff on his site too.

[Curtis_Waguespack]

Hi Cadmanto,

In addtion to the resources mentioned above, here are a couple of links that list some resources I've compiled:

http://inventortrenches.blogspot.com/p/inventor-tutorials.html

http://inventortrenches.blogspot.com/p/inventor-links.html

I hope this helps.
Best of luck to you in all of your Inventor pursuits,
Curtis
http://inventortrenches.blogspot.com

[Cadmanto]

Thanks Mark for the welcome.

Feels weird to get one considering that I am one of the major contributors on the Solidworks forum

and usually giving out the welcomes instead of receiving them.

Yes, I will try my best to keep an open mind.  I very much appreciate your feedback and will check them out

as I get into Inventor.  I actually don't start for another 10 days, but I figured I would start now by at least starting

some foundation.

I look forward to being here and peppering you guys with questions till I learn Ionventor to the point of knowing Solidworks.

[Cadmanto]

I don't know what version yet.  I ahven't officially started at the new job yet to find out.

Still ahve another 10 days or so.

[Cadmanto]

Thanks for the tip.  Spaceball?  I would love one.  Could of used that in Solidworks as well.  Saw them at world in February and loved what they do in the 3D modeling world.  I would venture to say that in the beginning I am going to be asking, "I know how to do this in Solidworks, how do I do this in Inventor?" a lot.  But that is where the patience come in.

[stevec781]

Inventor's middle mouse wheel is zoom and pan, not rotate so maybe time to invest in the spaceball.  I find the old 5000 series more comfortable than the new ones.  They often come up on ebay (be sure to get usb not serial) and the drivers still work on XP, not sure about Win7.

A sweep is a sweep and an extrude is an extrude so it's just going to be the little things that make you go

[JDMather]

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@stevec781 wrote:

.  They often come up on ebay (be sure to get usb not serial) and the drivers still work on XP, not sure about Win7.

---

I've got 25 of the USB 5000s sitting around because they don't work in Windows 7.

Thought I saw someone post how to get them to work - but lost the reference.

[rdyson]

My old Space Traveler (no longer supported by 3dconnexion) work fine on my new laptop on Win 7. I just installed the driver that shipped with the hardware rather than a newer version.

Could just be that I was lucky but might be worth trying with older drivers.

Win 7 does complain if I start up with the Space Traveler unplugged, something that XP didn't do.

[stevec781]

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@Anonymous wrote:

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I've got 25 of the USB 5000s sitting around because they don't work in Windows 7.

Thought I saw someone post how to get them to work - but lost the reference.

---

Have you tried running it in XP mode?

[Cadmanto]

I saw spaceballs back in January in Solidworks World 2011.  Know well what they can

bring to the table.  But I will cross that bridge when it comes.  As nice as I know they can

be I want to get up and running first in Inventor.

[Anonymous]

AutoDesk once had a booklet that was specifically authored for moving from Solidworks to Inventor. I think it was for Release 2009???

I have yet to see this for newer versions, I'll do a quick search and see if they still have it somewhere.

[Anonymous]

Cadmanto,

Here you go, a zip file for Solidworks to Inventor 2012:

http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/index?id=1079044&siteID=123112

Scroll down to the bottom of the page, you'll see the zip file.

Hope this helps and welcome.

[mflayler2]

That is not the training material, that is a guide between the two APIs for programming code.

There was a SolidWorks to Inventor book for the Inventor 2008 release, but due to lack of sales and the fact most users were able to pick it up without the manual, they discontinued it.

Really most of the users that I get that switch will take our Intro or Advanced classes depending on their skill level and they will ask the "where's this button" questions during the course.

[Cadmanto]

Thanks for the welcome

Thank you so much!!!  That is awesome

I am sure I will be using this a lot.

I have taken almost every possible training course for Solidworks so I am sure the "where's this button"

or "how do you perform this task in Inventor" will come up.