New to CADD in general, need some advice please

[Anonymous]

Hi, I'm new to AutoCad. I have lots of  Adobe Photoshop and Google Sketchup experience and I also have 3 years of mechanical engineering college but did not learn AutoCad prior to dropping out 20 years ago.  I love inventing things and dream of making it big one day, but for now, I have a custom automotive fiberglass and plastic parts design and manufacturing company. I draw designs on photoshop and then pay someone to draw a model in Autodesk 3Ds Max. I use the model for scupting, measuring and marketing. I do all the  prototypes and moulds the old fasioned way.... After 20 years, now I'm very interested in learing to design parts on CAD and then having the molds or prototypes milled out on a CNC if possible...getting too old to do everything the hard way!  Can anyone help me with some advice as to which Cad Program would be the best for me? 

[JDMather]

AutoCAD is a very different beast than Autodesk Inventor.

http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/AutoCAD-2010/New-to-Autocad/td-p/3584164

[Anonymous]

I know they are different but  can you give me a little more information please?  I was told that Inventor may be what I am looking for or possibly  Alias

[mcgyvr]

Inventor is 3d based parametric modeling/assemblies,etc.... Autocad while it does do some 3d is not really meant for it at all. I basically consider Autocad 2d and Inventor 3d.

Having said that Inventor is the way to go for typical mechanical 3d parts.. If its mostly free-form surfaces,etc.. like you probably have then there are other programs that might be better suited for you.. Rhino/Alias,etc..

Frankly I believe you should get a demo of Inventor, get a demo of Alias, get a demo of Rhino, and a few more, etc. and really sit down and try each with your simple/typical parts... In my opinion you should be able to learn them just sitting there,running through the included tutorials,etc.. Enough to see what might work for you and what doesn't.

[JDMather]

These are expensive professional programs and deserve (require?) a professional level of preparation.

In my opinion it takes about 3 yrs of concentrated effort to learn on your own what it sounds to me like you want to do with the software.

Do you have around $10k USD for the software and training?  (that is one or the other, not both, and not including CAM software to generate CNC g-code)

[Anonymous]

I don't mind the 3 years and I also don't mind the $10K. but I only want to learn one of the programs! The company that will do the CNC work should have the CAM software, all I need is to be able to provide the proper models/files they can work with.  What is "free form surfaces"  anyway?  I do mostly automotive exterior parts that have a lot of compound curves. I've played around with a couple of these programs and they seem too complicated for me to just "try them out and see which I like best", which is the advice I'm hearing.  I need to make an edjucated guess on which will be the most useful for my needs before I go to the expense to try to learn it. I tried to find a customer service help line from autodesk and could not find one.

[jletcher]

I would suggest having the Software companies come in and do a demo for you. Tell them what you do and the demo should be that.  Or they will show you things you don't care about. Depending on the shapes sometimes solid models can get you there.

I would also look into 3D printing for your proto-types Machines are not that expensive and you can do it at your place.

But just getting trails of the software and trying things may frustrate you. Getting them to demo it for you will give you a chance to see how hard it would be or how easy.

I would even supply them something to make just don't make it the hardest thing...

Good luck in your search....

[Anonymous]

The parts we make are too large for a 3D printer, some of them 7' long although there are also smaller parts too. how do you go about getting a demo/sales guy to come to you??

[jletcher]

Find your reaseller for Autodesk, Solid Works, Solid Edge, Catia, Rino, Pro E Wildfire. You can find them by search online search like Solid works they have a section to find local resellers. You may get lucky and fid one reseller that sells them all.

And 7' is small.

I have acsess to a  14' x 14' 3D printer so 7' is nothing.

and a 20' x 20' foam mill..

Best of luck...............

[stevec781]

Sounds liek you need free form and not much else so autocad and inventor are the wrong tools for you.  Have a look at Rhino, Key Creator, Ironcad and Spaceclaim.  If you want to produce 2D drawings as well then forget Rhino.  These are much cheaper and better for freeform push/pull style of modelling.  To see them in action just search for them on youtube.

[JimSteinmeyer]

You will need a program that will do surface modeling, Looking at Autodesk I see that Alias is an Autodesk product and thus it will (should) transfer files between Alias and Inventor with a minimum of problems. I don't know if Alias will model anything other than surfaces. This may be an area that you may want to  look at as you may want to design items with thicknesses, like the actual molds for example.

     I also do not know if Inventor will create surfaces, some of the more experianced inventor users can answer that for you. I also do not know if Creo/ Pro-E will do surfacing either, Pro-Engineer did years ago when I used it but with the changes to Wird Fire and now Creo I have no idea of the available capabilitys.

     I do know that SolidWorks is able to work with surfacing as well as solid models. There is a definate need for training when trying to use surfacing. When I was using SolidWorks I was given a project innvolving surfacing and told to figure it out. I purchased Matt Lombard's Surfacing bible for SolidWorks and after 6-8 months of working on it part time was able to work through the project but training would certainly be advised. Matt is also active on the SolidWorks Forum and you could get some good advice from him.

     Looking at my Inventor Essentuals manual it does mention surfacing but looks to just breifly mention it. I suspect Autodesk put most of their surfacing abilitys into Alias.

     I think one of the best suggestions so far has been to contact your local resellers of at least Solidworks, Autodesk and Creo/Pro and have them create a few of your parts for you. Remember "their software can always do what you want" Just make sure they can do it with your parts and not a canned design. Preferrably while you are watching so you can see that even the experts can have problems too.

Hope this helps at least a little.

[Anonymous]

that is some good info, thanks! you are right, sounds like I need to do surfacing and solid because I do want to be able to generate moulds.  Anybody know the difference between the regular solidworks Inventor program and the Inventor Fusion 2013?

[JDMather]

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@Anonymous wrote:

that is some good info,

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No, you are getting a lot of noise from someone who even admits they don't know what they are talking about.

Get the VARs to demo, but keep in mind that is more a test of the presentor's skill than it is a test of the product functionality.

Virtually all automobile companies use Autodesk Alias Automotive as their initial body design tool.

[stevec781]

In reading your first post again I see you want CNC milling so that changed things a bit.  No matter which program you get a demo done for they will all be able to make a solid model for you.  Some will be slightly faster and easier than others, but you wont see any problems as the people doing the demo know their stuff. 

The first thing you should decide is your budget, do you have a budget of $50,000, $10,000, $5000, $2000, $900 or $200.  There is a program in each of these price ranges that can create a solid part. 

But also look to see what CAM intergration they have available so you can export to your cnc mill.  Some even have integrated CAM simulators so you can see the tool path and check for tooling clashes. Check out 2.43min on this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSGBxhFY7qk  He is using this http://www.alibrecam.com/alibrecam.asp  There is also Bobcad http://www.bobcad.com/  Dont know much about its modelling capabilities though.

Forget brand names, look at the programs that fit your budget and your needs, then see which one is the easiest to learn, then trial it yourself.  You could spend months comparing and watching demos and still get nowhere because they are all capable of creating your part, but not all of them can simulate tool paths or generate the G Code for cnc a machine.

[JDMather]

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@stevec781 wrote:

In reading your first post again I see you want CNC milling so that changed things a bit.  ...

The first thing you should decide is your budget, do you have a budget....

But also look to see what CAM intergration they have available so you can export to your cnc mill. ....

...Forget brand names, look at the programs that fit your budget and your needs, then see which one is the easiest to learn, then trial it yourself. 

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Response #6 the OP wrote, "The company that will do the CNC work should have the CAM software, all I need is to be able to provide the proper models/files they can work with."

CAM software can use surfaces or solids.

[stevec781]

Oh I missed that.  Alibre or Rhino would probably be a good starting point.  Hard to be sure without seeing an example of what he makes.

[JimSteinmeyer]

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@Anonymous wrote:

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No, you are getting a lot of noise from someone who even admits they don't know what they are talking about.

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I started a longer responce but I do not want to offend someone who's opinion I have grown to greatly respect. I will just say that often your responces are so short and to the point that they leave many questions hanging. Thus some of us feel the need to attempt to answer those questions from our experiances. I did point out where my knowledge is limited, butr I have had some experiance with other  programs.

[JDMather]

The "noise" that prompted my short response was deleted by another poster.

I just wanted to make sure the OP didn't run and make a decision on what I saw as some sketchy advice.

[JDMather]

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@Anonymous wrote:

 I tried to find a customer service help line from autodesk and could not find one.

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http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/ps/searchform?siteID=123112&id=1088201

[Anonymous]

Anybody know the difference between the regular solidworks Inventor program and the Inventor Fusion 2013?