Differences Between AutoCAD Mechanical & Autodesk Mechanical Desktop

[rturner]

What are the basic differences, advantages / disadvantages, etc. between AutoCAD Mechanical and Autodesk Mechanical Desktop?

[Anonymous]

MDT is a parametric 3-d modeler
AcadM is autocad on steroids


wrote in message news:5742228@discussion.autodesk.com...
What are the basic differences, advantages / disadvantages, etc. between
AutoCAD Mechanical and Autodesk Mechanical Desktop?

[JDMather]

AutoCAD and AutoCAD Mechanical are products that are still sold by Autodesk.
Mechanical Desktop is not.
http://estore.autodesk.com

[Anonymous]

Really?

Chas
wrote in message news:5742671@discussion.autodesk.com...
AutoCAD and AutoCAD Mechanical are products that are still sold by Autodesk.
Mechanical Desktop is not.
http://estore.autodesk.com

[JDMather]

>Really?
Yep

http://lp.adskhost.com/index.php/1391.html
Click View the Timeline and then click Design Without Limits. I believe it was Feb 2002 when it was announced that MDT would be given away free with Autodesk Inventor Series. I remember teaching an industry MDT Surfaces class several months later were there was a lot of speculation on the move to stop selling MDT. Then in the following fall I told my class that we would, "Look at Inventor but MDT was still my favored program." By the end of the semester I was eating my words. We had been doing every exercise in both programs. Pretty soon we realized it was a waste of time to even open MDT. The next semester we did not even bother to install it on the machines and I have not had another industry request to teach the class through our Autodesk Authorized Training Center since June '02. I haven't seen a MDT class offered at AU since '04 and that one was primarily FEA. I don't recall if FEA was in Inventor Professional yet at that time.

Why you are at that site listed above you might want to click on the Products link and follow the tree.

JD Mather
Autodesk Inventor Certified Expert
Certified SolidWorks Professional

[Anonymous]

I believe that the term give away free was a marketing ploy to bump up the
number of Inventor seats out there. I've been paying for and receiving
updates with every Acad release of a updated version of MDT since this
announcement. If MDT was a done deal in 2002 how come were still getting new
releases in 2008?
If Autodesk had to rely on the actual sales numbers of Inventor seats
actually in use they wouldn't have much for the marketing side. If the
dropped the MDT softwae upgrades they would lose a market share of current
customers not all entirely pleased with the IV series.

Aug
wrote in message news:5742840@discussion.autodesk.com...
>Really?
Yep

http://lp.adskhost.com/index.php/1391.html
Click View the Timeline and then click Design Without Limits. I believe it
was Feb 2002 when it was announced that MDT would be given away free with
Autodesk Inventor Series. I remember teaching an industry MDT Surfaces
class several months later were there was a lot of speculation on the move
to stop selling MDT. Then in the following fall I told my class that we
would, "Look at Inventor but MDT was still my favored program." By the end
of the semester I was eating my words. We had been doing every exercise in
both programs. Pretty soon we realized it was a waste of time to even open
MDT. The next semester we did not even bother to install it on the machines
and I have not had another industry request to teach the class through our
Autodesk Authorized Training Center since June '02. I haven't seen a MDT
class offered at AU since '04 and that one was primarily FEA. I don't recall
if FEA was in Inventor Professional yet at that time.

Why you are at that site listed above you might want to click on the
Products link and follow the tree.

JD Mather
Autodesk Inventor Certified Expert
Certified SolidWorks Professional

[JDMather]

>I believe that the term give away free was a marketing ploy to bump up the number of Inventor seats out there.

Yes, that was the speculation 5 years ago.

I decided to go ahead and install MDT 2008 to see if I could figure out why Autodesk doesn't offer it as a stand alone product on it's own merits anymore.

The install was almost hidden - under AutoCAD Mechanical.

[JDMather]

>If MDT was a done deal in 2002 how come were still getting new releases in 2008?

Even when I went through the manual configuration the only mention of MDT was a checkmark to place a desktop icon. This must be confusing for IT departments. Do you have them install Inventor as well or just MDT?

[JDMather]

>I've been paying for and receiving updates with every Acad release of a updated version of MDT since this announcement.

Are you pleased with the value of your purchases?

>If the dropped the MDT softwae upgrades they would lose a market share of current customers not all entirely pleased...

I surprised that these customers are not making more noise on this forum. I went to Help>What New in MDT
What's New in Autodesk Mechanical Desktop

64 bit Mechanical Desktop
BOMs, Balloons and Parts Lists
Power Dimensions
DWG product recognition
InfoCenter
Section Lines
Standard Part Library
Symbols

At least this list is at least twice as long as I have seen in some previous releases of MDT.

[Anonymous]

JD, I fail to understand your passion against MDT, it all seems rather
childish.

wrote in message news:5744222@discussion.autodesk.com...
>I've been paying for and receiving updates with every Acad release of a
>updated version of MDT since this announcement.

Are you pleased with the value of your purchases?

>If the dropped the MDT softwae upgrades they would lose a market share of
>current customers not all entirely pleased...

I surprised that these customers are not making more noise on this forum. I
went to Help>What New in MDT
What's New in Autodesk Mechanical Desktop

64 bit Mechanical Desktop
BOMs, Balloons and Parts Lists
Power Dimensions
DWG product recognition
InfoCenter
Section Lines
Standard Part Library
Symbols

At least this list is at least twice as long as I have seen in some previous
releases of MDT.

[JDMather]

>JD, I fail to understand your passion against MDT, it all seems rather childish.

Passion?

Take a objective view of my post in this thread rather than a subjective one.

A new user comes along who apparently doesn't know anything about MDT. How many years would it take to inform the newbie? Don't let me stop you from providing information to the uniformed.

[PSM]

Can you explain to me how to produce manufacturing drawing faster in IV then in MDT when you have a product with aprox 30 parts, al table or globaldesign driven.

Now it take me 5 sec to copy paste one file(1 product) from our ground library to order library and change the name to current project item number. Then I change length, with etc and do export view and save it as .dwg 2d in correct layer.

My opinion is that saving manufacturing drawings in 2d.dwg is the only way if you want to open the drawing in 20 years, deliver cut template to workshop and assembly's to customer.

[JDMather]

Sounds like MDT does what you need.
Do you still purchase updates?

>Can you explain to me
If you are trying to learn Inventor this is the wrong forum. You might try asking your question on the Inventor forum.

>saving manufacturing drawings in 2d.dwg is the only way...
Inventor 2008

JD
Certified Journeyman Machinist

[PSM]

Yes we do, but we are still in MDT 2006.