Best Text For Learning SW? 5

[RickVJ]

Can anyone recommend a good text for learning and for reference to SW. I am a SW newbie and have obtained a Solidworks 2005 Personal Edition and I am trying to learn it. Being a 14 year ACAD and 5 year Mechanical Desktop veteran I find it a little more difficult than people have told me it was going to be. Especially the cumbersome sketching compared to Mechanical Desktop. But I know I am missing something, it can't be all that difficult I tried the tutorial but I find it irritating that it takes up so much of the modeling space.

Any suggestions regarding good books???????????


Rick VJ

 

[handleman]

The text for the Solidworks Essentials training course (offered by your VAR) is quite good, and would do just fine for anyone who's decent at figuring out new software. I took the training (4 days), but all the instructor did was go step-by-step through the clearly illustrated book exercises. Of course, he was also available for questions. However, I think I would have learned as much and been better off taking the cash my company spent on the training, buying myself a bang-up PC, taking 4 days off work, spending 3 of them working through the book in my pajamas, and the fourth playing Quake III or Unreal Tournament on my brand new computer. Ha! I wish! But seriously, if you can find someone who's had that trainging and borrow their book for a week you'll be in good shape, assuming you can put into place some (or all!) of the ideas found in thread559-167708!

 

[RickVJ]

Thanks for the tip Handleman. Me being the impatient and impulsive type, I couldn't wait for a tip to come through this thread before I was in my car and heading toward the bookstore earlier tonight. I ended up buying a book called "Applied Solid Works" by L. Scott Hansen. It's geared toward anyone with little or no SW experience and is designed as a self study manual or for classroom educational purposes. I got it because it is very well illustrated and starts at the very basic and ends at a faily advanced level. I'm looking forward to diving into it.

rickvj

 

[Theophilus]

Check out SolidProfessor--videos with tips/tutorials.

http://www.solidprofessor.com/

(Not exactly a text, but a great way to learn.)

Also, if you go to youtube.com and search "solidworks", you'll find lots of free tutorials on-line:

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=solidworks&search=Search

Meanwhile, I believe the book to which you referred is one I've heard of before--probably a great start.

Check out the built-in tutorials for SolidWorks itself--very good for getting up and running quickly on your own. I'm self-taught (from ACAD) from way back in 1997, and sketching in SolidWorks at first felt like I was drawing with crayons--but I certainly wouldn't say it was cumbersome.

Then, start modeling things around you (on your desk, for instance) and refer to the Help files in SolidWorks (the best Help documentation I've ever seen--particularly for such a complex application) if you get stuck on anything.

Also, some community colleges offer courses on SolidWorks.

Jeff Mowry

http://www.industrialdesignhaus.com

Reason trumps all. And awe trumps reason.

 

[smcadman]

First of all, good for you for making an extra effort to try and learn Solidworks. You already got a book, but whenever I moved from MDT, I found SW a little awkward so I purchased "Engineering Design with SolidWorks 2004 and Multimedia CD" by David and Marie Planchard.

The CD is very much like SolidProfessor and very helpful. I noticed there are newer versions of that book also. Youtube, as Theophilus mentioned, has some great FREE tutorials.

SW07 SP1.0

Flores

 

[RickVJ]

Thanks alot guys for the tips. I've only been messing with SW for a couple of days now so I have alot to learn. The only thing I really don't like that I miss from ACAD Mechanical Desktop is ease of sketching, O-Snaps, and the "UNDO" button. Maybe SW has all of these features too and I just haven't learned them yet but what I do remember from way back when I was learning MDT is going through the same frustrations.

By the way can you customize menues so you can have all of your favorite or most commonly used icons in one menu like in ACAD? I really loved that feature.

Rick VJ

 

[Theophilus]

Hang in there and you'll get it. Takes a little practice over a period of time to remember all the tools.

Yes, you can customize your toolbars (not sure if that's exactly what you're looking for). Right-click in an area around the view screen where the toolbars are docked and you can set up which icons are shown in which toolbars, keyboard shortcuts, etc. It's great. Check it out.

Jeff Mowry

http://www.industrialdesignhaus.com

Reason trumps all. And awe trumps reason.

 

[ctopher]

Yes, SW has those features.
For menus, right-click in a grey area of the menu, scroll down to customize. From there you can go to the menu you want to customize and just drag the icon you want to the menu where you want it, then selsct OK.

Chris
Systems Analyst, I.S.
SolidWorks 06 4.1/PDMWorks 06
AutoCAD 06
ctopher's home (updated 06-21-06)

 

[RickVJ]

Thanks guys that's exactly what I wanted to do.

Rick Vander Jagt

 

[brengine]

You can not create a new toolbar tho, only modify the buttons on the toolbars SolidWorks installed with. Find an unused toobar, empty ot out, then fill it whith whatever buttons you want.

Ken

 

[emissivity]

I actually found better help using the examples/tutorials in the application and if that doesn't help I go to this forum.

I have a collection of Unigraphics, Solidworks and Autocad books and all of them don't compare to the helpful tips in the "help" menu and eng-tips.com

 

[CorBlimeyLimey]

There are also some good tutorials at

http://mountain-wave.blogspot.com/

​

Helpful SW websites faq559-520​

How to find answers ... faq559-1091​

SW2006-SP5 Basic ... No PDM​

 

[JMirisola]

I found "SolidWorks for Dummies" by Greg Jankowski to be helpful...

Jeff Mirisola, CSWP
CAD Administrator
SW '07 SP1.0, Dell M90, Intel 2 Duo Core, 2MB RAM, nVidia 2500M

 

[CorBlimeyLimey]

After re-reading the original post, I would suggest that rather than using the "obtained" copy of SolidWorks 2005 PE, you sign-up for the 3D skills program and get an up-to-date version.

http://www.solidworks.com/pages/news/3DSkills.html

Some VARs are offering a free online training course.

http://javelin-tech.com/main/events/3d_skills.htm

​

Helpful SW websites faq559-520​

How to find answers ... faq559-1091​

SW2006-SP5 Basic ... No PDM​

 

[Takami826]

I was flung into solidworks a couple years back after being an ACAD user from ACAD 9 thru to around 2000. Until I was able to find a class, I worked through the online tutorials. Once I found a class locally that was cheaper *by a lot* than the VAR classes, I got a book ENGINEERING DESIGN WITH SOLIDWORKS 2003 by Schroff Development Corp.

http://www.schroff.com

or probably on amazon.com cheaper. I liked it as it gave step by step examples of everything and it was good to have an experienced instructor for questions being a convert from AutoCAD. We're up to 2006 now, and the only classes I can find rehash everything from step one, so I just get the next book. Apparently our VAR has update classes but charge more than my company is willing to pay for, so it's usually up to me to learn or blunder into the new features.