How to self-acquire good modeling practices? Also solidworks or NX?

[Trynix]

Hi everyone,

I'm planning on learning modeling on my own time because I really enjoy the idea of designing mechanical parts, and perhaps go at it until I get to designing good quality molds.

Since I plan to learn on my own, I'm worried about picking up bad modeling practices. Any advice to ensure I pick up good habits and practices? Any online courses or resources/books that you can recommend?

Additionally, since I'm learning for the first time, should I go for NX or Solidworks (I have access to both of them where I am) - especially given the end target of designing molds (mainly for plastic injection molding).

Thank you!

 

[dgallup]

Saladworks seems to encourage sloppy modeling and bad habits. I started with Pro/Engineer and it always required a rigorous definition which I consider a good thing. Getting sloppy with assumptions leads to unstable models that will fail to regenerate at some point. While there are lots of good videos to watch on YouTube, the quality is all over the map. It used to be better actually when only professionals were making them but now that anyone can host videos there are many more bad ones. I would start with a book or two but I've always preferred learning that way.

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The Help for this program was created in Windows Help format, which depends on a feature that isn't included in this version of Windows.

 

[3DDave]

There are no good or bad modeling practices. There are practices which make future changes easier, practices which those with little skill or patience for learning prefer, and practices which can be more productive but require learning to use. Only when working with models built under one goal (model fast, but not representative) to meet a different goal (make the model exactly representative) that conflicts arise.

What I have done on the multiple CAD systems I learned is to read the entire Help section. One cannot use what one doesn't know exists.

Realize that functions that allow rapidly creating masses of geometry also tend to preclude flexibility, particularly the "mirror" function when the downstream item is not 100% guaranteed to be mirrored. Be as explicit as possible - if there are key dimensions it may be worthwhile to create model parameters and drive dimensions from the parameters to ensure any change requires a purposeful effort, or assign geometric relations (parallelism/perpendicularity). Letting the software to guess what you want might be very painful later on.

 

[dgallup]

There are absolute crap modeling practices. Like building all sorts of geometry and then cutting it off rather than deleting or redefining the features. Or dimensioning to irrelevant references. I've never seen a case where fast and dirty did not end up wasting lots of time.

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The Help for this program was created in Windows Help format, which depends on a feature that isn't included in this version of Windows.