Mechanical drafting for Mechanical Engineering undergrad?

[dumpsta]

I was just wondering how many people were taught drafting up to ansi standards during their undergrad curriculum? For my undergrad, i had half a semester on autocad. I'm just wondering because my drawings were not up to par (mostly cosmetic). Do most people know this coming out of college?

 

[drawoh]

I'm sorry, when I meant drafting, i meant cad drafting, more specific, Solidworks. All the dimensions needed to make the assembly were there.

These were most of the corrections
- Putting sheet scale in title block when multiple scale views are present on the drawing. Does this always have to be there?

Yes, the scale should be there. The whole point of SolidWorks, far more so than on a drafting board is that you draw to scale. Most of your views should be the default scale.

- measuring angles as 135 deg instead of 45 deg

I would have to see the view that got corrected. I find I have to think carefully about how I apply angles to drawings. There are a lot of wrong ways to do this, especially of you do not use GD&T to control the angled face.

Did you ask him why he prefers 135[°]?

- ballooning all parts in assembly drawing. Putting quantity next to balloon unless you only need 1 where you just put ref.

An assembly drawing tells somebody how to put the thing together. They need the item balloons. The quantity is helpful too.

- lining up balloons in a straight line.

I would have to see the corrected view. In general, I agree with TheTick on this one. I position balloons and dimensions so that they are readable, and you can see clearly what they are attached to. Usually, this does not involve lining them up.

- underlining and centering main view notes.

Again, I would have to see this. My main drawing view notes, entered with Solidworks, are above the titleblock, and left justified. I take advantage of the text formatting features and the automatic word wrap of the current versions.

Perhaps you are talking about the main view labels? I centre and use large font. I don't underline. This, often, is a case of someone trying to impose a consistent style on all the drawings -- good practise in my opinion.

- centerlines. I usually only put centerlines when I'm actually dimensioning the circle

I take it you are talking about centre-marks on the circles. I do this systematically if I am dimensioning the circle. I do it if I think it will enhance the clarity of the drawing. I don't do it if I think the view is too cluttered.

- Typing "see detail ..." instead of "view detail ..." for your callout notes.

Typing "see detail" sounds to me like better English than "view detail". It is a niggling criticism and perhaps your manager is a little anal retentive. Then again, this is a good part of your career to get in the habit of doing things right.

JHG

 

[TheTick]

A lot depends on the temperament of the checker. Some are more concerned about rules than clarity.

 

[KENAT]

Dumpsta, while some of the issues you raise do sound a bit like company preference or checkers pet pieves etc. fundamentally there is more to a good drawing than that all the dimensions are given.

There are a whole bunch of drawing conventions, most of them formalized in ASME stds that try to make sure everyone is 'on the same page. A lot of them relate to format, which some may say is less important (in some cases I might even agree with them) however, consistency can help make sure everyone is 'speaking the same language'.

However, some apparently 'format' points can actually impact functional tolerances etc.

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