New to Solidworks and my company will not get us training.

[jeff97070]

Subject lines says it all.

Myself 20 plus years of Pro-Engineer, one year UG NX and now they have switched to Solidworks 2014. I have been digging around trying to find the icons I need but like all new tools it's not easy to start with everything is there just somewhere.

Is there any good online training available to learn the drawing detail package?

Thank you,

Jeff

 

[ctopher]

You can learn via YouTube and just using it. But, they should really send you to training for proper use of the tool.

Chris, CSWA
SolidWorks 13
ctopher's home
SolidWorks Legion

 

[CorBlimeyLimey]

Using the built-in Help Tutorials would be a good starting point.

 

[JMirisola]

There's the built it tutorials under the help section that will get you started. After that, there's online training sites like SolidProfessor, igetit and Infinite Skills Learning.

Jeff Mirisola, CSWE
My Blog

 

[Eltron]

I second the YouTube and SolidProfessor comments above.

Dan

http://www.eltronresearch.com

Dan's Blog

 

[berkshire]

jeff97070 (Mechanical)
Start with the tutorials, repeat them several times, then go to you tube.
Your biggest problem is going to be un learning the other programs, muscle memory is hard to over ride.
B.E.

You are judged not by what you know, but by what you can do.

 

[davidinindy]

SW is very user-friendly. I taught myself, and learned on-the-job. Call the VAR and see if you can get a demo CD to play with at home. Ours was very accommodating. Local user groups are also a valuable asset. Get to know people and have friends you can call with questions.
I used Solidworks for a year, then Pro-E for 10 years, and am now using solidworks again for the last 2 years. Never had much trouble. In fact, most questions I have, seem to be common questions, where there really isn't a way to do what I want.
Jump in and start modeling. Google anything you have questions on. You'll get thru it and get up to speed in no time.

David
Check out my professional profile and connect with me on LinkedIn.

http://lnkd.in/fY7-QK

 

[Nella95]

Pick an object on your desk - draw it - every time you run into something you did on Pro-E or Unigraphics you'd know where it was in SolidWorks via online help or youtube. (I taught myself SW as well, but I didn't have so many years of experience with other solidmodelers - I'm sure it's drastically different. SW is more real-life user friendly in my opinion.

SW Professional 2014
SW Electrical 2D/3D
64 bit SP1.0
Intel Xeon X(R) CPU 1603 0 @ 2.80 GHz
8.0 GB of RAM
NVIDIA Quadro 2000

 

[SBaugh]

I too am self taught. I used to read this Forum often and helped out where I could. Like Nella points out above, I spent a lot of time drawing up stuff off my desk. Toys are a lot of fun to draw up, I thoroughly enjoyed the Bionicle I made 10+ years ago. Wish I had time to finish the 2nd one I made. Check out my website you can see the Bionicle I designed from the actual Legos. I tried to stay away from Free form or organic looking examples, until you have a firm grasp on the basic of design... just my opinion.

Best of luck to you!


Scott Baugh, CSWP
Berry Plastics
Cad Admin\Design Engineer
GEASWUG Greater Evansville Area SWUG Leader

http://www.scottjbaugh.com

"If it's not broke, Don't fix it!"

faq731-376

 

[TheTick]

You and your coworkers need to form a self-training group. If your employer won't train you, at least get them to allow an hour or two per week for an in-house user group.

 

[SBaugh]

I would push for them to at least purchase "I.get.it" or "Solid professor". I like SP, but we went with I.get.it instead. IMHO i.get.it is just as good as SP and I got a lot of extra seats for what it would have cost me for SP. I.get.it sold me 20 seats for about little over half of what SP wanted for the same amount of seats.

Scott Baugh, CSWP
Berry Plastics
Cad Admin\Design Engineer
GEASWUG Greater Evansville Area SWUG Leader

http://www.scottjbaugh.com

"If it's not broke, Don't fix it!"

faq731-376

 

[mjcole]

I'd suggest weekly meetings of your team to discuss things learned and still unknown about the software. Also I suggest looking up any nearby SolidWorks UserGroups or Swugs that meet in your area.

http://Www.swugn.org

It's a great way tonetwork and learn new things about the program.

SolidProfessor is a decent tool but I myself have always preferred learn by testing approach. I have also used construction toys like Lego and Construx and even FisherTechnic which are great example models for learning patterns, features as well as configurations (Family Tables) and especially Assemblies. As a proE user you'll probably love the freedom of underdefined sketches and not having the software constantly adding weak dims to keep full constraints against design intent. Then again imho the PTC sketcher Intent Manager has better ways of resolving sketches than Sketch Expert.

One great option in sketcher is to automatically make overdefined dims reference instead of yelling at you like ProE used to "Resolve Mode". If you have a list of Proe's icon's & features you want the SolidWorks equivalents of post em here or personal message me at the mcadcentral.C forum 'mjcole_ptc' and I'll be glad to answer your questions.

I'd suggest finding your best user now or from proe team and divy up your questions about SldWorks.exe and search out the answers. The forums.solidworks.com site is a good community in addition to this one and the mcad one too (three) haha couldn't help myself.

Where is your company based?

"It's not the size of the Forum that matters, It's the Quality of the Posts"

Michael Cole
Boston, MA
CSWP, CSWI, CSWTS
Follow me on !w¡#$%
@ TrajPar - @ mcSldWrx2008
= ProE = SolidWorks

 

[jeff97070]

I want to thank everyone for your input and plan on using the advice given.

I will soon have more questions.


Jeff

 

[SnTMan]

jeff97070, training is over-rated, as is productivity. Just fumble around on your own, that's what we do at my company. They are going to be paying you anyway, right?

Regards,

Mike