Inventor Newbie

Hi all

My employers have decided to invest some money in the CAD department (being myself).

A new Dell precision, 27" screens, Spacepilot and the latest Inventor software. We are currently on ACAD 2007.

They have also decided to send me on a 4 day course which entails 3 days basic training and 1 day sheetmetal.

Being a relatively competent user of ACAD could anyone advise if the learning curve is a steep one or should the transition be pain free?

Any advise would be gratefully received.

Can't wait to get stuck in though, it looks superb, and yes I am a self confessed Geek :wink:

go through the tutorials in the help menu, they really do work

what industry are you in? The approach to modeling in inventor is more like solidworks and other softwares which are based of sketches. Where autocad is more of a free space modeling.

It takes some time getting used to modeling with sketches, constraints, i mates etc, but the software is very useful. If you go to the showcase forum you can see one of the assemblies I am currently working on. inventor 09 is supposed to be really powerful. I still have a lot to learn with inventor, but for me its kind of a fumble through as you go thing, no training:(

Thanks guys.

We provide Agricultural machinery, bulk feed Silo's, conveyors and material handling solutions. Therefore a lot of work is sheet metal fabrications and mechanical components.

A lot of the time we are drawing in flat sheets and calculating the bend allowances etc. Hence the reasons to shift towards Inventor.

Also I think the FEA parts of Inventor will be of use.

Shift 1313, I am a firm believer in learning by trial and error in your own time and sometimes think these courses are too condensed.

Cheers.

once you get a handle on the sheet metal package in inventor you will have a great time with it. Also the inventor studio portion of it and design check is very nice as well. I have designed several assemblies in inventor and used it to find if the design would theoretically work(rotationally).