Looking for practice excercises

[nsalas02]

I am a mechanical engineer, I have been out of it for a few years and I am coing back into the fold. I've learned ACAD R14 in college and have taken two courses to update my knowledge . I have access to various books and tutorials online , but I need to find some practice excersices where I can star drawings from scratch by myself. Mostly 2 D architectural drawings and 2-D rendering of mechanical parts in ACAD 2004.

Can I get stuff like this online, preferably free?

Thanks in advance

[PacificOcean]

To begin with, I will recommend GTE Services tutorials available at www.covershim.com. These are in AutoCAD 2005, one is covershim (2-D mechanical drawing) and other is CAD Lab (2-D architectural) It tells you step by step how to do those drawings. I created them and posted online free for a limited time. Currently, you may have to download a small .exe file, which many members of this forum did not like. So I am currently changing them so that they will appear as html file. Also, a voice-over will be next improvement.

For some reason, if you find these tutorials are not as what you are looking for, I will recommend any Engineering Drawing/Architectural Drawing (manual drafting) textbook should have some drawings to begin with. If you can post your e-mail address I will e-mail some sample drawings as I teach at a community college and I should some drawings as .dwg files.

Alternatively, if you are already familiar with basic AutoCAD commands and if you are more towards architectural drawings, I will recommend to stop by at Lowe's or Home Depot and at the checkout, they normally have some floorplan books or home improvement books. The idea is to start with something which has plenty of dimensions so that you may not get stuck in the middle of drawing because of missing dimensions. Online, you may find floorplans, but most of the times they give you overall dimensions and not the interior dimensions. But that is always an option.

I hope this helps,

Thanks,

_Covershim_Admin
www.covershim.com

[nsalas02]

Good stuff. I am doing the architectural one.

thanks