Advice getting started

I am a controls engineer. I work with industrial automation products, and Ive been in this line of work a long time. At my new job, all the guys have CAD products of some sort, especially the mechanical engineers and product engineers. I was never really interested in CAD until now. I had a little of it in college, and it was a clunky thing at that point. I did learn the basics of drafting along the way. So today my boss cut a po for the 2011 edition of Autocad electrical. Now on the first day of my job, I new I would have to hang with the young guys, so I downloaded DraftSight and Sketchup, and played with them on my own time, so that I could at least have a point of reference for conversations. In time I got pretty good making electrical drawings with Draftsight.

Along the way I have developed a interest in the more mechanical types of drawings, and I want to learn more about that. Im not certain I would ever want to make my primary living as a draftsman, but I want to develop emerging skills.

So what advice would you give?

well unless he springs for courses for you, then its ask questions with those that know and at the top left of this page is a button called tutorials there are lots of good little tips in that, good luck

Take a couple of CAD courses. This can be done via your local community college or by distance learning (online class).

You mentioned AutoCAD Electrical. It is going to be nothing like DraftSight. I would strongly recommend that you inquire of the AutoDesk reseller about the availability of a training class.

Sometimes companies can be very relunctant to support CAD training courses - in my experience anyway. It does seem the best option though, just put your case forward and hopefully they'll be supportive.

After investing a few thousand dollars in a new program like AutoCAD Electrical it makes all the sense in the world to invest in some training (at a fraction of the cost) for the employee that will be using it otherwise the company might as well have flushed the money down the drain. Without proper training it will take an inordinate amount of time to get up to speed. That wasted time is $$$$.

Again, completely agree with Remark. Get some training on ACAD-Elec.

getting an entry level position of some sort even if temp or part time would likely go a long way for you as well, education is great and usually needed with software like this but application is far more valuble.

I agree with everything said above. Take a class. I have been using this program (AutoCAD vanilla) for 10 years, had one year in college, but afterwards totally self-taught. And I am just NOW discovering all the things this program can do. These guys are helpful, but take a class...

You will probably want to learn to start your AutoCAD Electrical as vanilla AutoCAD as well (general purpose interface rather then electical-specific interface).

Should be something like

Start>Autodesk>AutoCAD Electrical>Run as AutoCAD (you can right click-drag a shortcut to this to the desktop).

One word of caution. Using standard (i.e. - vanilla) AutoCAD commands in AutoCAD Electrical can produce unintended consequences. ACADE manages much of the content via its unique databases. Using the built-in ACADE commands will help to maintain the integrity of those databases. Example. Say you want to "move" a component (maybe a relay or a switch) to another wire. Use the Move Component command not the regular Move command found in vanilla AutoCAD. Why? The AutoCAD Move command does not have the option to retag and heal wires. Same thing applies to deleting wires. Don't use the regular AutoCAD Erase command; use the Trim Wire command. The Trim wire command will trim wires back to intersections and also erase wires where no intersections are present and at the same time it will remove any connection dots and update wire numbers.

Let me share some advice with you from Doug McAlexander of Doug McAlexander, Inc. Mr. McAlexander has almost four decades of electrical controls design experience.

"You may think you don't have the time or money to spend on proper training, but start adding up the cost of the time lost in floundering around on your own, or visiting the Electrical Discussion Group for answers, and I guarantee you that a 4-day training course will pay for itself many times over."