Figuring out angles

[Anna_here]

I'm new to autocad and designing. I'm practicing with tutorials and one of them has me stumped. The site is

http://we-r-here.com/cad/tutorials/level_1/1-4.htm

I'm fine inputing info until it gives angles. I know that if I enter @D<A that should give me the right input but when I enter @1.4<150 it's not right. I then went into the command line input to see if I could back track to understand. The right way is @1.4<30 ... I'm figuring that the angle has to do with the WCS but how? How do you get to this point? How do I figure this out??? Please help I'm stumped and open to any, any, suggetions and helpful hints for a eager beginner. And please explain as simply as you can since I'm a very new beginner.
Thanks , Anna

[CarlB]

The angle in AutoCAD is the angle from the x axis. 0 degrees is horizontal to the right. In the figure/example, 150 degrees is measured from the adjacent line; the angle of the line (relative to the x axis) is 30 degrees. So use @1.4<30 to draw that line (if going counterclockwise around the figure).

[WagglyFawn]

AutoCAD's default settings have angles starting at 0 degrees East going counter-clockwise. Or as CarlB said, start to the right. I doubt you'll ever need to change this too, so once you do enough you'll memorize what angles to type in. For example 90 degrees down would be equivalent to 270 or -90.

[Anna_here]

CarlB

Thanks for the reply.
The program that I'm using right now is AutoCad 2007 without microvellum. At this current time there is no measuring system showing. (I know there is one. Is that the key to understanding this? Because I can't figure out how you would know it's 30 degrees without one.)

[CarlB]

You're right, the figure is not entirely clear but it appears safe to asume the line from 4.5,2.2 to the right is horizontal - or 0 degrees. Since from geometry we know that a 180 degree angle would have been a straight line, the deflection angle (from 0 degrees) is 180 - 150 = 30 degrees. When you get to the 1.6 long segment, again assuming the 2.1 long segment is vertical (90 degrees), the 150 angle will translate to a line at 120 degrees.

[Anna_here]

whoo-boy am I going to need a lot of practice. Slowly starting to get it..
Thanks

[Alan Cullen]

Anna,
You can reset your units....we are Civil Engineers and we allways use conventional mapping grids.... i.e. North 0 deg, East 90 deg, South 180 deg and West 270 deg.

Use the UNITS command and fill the "Drawing Units" dialogue box in as follows...
Length
Type.......... Decimal
Precission... 0.000 (or whatever to suit)
Angle
Type.......... Deg/Min/Sec
Precission... 0d00'00" (or whatever to suit)
Clockwise..... tick
Insertion Scale...... Unitless
Direction
North...... tick

If you set all this up in your drawing template (acad.dwt ??), then all your drawings will have your unit preferences automatically.

[Anna_here]

I got this one down now, with a little help, thanks to all who commented.