I’m one week into my Inventor 2018 free trial and all is going smoothly – here’s what I’m learning. [View the Introduction to this series here]
This week I have been slowly getting the hang of Inventor’s functionality. For those of you just joining me on this series, I am coming from a pretty extensive background using AutoCAD Civil 3D, so I’m still working on breaking down some of my CAD muscle memories that just don’t overlap.
My biggest hindrance to learning so far has simply been myself. There have been days where I’ve gotten busy with work and forgotten about the trial. For anyone out there just getting started with Inventor, set reminders and try to learn at least a little bit each day. This has been helping me and it keeps me from having to remember what I learned days ago.
In terms of where I am at with my learning process, I’m working my way through the built-in learning path and am just beginning on the assembly portion. I’ve been taking my time with each of the tutorial steps and experimenting with my own designs along the way. Some of the main things I’ve learned this week are really the basics, things like holes, extrusions, chamfers, parts, and some assembly. I’m making sure to take my time and build a foundation for all of these functionalities so I don’t get lost down the road.
I’m beginning to set some goals for myself as I work through the trial and get better at using Inventor. Right now, my biggest goal is to reach the end of the trial and design my own assembly of some kind, then 3D print it all. I feel like this will be a manageable goal as we move along, and I recommend that anyone else with the trial set similar goals as well. You only have 30 days, so taking advantage of everything you can during it is important.
As I’m getting more and more comfortable, I’m finding that exploring my own designs beyond the learning path and built-in tutorials is getting easier. Experienced users: I’ve got one week under my belt, what should I learn or design over the next week? New users: What are some things you’re struggling with at this point?
Check back on the Inventor blog next week or follow along on Facebook as I’ll be back soon with another “Newbie’s Experience” blog soon.
I have been training people like yourself for quite awhile and my best advise at this point is to find a set of mechanical detail drawings and replicate them. There are lots of small interesting projects on the web, I will post a link to one at the end. You will never be a good Inventor user unless you force yourself to model different types of details. Doing extrusions all day is a small part of Inventor. My other recommendation is to practice making the same model using a different method, get out of your comfort zone. Practice heavily in the use of work features (work planes, axis and points). Master these and you can rule Inventor! I mentioned in my last comment to you to practice using the browser and discovery its power. Also remember there are numerous Inventor blogs which can be often more valuable than Autodesk tutorials and help. The link to some interesting models is:http://www.john-tom.com/html/ElmersEngines.html