Just wanted to throw this out there real quick, how many people on here use solidworks and what was the best way to start learning it?
My future “company” just got approved for the entrepreneur license and I want to take my hand drawn/designed deck and render it perfectly so I can have a CNC cut out my mold.
I am just installing the software now and started watching some youtube tutorials but I was wondering if there was a better place to get the info I need!
If there a good training program for solidworks or is it more trial by fire with learning it?
I use solidworks, not an expert by any means. I typically google and youtube stuff when I run into a block. Here are some decent training resources that our engineers have used in the past.
I’ve been using Solidworks for too long and its a love hate relationship. To begin with trial and error does take you forward in learning basic extrusions and part assemblies but if you want to go into areas like rendering and shoddy flow software I recommend tackling each problem you come across by first going to a youtube walkthrough and then follow the links I have posted below. I will say that Solidworks can be stressful and particularly difficult at the best of times so if you have any questions please feel free to ask me on the forum as sometimes Solidworks problems can be hard to solve. Best of luck!
Below are a few resources that have saved me time:
Ok to give something more… I used Solidworks for last 3 years and like @Fraserrazor mentioned it’s a love-hate relationship. Fusion is simpler and for my needs more than enough. If don’t plan to work with a team of people on some complicated projects Fusion will be enough. Solidworks has also painful previous versions compatibility restrictions which are annoying and aim at money grab in my opinion.
I started out in inventer and solid works in highschool. I was forced to learn it because no one else was learning it to CAD our robot. But I will say this if you don’t keep up with it for a long period of time you will forget it. So keep practicing that’s all I can say.
I applied to fusion as well, they never responded back to me! I’m going to try and figure this thing out, You think deck design is better done in fusion though?
Creo is free for students. It is more powerful and has a more robust feature set than Solidworks. Creo is considered high-end software, while Solidworks is middle-of-the-road
Creo is basically the standard in the aerospace world, and I use it practically every day. Going back to Solidworks when I was in grad school made me go like this…
I’m a daily SW user and would recommend you stick with learning it for use with most mid range projects. It’s quick to learn, it’s UI is very visually based, and like you mentioned there are ample tutorials online for free. Im well versed in Creo too. The program really excels in higher complexity projects. It forces better modeling practice and its crashes are less catastrophic than in SW, but Creo has a much steeper learning curve, is wildly click heavy, and you can’t build in multi solid-body in part files. Unless you plan to use it daily for a long time, stick with SW or Fusion.
For someone that has been sitting in Catia V5 for a couple of years. How big of a learning curve would solidworks be? Is there even any benefits from swapping?
