I gotta learn AutoCad 2007 for my hvac job. What is the best way to learn this program. Im looking for books or whatever will help me. Thanks

2/19/2007 11:13:49 AM

lol.


That have entire degrees based on this program. Do you have any experience at all?


http://www.cadtutor.net/

[Edited on February 19, 2007 at 11:19 AM. Reason : there's a start.]

2/19/2007 11:17:59 AM

Nope, we had someone leave the company and the HNIC wants me learn.

2/19/2007 11:23:46 AM

the only hard part is learning lisp

everything else is you setting it up how you want it to be setup.

2/19/2007 11:37:04 AM

Word....What is Lisp?

2/19/2007 11:37:52 AM

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lisp_%28programming_language%29

[Edited on February 19, 2007 at 11:42 AM. Reason : wrong lisp.]

2/19/2007 11:41:51 AM

so lisp is pretty much. You type in the letter "E" for erase and it erases whatever you have selected.


Is there some sort of list of commands?

2/19/2007 11:53:55 AM

If you're really looking for a book you can try contacting Dr. Brian Matthews in the GC department. He teaches the courses here that use it. He may just recommend his books, but worth a shot.

also try
http://www.ncsu.edu/project/graphicscourse/gc/acadtut/acadtut2000/acadtut-home.html

and look around the internet, there are a lot of tutorials you can find. And the built in tutorials are good and the AutoCad help section has always been good in my experience.
but you can do just about everything by clicking a button. It's much faster if you know the commands though. I'm sure you can find them someone that will allow you to copy them or print them to use as a reference. Or if you look the command up in the help section it will tell you the command and you can make your own reference list as you go.

I've used AutoCad off and on for about 9yrs and SolidWorks for about 5. My advice is to have your employer give you a copy for your home computer and just mess with for a little while every night starting with the built in tutorials then maybe finding some more advanced tutorials on the internet.

AutoCad is not hard, you will have no problem teaching yourself. It's one of those things you just need to sit down and do.

2/19/2007 1:05:40 PM

http://www.klhsoftware.com/users_manual/small_screens/acadshrtcuts.htm

2/19/2007 1:15:16 PM

Quote :

"My advice is to have your employer give you a copy for your home computer and just mess with for a little while every night starting with the built in tutorials then maybe finding some more advanced tutorials on the internet."

even though that licenses cost a shitload you should ask to do this

2/19/2007 1:44:36 PM

you should get some Autodesk Authorized Training, and your job should pay for it. There are training centers in Morrisville and Cary.

http://www.autodesk.com/cgi-bin/dblookup.pl?COUNTRY=US&dbname=usatc&OP=dbquery&STATE=NC&PRETYPE=

2/19/2007 2:02:54 PM

Lisp is the programing language used to make custom routines in autocad..

( auto labeling pipe/duct as its drawn radiused double lined turns. etc. )

2/19/2007 2:48:35 PM

^^ yeah, i figure if they want him to learn it on his own time they should be willing to facilitate that. Also you can often use one license on two different computers as long as you're not using them at the same time; meaning he could use the same license on his home machine as the one on his work machine. Or they may have a network license in which case it's also not a problem.

2/19/2007 3:08:49 PM

if you work in HVAC, as either an engineer, or an engineering-tech, or whatever.

then you damn well oughtta know the basics of AutoCAD.

if you can get your employer to pay for AutoDesk training, thats great. but many smaller places cant/wont afford $TEXAS in tuition, travel, and what they perceive to be "lost work" time

(yeah, yeah, i Know...)

so whatever it takes to learn it, do it. because you'll only increase your value and your salary.

user your time at work to learn all you can. order a Free Copy of AutoCAD LT from AutoDesk, and play with it at home. there are tons of tutorials with the software, and online, there are tons of books at the bookstore and/or library.

the hardest part is going to be figuring out all the customized setup that your company uses.

2/19/2007 3:26:49 PM

Thanks everyone for helping a cad noob out

I think im just going to take a training course on cad.

Does anyone know how to take plans from a pdf to cad?

2/20/2007 1:31:05 PM

look at the PDF, redraw them in CAD

there's no conversion, thats why people put them in PDF format in the first place so you cant do that

(unless there's some way of converting that I'm unaware of)

2/20/2007 1:41:14 PM

just get a book (any of them) and learn the commands - specifically the SHORT ones (ie zoom=z, tr=trim, etc). using the buttons on the toolbars takes too long and is actually more complicated than just knowing what to type in. but yeah, the harder part is actually customizing it and using more advanced commands, but i doubt hvac will be that demanding.

edit: yeah pdfs are already rastered so theres no way of getting them back into cad other than inserting them as an image and scaling it correctly and tracing - which is just a no no.

[Edited on February 20, 2007 at 11:34 PM. Reason : .]

2/20/2007 11:32:50 PM

^^Open PDF in illustrator, export as dxf/dwg, open in autocad.

Probably still have to do TONS of work to it, but at least the linework will be there.

2/20/2007 11:36:56 PM

the scaling will be so seriously fucked you'll probably have more work fixing it than drawing it from scratch.

2/21/2007 1:21:55 AM