Trying to teach myself CAD design

Something I've been wanting to do for awhile now. Call me a dreamer, but I think it'd be cool to have my own CNC machine someday.

I messed around with AutoCad some, really didn't like it so I tried out Solidworks and I'm liking it a bit more.

Does anyone have any tips/links or just general direction to point me with learning more about SolidWorks CAD design? I just tried a tutorial video on how to make a nut and bolt and it's taken me a couple hours and I'm only halfway done...

If it was easy, everybody would be doing it I guess...

SolidWorks is used by many FSAE teams- join one?

Skip the tutorials, I found them pretty much worthless. If you know anything about how the part is going to be manufactured, it helps to think in terms of the process- in other words, what features can you machine in this plane? What has to come first?

It's also easier at first to skip any gimmicky features, don't just dive into using hole wizard or weldments- learn the basics: extrude, revolve, sweep, etc.- then move to the fancier ones when ready.

We used to teach new members by giving them a part, a set of calipers, and SolidWorks. You can't cut corners on learning to model a real part, since you can't just skip a feature because you don't know how to make it.

If you have specific questions fire away, or PM me. I use SolidWorks for a living and designed two cars in it, so hopefully I know my stuff

Thanks NONACK

Going to add a few small things. Get your naming conventions down early for saving parts and assemblies. I know it sounds weird to focus on this now but it will save you a ton of time. Recognize the difference between what the part has to do and how it needs to look. I have stuff come into my shop every now and then that are aesthetically amazing but are 99% over speced for what they do or have edges that would require custom tooling but that have no purpose.

Really think about not just how to make the part in the computer but how someone is going to have to machine it and more importantly pay for it.

A "CNC Machine" can mean a lot of different things and could require many different types of drawings/files. What exactly are you envisioning doing down the road?

3D parametric modeling (solidworks, inventor, etc..) is great, but there's also a reason that plain old 2D autocad gets used often and it would be good to be familiar with some of its basics. You can download pretty much any autodesk product for a free month trial, but they have cheaper or free lower end autocad 2d options which may be all you need, or useful in conjuction with solidworks.

I'll disagree a little with Chris about the tutorials. it's a bit of a brain melt to try and progress through them all in a linear fashion, but they are helpful. In the example he gives of taking a part and figuring out how to model it, you can browse through the tuturials for the one or ones that look like they apply to exactly what you want to do and it's a good way to learn.

In reply to bluej:

On the tutorials- I always felt that they had way too much "hey look at this easy shortcut so you never learn the basics!" That may have changed since I learned on an earlier version of SW.

NONACK wrote: In reply to bluej: On the tutorials- I always felt that they had way too much "hey look at this easy shortcut so you never learn the basics!" That may have changed since I learned on an earlier version of SW.

Interesting, I don't know that I ever noticed that in them, but I do appreciate what you mean about learning the basics and the right ways to do basic part setup and modeling. I initially learned on SW back in 2001-2005 but ended up using Inventor professionally from 2009 till now.

biggest piece of advice I'd give echo's the previous comments that you should keep in mind that the goal is creating a digital document that will communicate what's needed to create a physical object. This applies to both drawing/modeling something that CAN be made and also that the document sufficiently communicates all aspects required in production.