solidworks student looking to better my skills

Ive been a machinist/operator for about 5 years now. Im currently enrolled in mechical engineering at a community college, though its one hell of a struggle once you've been out of school for over a decade.
Anyways I'm currently taking a solidworks class, and i want to become the greatest at it. As i said before im struggling, im not good at school but im determined to stick with it.
I wanted to see if people have recommendations on how to become great at this. I would be more then happy to try and model items for people, basically i want to do what it takes to become great.
Then i after that i want to get into programing.

Any kind of help would be much appreciated!
Thank you everyone
Tim

Do the tutorials... do them again. Do them until they are easy. Go buy a scrap engine and tear it apart and model it. I had a friend who tore an R6 motor apart and modeled it. Took him all winter and when he was done he was killer at SW.

That is a deep well... once you get good at models and assemblies of machined parts learn to do fabbed parts. Then learn how to do surfacing. And on and on and one.

I hear you man I've been thinking of going back to school to get a degree myself. I've been in the trade for over 20 years, I use Solidworks everyday and I still learn new tricks. Practice everyday and download all the exercises you can. Solidworks has a lot of features but in my case I only use it to machine parts, I don't do simulation or electrical so I won't learn that side of it. Choose what to learn first then go into the other ones little by little. To be honest I've been flirting with Fusion 360 and I am really liking it especially because it has everything you need, modeling, CNC programming, simulation, mesh, it's really good. Especially the price. Keep practicing man and good luck to you. Grab some prints from your job and model em up at home too, it helped me. [emoji6]

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kustomizingkid said:

That is a deep well... once you get good at models and assemblies of machined parts learn to do fabbed parts. Then learn how to do surfacing. And on and on and one.

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Can you go more into detail about this? What do you mean fabbed parts and surfacing? Sorry im really new to this.


Okay sounds good thanks for the tips guys! I will have to switch to fusion 360 at some point the school only gives us a 1 year key for solidworks, though i hear its pretty easy to make the transfer.

So machined parts are solid blocks of metal (in simplest terms)... Learning to model things based off a single piece of solid metal is about as simple as it gets. Fabricated assemblies come with lots of intricacies... Modeling a weldment in a sensible way that translates to the real world as something that can actually be built is a whole skill itself. Surfacing is about modeling things like a car hood, complex 3D shapes that have curves and features.

Learning how to simply navigate and use Solidworks is just a piece of the puzzle. The big picture is being able to model things that can actually be built cheaply and simply in the real world. Young inexperienced designers will often create parts that either CAN'T be built or are horrible complicated and expensive to build. This is where you need to have a good grasp on how parts are actually build. With a 5 axis mill, sinker EDM, millturn machine, etc almost anything CAN be built... but thats not how the world works.

There is also another complete skillset in itself of making drawings... if you want to use solidworks to build things you need to make drawings that machinists can read, understand and quote. This gets into a set of standards that are recognized in the industry and having a grasp on tolerancing. This is a deep hole, start with the tutorials.

A designer is a detail oriented person....

Where in the whole wide world is "Montgomery County" ?

What you have under your belt is the ability to build a model,
and make a detailed drawing.

I would suggest that you try for a job as a "detailer" or "Entry level draftsman".

A job where a engineer or senior designer will explain what they
want, and you create the model, and then detail it on a drawing.

This way you will gain experience, and work your way up to tolerancing, slip/press fits, fabrication & sheetmetal
quirks etc.

Kustom beat me to it and knocked it out of the park. The built in tutorials are quite good and following them up with a big project that you are interested in will drive you to improve. In a similar fashion, my senior design project was focused around a custom YZ250F engine. I spent 2-3 months just reverse engineering and modeling parts on it. In a situation like that, you have to get it done and there is no answer out there. You have to figure it out and if you really want to get good you will find a way.

My experience with SW is all self-taught over the last 7 years. I will say that what I've learned is that the options of SW coincide with the method of how things are made, depending on what you're doing. You can model the same part as a solid using Extrude, and the same part as Sheet Metal, and initially they seem the same but certain things will be different, such as how you can work with flanges and how a hole "drilled" through a panel will be a "perfect" hole if you designed it as a solid or will be a "real" hole if you designed it as Sheet Metal (meaning the hole is properly ovaled to cut it 2d and then bend it). Very cool features, very powerful tool. I use it all the time still. If I didn't work in both a machine shop and a sheet metal shop I would still be lacking the knowledge to fully use SW because of how real-world it is.

I learned SW by using it. Looking back on things I realize I totally sucked when I started, just really bad design methods! Now my methods are much better, easier to work with, better starting references and features, etc. Practice makes perfect.

You CAN go the route I did and just practice by making real-world parts, but I have to think the others here are going to have a way better idea of what to do. Reverse-design of an engine would be outstanding, and the casting dimensions will make you want to jump off a building hahaha.

If I was to give one lesson to share, it would be to always start any model from the best point that would let you make changes to everything else as easily as possible. Have fun, it's a sweet program!

sheppyfire87 said:

Ive been a machinist/operator for about 5 years now. Im currently enrolled in mechical engineering at a community college, though its one hell of a struggle once you've been out of school for over a decade.
Anyways I'm currently taking a solidworks class, and i want to become the greatest at it. As i said before im struggling, im not good at school but im determined to stick with it.
I wanted to see if people have recommendations on how to become great at this. I would be more then happy to try and model items for people, basically i want to do what it takes to become great.
Then i after that i want to get into programing.

Any kind of help would be much appreciated!
Thank you everyone
Tim

Click to expand...

Buy this book and complete it cover to cover, every single page... SOLIDWORKS Training Manual. Essentials Parts and Assemblies 215 | eBay

That is the best thing you are serious about getting good at solidworks, if you then want to go further buy the advanced part modelling book and so on. Only use the official dassault systemes solidworks books though as they will line you up nicely for getting the solidworks certification.

I honestly cant say enough good about the books, they take everything in baby steps and as long as you follow the steps to the letter you will get good at solidworks. The book has a link that allows you to download training files.

Learn the essentials properly and understand best practise, then practise modelling stuff.

I hope you take this advice