Hello everyone and thanks for letting me play! My name is Mike, I am 39 years old and I am very new to this. I have seen the amazing work you all do and i am chomping at the bit to get my feet wet! I have, in the past sculpted models in wax and with various epoxy putties and then used them as masters to mold and spin-cast them in pewter. I would love to learn 3d modeling and print masters to mold from. I have quite a few ideas about what i would like to build but i have no idea what software to learn first! I would like to start building some simple mechanical parts, gears, cams and the like to build a machine I have an idea for. Can anyone suggest what software would be best for this purpose? Also apart from the forums here that I have been pouring over, is there a good source for learning how to 3d model or possibly how to design simple machines in software? Thanks in advance! Mike
Welcome! Looking forward to seeing your 3D printed machinery. SketchUp might be the easiest (free) software to start with. If you can get your hands on a demo version of Solidworks or Inventor they are more suited to moving mechanical parts as they have gear emulators. An ambitious start I wish you the best of luck. Duann
Thanks for the information. While I am waiting for my copy of Solidworks to get here, I am reading the Solidworks Bible. Holy cow that's some dry stuff. I feel as tho I almost need a degree in mechanical design to understand it. Is there a basic book on CAD design that you could recommend that covers the basics and leaves out most of the advanced Jargon based stuff? I feel that the "Bible" is for folks that already have a firm grasp on CAD design. Other than paying $1500 for a 3 day class in this software I would prefer trying to figure it out on my own. Any help would be apreciated! Thanks, Mike
Mike, I know for KeyCreator, there are some very easy how to books. Are you familiar with CAD at all? I already knew AutoCAD when I started with KC, so I pretty much thumbed through the book looking at how to do what I already knew how to do. Either way, here's the shopping search for SolidWorks for beginners on google. http://www.google.com/products?expIds=17259,25814,25988& sugexp=ldymls&xhr=t&q=solidworks%20for%20beginners&a mp;cp=16&hl=en&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wf Welcome, Mike