Autodesk Inventor

[Rayanth]

Another great product from the makers of autocad, is a package called Inventor. While autocad is good at letting you make drawings that can be built from, inventor is aimed more at allowing you to do 3D lockups to see if everything actually works.

Some examples of what can be done in inventor include fit checks, travel checks, rapid 3d mockup, animations, stress testing, and lots more. The interface is easy to adapt to for autocad users, but still takes some getting used to. Most importantly, everything in Inventor is done with 3D in mind.

I am a beta tester for both autocad mechanical, and Inventor, and have gotten quite fluent in Inventor. If anyone needs anything drawn in 3d, or stress/fit/tolerance type checks on assn,bled components, anything of that sort, I would be more than happy to help out. I have modeled two separate engines from the ground up in Inventor, and am designing my own exclusively in the program...my WIP 's will be seen elsewhere on the board soon.

Ryan

 

[gbritnell]

I have never checked into Inventor but Autocad is above most people's budgets and having so many other reasonable options on the market I don't think many people would go with this product.
gbritnell

 

[Noitoen]

This should be interesting http://www.123dapp.com/

 

[Rayanth]

I'll grant that it's an expensive product, but i'm rather pleased with what it can do. I won't go out and recommend it to anyone, primarily due to the cost. But as I have a copy, I will extend an invitation to anyone who needs some prototyping or 3d mockups done, I would be happy to help out.

- Ryan

 

[David Morrow]

If price is an issue, you might want to consider Alibre Design's "Personal Edition" for $199. I'm not sure that I want to take on the learning curve but it sure is tempting.

http://www.alibre.com/products/hobby/

 

[JorgensenSteam]

Ryan-

I have used both Alibre and a more expensive product, and Alibre is quite a capable product, perhaps without the polish and all the bells and whistles.
I have seen some superb work done with $200.00 Alibre, stuff that would knock your socks off, especially the renderings.

What we need is a file format that allows exchange of models between programs.
I have had some luck with file translation, but not a perfect model, especially with colors.

It may be helpful if you post some generic tricks and tips for those interested in learning 3D, and things that could be applied to any 3D program.

Pat J

 

[BillH]

Solidworks is my cup of poison. I find cad to be an amazing tool for the hobbyist.

 

[Jim E]

For file translation have you tried step (stp) files or stl files. These two types of files are frequently used between different cad and or cad-cam programs. I use Inventor and have brought files over from Solid Works many times in these two formats.

 

[JorgensenSteam]

Another reason I selected Solidworks over Inventor it that Autodesk wanted an up front years support fee of about $1,500.00, if I recall correctly, and Solidworks did not.

I saved a bunch of money, but I did have to teach myself without support, but it can be done. Lots of resources on the internet.

 

[Entropy455]

I used Autodesk Inventor in college.

It’s the best software out there in my opinion. You can make individual components, and save the files. Then you can create an assembly, and put all the individual components together – making a working electronic 3D model. If you change one of the component files, the changes are automatically made within the assembly drawing. You can assign degrees of freedom to the components, any way that you desire. For example, you can assemble a hit-and-miss engine, and grab the thing with your mouse and rotate it. Amazing software!

I purchased the student edition for my engineering drawing class, at a cost of 100 dollars. The program would watermark all of the drawings “student edition”. The software also expired after one year (self terminated).

I recently looked into purchasing the professional version (basically the unlocked student version). The software is 7000 US dollars to purchase (no joke).

Autodesk releases a new version of the software every year. They will upgrade your software to the newest version, provided your current version is no older than 3 years. The cost to upgrade is half of retail, or 3500 dollars.

I told the lady that I was interested in purchasing the software for home hobby use, and that I was unlikely to profit from the use of their software. She said that it didn’t matter - in that I had the “ability to legally profit” from the use of their software – she was attempting to justify the 7000 dollar price tag.
Needless to say, I would rather spend 7000 dollars on a new mill, than on their software. . . .

Personally I think Autodesk is making a serious marketing mistake. There are probably well over 1000 engineering-type hobbyists out there that would be willing to spend 1200 bucks on Autodesk Inventor. Instead of marketing to these folks, they are targeting corporations only, and missing a big piece of the pie.

 

[RonGinger]

I have Alibre, and like it. Id like Solidworks, but no way can I afford it for hobby use. So far Ive been able to do everything I need in Alibre.

Ive just looked at the AutoCad 123D site, and read the intro manual. Its sounds very powerful. It outputs dxf, and for 3D models stl. What the catch? It seems totally free, but AutoDesk has never been known to be 'good guys'. I must be missing something.

 

[JorgensenSteam]

At the time I purchased it, Solidworks was about half of what Inventor was, especially when you consider the mandatory $1,500.00 support fee up front required by Inventor.

Alibre is very powerful, especially for the money, and I have seen people do as good or better work with it than Solidworks will produce.

Solidworks may have more bells and whistles, but Alibre is very affordable, and a very respectable product. Alibre is more than capable for any modeling work.

Edit:
Downloading Autodesk 123D, 487 MB, this may take a while.
Not sure what the product will do or whether it will make real models that can be saved. We will see what it can and cannot do.
I assume it is a lead into their Inventor product, otherwise they would not need Inventor.
Be back in 30 minutes or so.

 

[JorgensenSteam]

After the giant download, and much program setup, I got the following message:

I guess this program is worth exactly what I paid for it.

 

[dsquire]

Pat

Upgrade Framework first before blaming it on ACAD. Also remember that you are working with a Beta version. That's another reason why you didn't pay big $$$ before you downloaded.

Cheers

Don

 

[JorgensenSteam]

Don-

Sorry for being negative, it is probably a good program, I get very frustrated with software these days.

I read an article about Steve Jobs and how he made sure the Apple software and hardware were always seamlessly integrated and worked well. The only problem is I can't afford Apple hardware or software, so I am stuck with things that don't integrate seamlessly, and often do anything but that.

As far as computer software/hardware integration, it seems like we are in the pre-Ford model T days (even the model T ran consistently).

We are more in a Tower of Babel phase, but perhaps someday the standards will get more standardized.

I have decided that the term "Beta" really means "this software is not ready and really should not be distributed yet".

The Draftsight beta was the only one that actually worked in recent memory, but some others said they had problems with it.

Anyone else able to download and run this product?
Seems absurd to have to load multiple programs to get one to work.

 

[jpeter]

To run Inventor you'll need a lot of computer.

 

[RonGinger]

That .NET 4.0 is a microsoft thing. It is reasonable that AutoCad expects to use underlying tools. It is not reasonable that they didnt tell you that up front, or automatically load it as part of the install.

Ive owned PCs since the start, bought my first Rainbow PC in 1981. Last week I bought an iMAC at the urging of my grandson. Amazing, the damn thing just works. I plugged in a printer, in a few seconds it was working, and the icon was an accurate picture of the printer. Their Word equivalent is $19.99 and works a lot better than Office. O/S upgrades are $29.95, instead of teh Microsoft $150-$200

The MAC may be more expensive up front, but if you buy much software, and count anything for your time and aggravation, it may not be so bad.

If only Alibre ran on it Id throw out the PCs in this place, except for a couple to run Mach3

 

[petertha]

The MAC may be more expensive up front.... If only Alibre ran on it Id throw out the PCs in this place, except for a couple to run Mach3

Can't you run your Mac in bootcamp or whatever they call it that emulates/runs Win-7 OS & use Alibre that way?

 

[tattoomike68]

To run Inventor you'll need a lot of computer.

A 2 gh processor with a gig of ram is nothing. I like to edit video and have way more than that. A computer from walmart will have 8 times that power for $399 its not that hungry for CPU cycles. Hd video 2 hours long is way more work for the CPU.

 

[jpeter]

A 2 gh processor with a gig of ram is nothing. I like to edit video and have way more than that. A computer from walmart will have 8 times that power for $399 its not that hungry for CPU cycles. Hd video 2 hours long is way more work for the CPU.

Try running a dynamic simulation of an engine with pistons pumping, cam caming, valves popping and rockers rocking. You'll need some computer power to do that. Inventor will do it but not on the wallmart box.