Training manual for solidworks 2003/2004

Are there any after market books available, that are worth the paper
they are printed on, to teach me everything about solidworks
2003/2004? I am especially interested in consumer/industrial design,
including surface and injection molded part design.
Any ideas will be greatly appreciated.
My VAR always offers only misdirected, expensive, training classes.
Thanks for the help.

 

The best one I have found is, "Inside Solidworks 2003", by David Murray.
ISBN 1-4018-0510-8
This book covers everything you have asked for.

 

What is cost of this book??

 

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1401805108/104-2381432-8345569
?v=glance

 

and it gets a poor write up.......

clanger

 

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/t...-8486514?v=glance&s=books&vi=customer-reviews

"Has the author read his own book? The book is very vague and is filled
with areas that are not correct. I have been using SolidWorks for over 3
years. This is the worst book that I have ever bought. There are a lot of
good SolidWorks books out there, this is not one of them."

"Why did he write a 2002 book and called it a 2003 book. Where is the
CD to help new uers? There are menu and command updates from 2002
to 2003 that he does not address."

"I would like to tell the author, with 880 pages, quantity does not mean
quality."

"Not even for free"

"I obtained a copy of this book for free. I read the reviews:
"This book is full of errors when it comes to SolidWorks 2003".

"One feels the author was too lazy to create a real world set of
examples and instead loves to hear himself expound on his
CAD knowledge (which sadly is very faulty)".

"Why do people buy a book like this"?

"But, it was free. I know now why the person gave me the book...
It was not worth the time I spent looking through it. Do not make
the same mistake I did. This was not a helpful or useful book."

" Not a good book. Why do people buy it?"

"Why do people buy a book like this? This was not a helpful or
useful book. I wanted to learn design and software techniques
using Solidworks. This book skips back and forth, is very vague
in most areas and is filled with software errors. Is this a 2003
book? Someone should tell me he needs to update his software.
You need to read the book cover to cover to obtain some
information."

"Look elsewhere to find a more user friendly book that you can
pick up and be productive. I am very surprise that he has sold
as many books as he has. I guess people are not that smart,
"including me". "

"If you are looking for a balanced introduction to SolidWorks,
for a reference guide, or for a genuinely application-oriented
view of SolidWorks, look elsewhere."

"Engineers are lousy authors. David Murray is an engineer. He may
be a great teacher in front of a classroom - where he has the opportunity
to explain and illustrate his point in great detail - but he does not get
the job done in a book."

"After working through this book it appears to me to be an update of an
earlier version. My guess is that he has done little more than change
the name to address the 2003 version of SolidWorks. His motive?
Sell more books!"

"Furthermore, Mr. Murray glosses over how to accomplish the more
difficult tasks in SolidWorks - but is effusive and wordy when it
comes the subject of CAD/CAM and simple SolidWorks operations."

"Take for example lofted parts. After having beat the relatively simple
operations of sweeps and revolved parts into oblivion, he leaves the
reader out to dry when it comes to lofted parts. If you cannot figure
lofting out for yourself using the SolidWorks Help files, the reader
is dead in the water."

"Bottom line, my take is that this book is a unsophisticated attempt
to bleed as much profit as possible from a much earlier work.
Don't count on it to carry you through the more difficult aspects
of using SolidWorks for 3D applications"

"This is not a SolidWorks 2003 book. It doe s not cover the new
features that are incorporated into the new release. A big disappointment
with the book, like most SolidWorks book is that it almost completely
sidesteps the most challenging and potentially rewarding part of using the
software: building parts in the context of an assembly (what is often called
the 'top down' method). An extra chapter on 'in context relationships',
good modeling practices when building parts from inside assemblies,
and a good introduction on how parametric relationships can make
or destroy your parts would have made this a much better book.
Every user who builds from the top down knows the crushing pain
of moving a component in an assembly and seeing the feature trees
of some or all of his/her components turn red with rebuild errors.
I do not recommend this book, unless you are using a very old
version of SolidWorks. I now know why I received a 30%
discount. You get what you pay for!! "


jon

 

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/t...customer-reviews&show=-submittime&start-at=11


"David Murray would do well to stop proliferating poor
quality books. After a $60 investment and several hours of
my life, many essentail features of solidworks, like
surfaces, are still a mystery. As a result, I am here again
looking for answers in yet another book. Luckily Amazon is
now selling used books I won't need this one any more"

"This is an out of date book. I wish someone would have told
me before I spent $60.00. It is NOT worth $20. DO not waste
you money or time."

"This is a terrible book. It is not worth the money nor the
time to read it."

"I read the first 89 pages and it put me to sleep. I want to
use SolidWorks and design parts. I do not want to read about
the history of CAD and the SolidWorks mindset."

jon

 

I am an ID guy. 90% of the work I do deals with doing just what you ask. In
all honesty the VARs are not 100% off base. The book that is offered from SW
is the best book that you can get when it comes to getting you teeth into
the program. Dont get me wrong, there are some other books from other
writers, but understand that you cant get better info on the market, than
from the ppl who make it.

I can understand you feeling or skeptism about taking that course. I am not
a sale rep, I dont work for SW or a VAR.... thing is for what we do as ID
majors, SW is an excellent tool, but it is not the one stop shop yet.

One of the best things that you can do is seek out sites that have models
for you to DL. Sites like

www.mikejwilson.com
www.mechengineer.com/snug (Paul Salvador)

There are some other, but these are some of the best sites that have model
that you can DL. Why DL files? Not saying that I have any wish or reson to
build a F-16 fighter pilot plane. But if you rool it back and go through the
history tree, see the approach that he/she took, you can start to see how to
use certain features can be used, and how rules can be broken.

There is no one way to come at this program, which is one of the reasons why
I like working in it. But back to what i was saying before about taking the
course. Before you can start to go all willy nilly in the program, you need
to understand the foundation. I think this is a given, but especially since
you have a history tree to think about, relationships that are established
and possibly broken, WHEW.....

I hope that this helps

 

"Once again, David & Marie Planchard have produced a new excellent training
guide for SolidWorks; "Engineering Design with SolidWorks 2003". It's
comprehensive and full of specific details.

ISBN 1-58503-128-3
www.schroff.com "


I checked the website out. They actually have multiple books
and they look to be extremely well thought out.

jon







Once again, David & Marie Planchard have produced a new excellent training
guide for SolidWorks; "Engineering Design with SolidWorks 2003". It's
comprehensive and full of specific details.

ISBN 1-58503-128-3
www.schroff.com

Best Regards,
Devon T. Sowell
www.3-ddesignsolutions.com
Are there any after market books available, that are worth the paper
they are printed on, to teach me everything about solidworks
2003/2004? I am especially interested in consumer/industrial design,
including surface and injection molded part design.
Any ideas will be greatly appreciated.
My VAR always offers only misdirected, expensive, training classes.
Thanks for the help.