Training manual for solidworks 2003/2004

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??

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

clanger

"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

"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

?v=glance

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

(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

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.

"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

"

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

jon

ISBN 1-58503-128-3