Thread: AutoCAD

The biggest pain in my ass is setting up the actual print pages. I am trying to move into inventor because they make it automatic there. It is a different draw style though.

Originally Posted by CivilWars

I work in cellular. We have to do construction drawings for cell towers, rooftops, etc. I would not be drafting from scratch, at least not in the beginning, just adding/removing/replacing things on existing drawings.

Also, is it "legal" to buy a new/used copy on eBay for $300 instead of $3,000 from Autodesk?

Is this something that you want to use for freelance work? Since you are asking about AutoCAD I'm assuming you aren't already using it at work, is this something new that the company you work for wants to start doing?

When you say you will be adding/removing/replacing things, are you talking about build notes like construction details for contractors? Is this a survey drawing you will be working in? What all is in the drawing? Is this an aerial drawing of property lines and point locations of different parts of the cellular structures and such? or is this a structural drawing of the cell towers themselves?

The company I work for uses drafters and engineers for drawings. I would just like to know how to do most of what they do. We do drawings of the tower itself, elevations and aerials, and drawings of the leased ground space around the tower. When I say adding/removing/replacing I mean things like antennas, ground cabinets, or cables on the tower. I will upload a drawing later when I find a site that will do it, so you guys can see what I mean. I am not designing the new Ground Zero or anything, so I think it would be pretty easy to learn.

So far it sounds like just a bunch of linework and the things you will need to learn are the layers, lineweights, specifying the distance of lines, defining whether lines are parallel or perpendicular to other lines, learning how to use the snaps to snap to endpoints, midpoints, centerpoints, quadrants, etc. Lineweights will be important because when everything is printed, the lines need to be differentiated from each other. It sounds like you just need a one hour sitdown with one of the drafters at your company, maybe see if you can look over one of their shoulders one day when they are working late or whatever and let them explain a few things. Other than that, just see if you can get a copy. You can download trials from autodesk themselves. Just need to give them an e-mail.

I hope they have some dynamic blocks set up to make it 10000X easier.

Here is an example. These are prelims, but you can get the idea.

https://rapidshare.com/files/2448522...Station__4.pdf

Yeah, I think you could figure that out. Simple stuff. I am sure most of that stuff are blocks.

Originally Posted by Partyball

The biggest pain in my ass is setting up the actual print pages. I am trying to move into inventor because they make it automatic there. It is a different draw style though.

LOL! I hate setting up prints...

ah yea, looks just like a set of plans I used to work with in civil engineering. Got your title page, small set so the sheet index is included with title page, got the general notes (these are typically reused over and over), got your plan sheets, and lastly the detail sheets.

Each one of those sheets is actually multiple drawings on top of each other in one sheet. think of a bunch of transparencies with drawings on them and you can see all the drawings at the same time. The border sheet is premade with all of the line weights and such predefined. They are actually already setup to the printer so you simply reference the border sheet into your drawing or the drawing into your border sheet (depending on the standard practice of your office). It's actually tricky with the site plans because it's location specific and when you start rotating drawings or borders together it messes with the northing and easting coordinates. I see that the site plan has a survey referenced into it. The long short short dark lines are property lines (always). The OHP line is overhead power lines. The hatch lines define structures, etc.

Something to understand. When you open a file, some stuff will be referenced, and some stuff will be active. The notes will typically be active and be editable in the file you intend to print from, and everything inside of it will typically be referenced into it, including all of the detail drawings in the detail sheets. The title page, excluding the sheet title block, will be referenced, the tables in the detail sheets will probably be active and editable, sheet c-5 that upper left drawing of the antenna detail, that will be referenced and only editable in the master design drawing itself and the notes around it will be active in the sheet. (note, the survey drawings and design drawings are always kept separately and the survey drawing is typically referenced into the design drawing). When the engineer begins designing, he can't do anything without the survey, and rather than run the risk of messing up the survey drawing, they reference stuff. Sometimes I had 10 drawings referenced into a single drawing and it made opening up the files cumbersome as hell.

All this would be easier for me to show you if I was with you. This is exactly the kind of plans I used to put together for the Fort Worth water department.

So, what is it you do now at your company Civil? You mentioned before that you would like to be able to makes changes in a drawing. I'm guessing you would like to be able to start off with clean up work in the sheets themselves like hiding lines that shouldn't be visible on the sheet, adjusting page numbers in case sheets are added, fixing layers and line weights when the errors are noticed after the first printing, adding notes that were forgotten or missed, correcting spelling errors in notes, adjusting text box sizes, moving notes and their pointers around to make room for other notes or make for a "cleaner" drawing so everything doesn't look so congested, etc. Is this the kind of stuff you had in mind?