43
votes
Accepted
How did mechanical engineers work before SolidWorks?
At the beginning of my career (1979) as a design engineer at HP, the mechanical engineer created the part design and then rendered it in pencil on paper, and then transferred it onto sheets of vellum ...
- 14.1k
17
votes
How did mechanical engineers work before SolidWorks?
In the offices I worked in, drafters were also expected to have a grasp of the trades required to build the thing they were drawing. They'd have some background in welding, fitting, and fabrication. ...
- 271
9
votes
Accepted
How does a dimension like "2-Ø12X25L" describe an oval hole?
The "2-" refers to the fact there are two of these holes somewhere on the print. Rather than making that same note every time the hole appears, you can say "2-" or "6-" and leave it to be assumed that ...
- 2,829
9
votes
Accepted
Is it possible to remove Staedtler ink from a paper?
To remove such ink it needs to scraped off, usually with a scalpel blade. This works well on thicker and more studier media such as film or vellum, but it will always be obvious where the erasure was ...
- 9,582
7
votes
Accepted
Wood roof specs on engineering drawing
I am a practicing structural engineer with plenty of wood experience. That said, this is a bit of a tricky note because I believe it was probably written by an architect on a set of architectural ...
- 1,107
7
votes
Do I need to mention every dimension on a to-scale drawing?
I am not a professional engineer yet, but in my engineering design courses we were taught to show certain dimensions. For example, you choose a datum line and show certain dimensions. You don't need ...
- 313
7
votes
Do I need to mention every dimension on a to-scale drawing?
My general philosophy is that you don't need to dimension everything, you just need to dimension every unique feature.
For instance, say you have a bolt pattern, with one hole in each corner. You ...
- 3,575
7
votes
How do I read this engineering drawing for this screw?
Let's break it down:
5x - There are 5 of these holes, with the same dimension. You should be able to spot these fairly easily, as any similar holes with no dimensions on them.
M4x0.7 - These holes ...
- 7,662
5
votes
Accepted
Difference between "Design Dwg." and "Mfg.Dwg."
This describes the difference. http://www.vista-industrial.com/blog/engineering-drawings-vs-manufacturing-drawings/
To summarize:
A design drawing or engineering drawing is a complete specification ...
- 12.5k
5
votes
Accepted
What is the Radius of 1 and 1/4 inch drill on a 1 and 1/4 Circle
The 1-1/4 drill is a reference to the diameter of the drill. The hole will have a radius of 5/8.
- 6,864
5
votes
Is it possible to remove Staedtler ink from a paper?
Is it possible to remove the ink?
A quick Google search isn't turning up anything, as I more or less expected. Ink isn't meant to be erased, so I'm going to hazard that there is no product that will ...
- 3,587
5
votes
Accepted
Do I need to mention every dimension on a to-scale drawing?
As with many questions, the real answer is "it depends." The biggest variables are what kind of engineer you are, who your audience is, and what industry you're working in. In a class ...
- 4,531
5
votes
Accepted
Drawing the Connection of 2 Arcs with Radius
Arc 22 does not connect with arc 26 there is a straight horizontal line in between. The hint to this fact is in the width dimension of 44 that would not exist otherwise. There are further hints in the ...
- 3,561
5
votes
How did mechanical engineers work before SolidWorks?
I think the duties that engineers have to perform are independent of the tools they use. Nowadays there seems to be a trend that everybody involved in a working process, regardless of if we are ...
- 153
5
votes
How did mechanical engineers work before SolidWorks?
But I am left with a question I don't have the answer to, nor the resources to answer it. These days it seems most mechanical engineers (at least the ones I know) are really performing the role of ...
- 24.2k
4
votes
Working out functional gear in AutoCad
Gear design from scratch is a fairly major process in itself and so the vast majority of gears are made to standardised tooth profiles. Metric gears are usually designed to the module system. This ...
- 15.1k
4
votes
Principle behind the geometric method for constructing a regular pentagon
There are many ways to do this, but they all depend on the same basic fact that the sines and cosines of the angles $36°$ and $72°$ involve $\sqrt 5$. For example $\cos 36° = (1 + \sqrt 5)/4$. Since $\...
- 12.5k
4
votes
Do I need to mention every dimension on a to-scale drawing?
Yes, with the caveat as supplied by masiewpao's answer that dims which can be calculated directly from supplied dims can be left off.
The reason you must write in the dims is that "to scale" is purely ...
- 4,189
4
votes
Accepted
Schematic Diagrams for Mechanical Systems
The diagram most closely related to the original question seems to be a kinematic diagram. Kinematic diagrams are standardized in ISO 3952, although it seems that most often people are just copying ...
- 3,561
4
votes
Are un-dimensioned orthographic views permitted on a standard drawing?
My understanding is that redundancy and/or views that are not repeated should not be present in the a drawing. To put it another way: include only the necessary bits to have a complete picture.
So, ...
- 24.2k
4
votes
Are un-dimensioned orthographic views permitted on a standard drawing?
Regarding the issue of repeat dimensions, at least for machine drawings as opposed to structural, reference dimensions (either in parentheses, or indicated like "12.34 REF") could be an ...
- 1,377
3
votes
Do I need to mention every dimension on a to-scale drawing?
It very much depends on the context. Drawings are there for a purpose ie to communicate information and you need to keep that specific purpose in mind when producing the drawing.
For example if you ...
- 15.1k
3
votes
Working out functional gear in AutoCad
Involute spur gears have involute shape. This means that the point of contact between meshing teeth will move in a straight line (called the line of action). Visualized it will look like a string is ...
- 5,751
3
votes
Accepted
AutoCAD .DWF Circle Output Meaning
The file format for *.dwf files is defined. A reference for the various drawing commands can be found here. Specifically, the definition of the ...
- 10.7k
3
votes
Accepted
Convert 2D projections to 3D View in AutoCAD
I suggest you to watch these videos first:
AutoCAD 2D to 3D Conversion Trick
Learn how to take 2D drawing designs and ideas and turn them into 3D objects.
...
- 378
3
votes
What are sectional views and cutting plane lines?
Imagine you wanted to show a drawing of a car. You can show the exterior features just fine, but how do you show the interior features? If, for instance, you wanted to show where the steering wheel ...
- 3,575
3
votes
What is the formal term/process for writing down a design?
The process of creating an engineering drawing is called either technical drawing or drafting. How to draw is covered under the standard ISO 128.
The separate drawings from different directions are ...
- 3,561
3
votes
What is this drawing style that faces the x-y plane but stylisticly pulls the z axis down and to the left?
This appears to be a Cavalier projection since the oblique lines are at the same scale as the xy plane. The name comes from military fortifications - a "cavalier" was the French term for an artificial ...
- 12.5k
3
votes
Accepted
visualization of intersection of two objects
I don't want to spoil the fun of solving this for yourself so I offer the following suggestions:
Redraw the assembly with all edges, including the hidden edges, shown as dotted lines.
Draw solid ...
- 10k
3
votes
Accepted
Is sphericity the same as profile?
One could argue that sphericity is a specific type of profile tolerance. You would just need to make sure perfectly opposing points on the surface (or as close to it as possible) are inspected to ...
- 2,347
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible