CAD software is a powerful tool for creating and editing technical drawings, but it also comes with some potential pitfalls that can affect the quality and accuracy of your work. In this article, we will discuss some common mistakes to avoid when using CAD software, and how to fix them if they occur.
One of the most important aspects of technical drawing is following the established standards and conventions for your industry, project, or client. These include things like units, dimensions, scales, layers, symbols, annotations, and formats. Not following standards can lead to confusion, errors, inconsistencies, and rework. To avoid this mistake, make sure you understand the requirements and specifications of your task, and use the appropriate templates, styles, and settings in your CAD software. You can also check your work against the standards using tools like audits, checks, and reports.
As engineers or CAD designers, we work in a community which always have some standards to which our work follows to allow collaboration and continuity of projects. If one fails to follow the set standards, you are likely going to find it difficult with collaboration with other team members and finally the manufacturability of products and systems.
1. Skipping Basic Training or Tutorials Not fully understanding the software's features and tools can lead to inefficiencies and poor-quality designs. Take time to learn shortcuts, hotkeys, and best practices. 2. Failing to Plan the Design Jumping into modeling without a clear plan can result in poorly structured designs that are difficult to modify. Always sketch out or conceptualize the design beforehand. 3. Neglecting Layer Management Using too few layers or failing to label them properly can make large projects disorganized. Use a logical naming convention and assign objects to appropriate layers.
Another common mistake is not using blocks and references to create and manage repetitive or complex elements in your drawings. Blocks are groups of objects that act as a single entity, and references are links to external files that can be inserted and updated in your drawings. Using blocks and references can save you time, space, and memory, as well as ensure consistency and accuracy across your drawings. To avoid this mistake, create and use blocks and references for common or standard components, such as symbols, logos, title blocks, or details. You can also use tools like libraries, palettes, and toolsets to organize and access your blocks and references.
In Medical Planning Field, each medical equipment device should have a unique named block not random one to avoid any mistake or duplication. the same in medical pre-installation symbol blocks ex: electric sockets UPS must be different of electric EMR sockets. Finally, the block reference useful for : 1-Reduce file size. 2-Save Time. 3-Maintain consistency.
As a draftsman its highly recommended to incorporate the use of blocks and references in your designs as the omission of it can cause you a great deal of stress and time. The usage blocks and references are faster, easier, and convenient ways to work on design projects. It's easier to make changes during revisions as one change to the reference or block will affect all instances of it in the drawing. Blocks and references help make a team follow a consistent path in the design process. You can opt to use predefined blocks and in the CAD program or create a custom block or reference to suit a particular design project. Examples of blocks include title block, symbols, logos and etc. that are widely used throughout the drawing
A third common mistake is not backing up and saving your work regularly and properly. CAD software can crash, freeze, or corrupt your files, especially if you are working with large or complex drawings. Losing your work can be frustrating, costly, and time-consuming. To avoid this mistake, make sure you save your work frequently and in different locations, such as local drives, cloud storage, or external devices. You can also use tools like autosave, backup, and recovery to protect and restore your work in case of problems.
Save the file after a significant amount of work has been done. This requires some discipline. Auto-save is a disruptive function and wastes time.
Its usual of designers to forget saving a work or project. A good practice is always to save your work as soon as created even before making any drawing. Most CAD software have recovery tools that saves your drawing intermittently. In an event where there is power outage or an unexpected shutdown of the software, your last automatically saved file could be recovered. To even make things better, always remember to save your work when u complete a major design in your drawings. This will save you a ton of time and efforts.
A fourth common mistake is not optimizing your performance and productivity when using CAD software. CAD software can be slow, laggy, or unresponsive if you are not careful with your settings, commands, and actions. This can affect your workflow, efficiency, and quality of your work. To avoid this mistake, make sure you optimize your performance and productivity by using tools like purge, zoom, pan, regen, freeze, and layer filters to clean up and manage your drawings. You can also use tools like shortcuts, macros, scripts, and customizations to speed up and automate your tasks.
A fifth common mistake is not collaborating and communicating effectively with your team members, clients, or stakeholders when using CAD software. Technical drawing is often a collaborative process that involves sharing, reviewing, and editing your work with others. Not collaborating and communicating effectively can lead to misunderstandings, conflicts, errors, and delays. To avoid this mistake, make sure you collaborate and communicate effectively by using tools like cloud services, file formats, markup tools, comments, and notifications to share and access your work with others. You can also use tools like standards, revisions, and stamps to track and document your changes and feedback.
Where should the location of the origin be? Creating a drawing file by starting with a disoriented user coordinate system, even by a small amount, will cause multiple problems, especially when sharing drawing files with multiple CAD users.
A sixth common mistake is not learning and improving your skills when using CAD software. CAD software is constantly evolving and updating, offering new features, functions, and possibilities for technical drawing. Not learning and improving your skills can limit your potential, creativity, and competitiveness. To avoid this mistake, make sure you learn and improve your skills by using tools like tutorials, manuals, forums, blogs, podcasts, and courses to stay updated and informed about the latest trends and best practices in CAD software. You can also use tools like feedback, evaluation, and certification to assess and enhance your performance and proficiency.
People tend to stick with what was initially taught or learned during the academic stage. There is a tool for everything that you want to do. I always do a quick research if I need to find any specific tool or whenever I am free and in a mood to learn some new tools, i go through them one by one to see what they are. And cad can be much faster if you know the short keys. Create your own short keys for the tools you use often.
Common mistakes to avoid when using CAD software include neglecting proper layer organization, ignoring dimensioning standards, neglecting regular file backups, not utilizing keyboard shortcuts efficiently, and overlooking proper model scaling. Additionally, it's crucial to avoid excessive detail too early in the design process and to stay mindful of design constraints and specifications. Regularly reviewing and optimizing your workflow can help prevent these mistakes.
When revising or editing a previous drawing, do NOT remove the identifying initials of the originator or creator of the work. Doing so is, in my opinion, as low as you can crawl. When you do that, you are taking credit for something you didn’t do.
When using CAD software, particularly for technical drawing, one thing I have learned is to use templates. Templates have helped me to maintain the consistency of my technical drawings. Instead of starting a drawing from scratch, using a template, will assist with maintaining the scale, proportion, and overall uniformity within a collection of designs. Templates can also make the design process faster and easier in a CAD system.