The CADMaker is an odd name. How did you come up with that?
What kind of drafting standards do you use?
What type of AutoCAD customization can you do?
How long have you been using CAD?
Why are you using Inventor instead of Solidworks or another package?
Can you translate my CAD files and make changes to them?
I saw that you created AutoCAD fonts. Why would you want to do that?
What do you charge for your work?
Q. The CADMaker is an odd name. How did you come up with that?
A. At one time there were five AutoCAD dealers in the Fort Wayne area and three colleges that taught AutoCAD. The dealer or college training worked for most people, but did not fit a number of folks who needed to learn how to use CAD. Every person learns differently and bases their learning on what they already know. The CADMaker was started with that in mind. Our goal was to provide quality training that was built around individual or company needs. Our goal was to "Make" CAD Users. While we have trained many CAD persons over the years we found that there was a lot more work in the CAD Services area than in the training and have focused the majority of our efforts in that area now.
A. No. Although we have done a few of them we try to stick with mechanical or manufacturing oriented drawings.
Q. Do you do plotting services?
A. Yes, in a limited sense. For large jobs we have a few local places to recommend. We have two older 36" wide monochrome inkjet plotters capable of generating ANSI E-sized prints (36" x 48" paper). We recently purchased an HP5000 Laserjet which can print 1200 dpi 11 x17 prints. This has become our workhorse and meets 99% of our needs. We can not do large color plots or have the ability to run thousands of prints in an afternoon. We can point you in the right direction though if either of those things is a requirement for your business.
Q. What kind of drafting standards do you use?
A. Since The CADMaker has it roots in military drawings, our standards are based on ANSI/ASME Y14.5m. That gives us a good basis to keep all of our drawings similar from one job/customer to the next. Those standards are often adjusted to meet customer demands o rreplaced all together if the customer has their own set of standards that needs to be adhered to.
Q. What type of AutoCAD customization can you do?
A. Most of the customization that our customers need can be done with simple menu and toolbar customization, but we have generated full custom font sets, LISP and even some VBA programs as needed by customers. We work closely with a couple of other programmers who assist us in some LISP and VBA jobs.
Q. How long have you been using CAD?
A. The owner of The CADMaker started using AutoCAD in 1985 with release 2.16e. He was given the assignment of choosing the best CAD package for his employer at the time, implementing it, developing company standards, and training the board draftsmen. At that time it was a tough choice between AutoCAD, Versacad, and CADKey. He was also using Schlumberger's Bravo (Applicon) software for the 3D applications.
Q. Why are you using Inventor instead of Solidworks or another package?
A. Coming from an AutoCAD background we made the jump to Mechanical Desktop when it was still on pre-release! It was basically a parametric AutoCAD. MDT became our true niche for many years and a good number of projects were done using the software. Autodesk quit actively upgrading the software and introduced Autodesk Inventor which was much more user friendly and seemed to have much more potential than MDT. As MDT users we were given the product at no extra charge, so the transition was an easy one. While there are still some things that MDT can do better, Inventor is so much easier to work with on everyday jobs. Many of our customers are also using the combination of AutoCAD and Inventor, so to serve them better we stuck with that package. Solidworks is a great package and we have considered incorporating the software into the list of softwares a number of times, but we can't be experts at a lot of CAD softwares and at this time we are sticking with the Autodesk solution.
Q. Can you translate my CAD files and make changes to them?
A. That depends on what CAD system you are coming from and what you are willing to pay. If you can provide DXF (in 2D) or STEP or IGES (in 3D) there is a good posibillity we can read your data. There are a number of good translators and translation services out there that we can subcontract to in order to get a usable Autodesk CAD file. Best thing to do is give us a call and we can see if there is a good solution available.
Q. I saw that you created AutoCAD fonts. Why would you want to do that?
A. I had a customer that wanted to match another CAD software exactly with respect to the look of the printed drawings. In order to accomplish this we generated an AutoCAD font that looked just like the font used in the other CAD software. It made for perfect translations. Another customer needed a number of special symbols created for use in their architectural drawings. We were able to do that by generating new font codes for them.
Q. What do you charge for your work?
A. The CADMaker bills most jobs on an hourly rate including travel time, plus any any expenses, although those are rare. Please call for our competetive rates.
Q. What do you do besides CAD work?
A. The CADMaker does training on a number of other Windows based softwares including Microsoft Word and Excel. We also do web development and web hosting. The majority of our work is 3D CAD modeling using Autodesk's Inventor software though.
A. The owner of The CADMaker has worked with a number of the local Autodesk dealers through the years as a contracted trainer for their AutoCAD, AutoCAD Mechanical, AutoCAD Mechanical Desktop, Inventor classes, and various non-CAD related softwares. Most of his training has been custom tailered to individuals and businesses on a contract basis at either their business location or at The CADMaker office. Byron has also been an instructor at Autodesk University and is a regular instructor at the local D.R.A.W. Autodesk software User's Group.