×
INTELLIGENT WORK FORUMS
FOR ENGINEERING PROFESSIONALS

Log In

Come Join Us!

Are you an
Engineering professional?
Join Eng-Tips Forums!
  • Talk With Other Members
  • Be Notified Of Responses
    To Your Posts
  • Keyword Search
  • One-Click Access To Your
    Favorite Forums
  • Automated Signatures
    On Your Posts
  • Best Of All, It's Free!
  • Students Click Here

*Eng-Tips's functionality depends on members receiving e-mail. By joining you are opting in to receive e-mail.

Posting Guidelines

Promoting, selling, recruiting, coursework and thesis posting is forbidden.

Students Click Here

Jobs

Old school rookie need some advice

Old school rookie need some advice

Old school rookie need some advice

(OP)
Well this is an interesting and very relieving site to find. I'm not really sure this is the part of this forum I'm suppost to be in but my job is mostly mechanical, a lot of stucture and way too much math.
 My company designs CHP units, and they hired me because I have 20 years feild experience as a fabricator/ pipefitter/ welder. Now my job has branched off to designing these units in autocad. First, I've never used a comp before this job, second I still don't know how to use the cad program very well, and third I need all the help I can get.
 My question is this... Where on this forum can I basically start from the begining on how to understand what it is I'm doing? I've installed HVAC systems in schools, jails, highrise buildings, airports, and even on an aircraft carrier. The calculations are very difficult to understand and even the engineering lingo I don't get.I'm sure I will get a lot out of this site but I really need some guidance.
 Thanks, Chris  

RE: Old school rookie need some advice

As mentioned by CBL, don't double post, it gets confusing and is frowned upon by 'the management'.

Here's the content of the other post, you may nead to be using internet explorer to open it.

http://files.engineering.com/getfile.aspx?folder=cc7c76cc-da0f-40fc-9d3f-bc0bd8eeb105&file=mock1.mht

forum555: Autodesk: AutoCAD is the other forum CBL & I mentioned which may help with your CAD questions.

Posting guidelines FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm? (probably not aimed specifically at you)
What is Engineering anyway: FAQ1088-1484: In layman terms, what is "engineering"?

RE: Old school rookie need some advice

(OP)
Thanks for the advice.
 It seems I'm way out of my league here, but I'm still really interested in trying to learn this stuff. I'm starting school for Unigrahics next month.
Is there a site or maybe a book that I could read to help with the tech, or is it really better to get into some kind of class. If so where do I start? Math? Since my experience is in the feild should I stick with the CAD stuff and leave the calcs to the real engineers?
  

RE: Old school rookie need some advice

Life-long learning is not only a a good thing in general, but it decreases the risk of getting Alzheimer's.  

However, you cannot simply jump into the calculations without any background or understanding of the basic phenomenon.  Luckily for you, there is a free, downloadable heat transfer textbook: http://web.mit.edu/lienhard/www/ahtt.html that will give you the physics and math background for heat transfer problems in general.  Only then, can you understand and start tackling A/C problems.

TTFN

FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies

RE: Old school rookie need some advice

(OP)
Thanks again for the help.
  

RE: Old school rookie need some advice

ok for the rest of us, what is a CHP??

I made the jump from trades to engineering via university and the most important thing I got from the experience was the confidence to tackle all problems in an analytical way.  Formulas are dangerous things if you are not sure how they are working so take the time to nut out the ones that you use a lot to start with.  You will probably have half a dozen that you will use every day so focus on those to start with then gradually expand your horizons.  Understanding the formulas is time consuming but very important in my opinion.

As for CAD.....get a drawing from a previous project and start mucking around with it, layer lines copying deleting mirroring moving.  I guarentee you will be very very slow to start with but after about 4 months you will be fine.  It aint rocket science, as they say!

cheers

RE: Old school rookie need some advice

Waramanga, and the rest of you:

CHP:  Combined Heat and Power  (cogeneration)

Red Flag This Post

Please let us know here why this post is inappropriate. Reasons such as off-topic, duplicates, flames, illegal, vulgar, or students posting their homework.

Red Flag Submitted

Thank you for helping keep Eng-Tips Forums free from inappropriate posts.
The Eng-Tips staff will check this out and take appropriate action.

Reply To This Thread

Posting in the Eng-Tips forums is a member-only feature.

Click Here to join Eng-Tips and talk with other members!


Resources