Recommend the best design book or website for the inexperienced MechE
Recommend the best design book or website for the inexperienced MechE
(OP)
I'm looking for a good website or book that has many examples of design. I want to learn what an experienced machinist might know about how to design rather than the theory of design. I want to see lots and lots of examples of how to design different elements of products and machines.
Any recommendations would be greatly appreciated!
Any recommendations would be greatly appreciated!





RE: Recommend the best design book or website for the inexperienced MechE
Mike McCann
MMC Engineering
http://mmcengineering.tripod.com
RE: Recommend the best design book or website for the inexperienced MechE
RE: Recommend the best design book or website for the inexperienced MechE
Ted
RE: Recommend the best design book or website for the inexperienced MechE
Lincoln Electric's bargain Design of Weldments has a lot of practical info.
http://www.jflfoundation.com/ProductDetails.asp?Pr...
If you are lucky enough to be using a shop within driving or walking distance a face-to-face to review the preliminary design drawings can be most productive and informative. Not all shops do things the same way. There are some genius fabricators out there.
RE: Recommend the best design book or website for the inexperienced MechE
Tobalcane
"If you avoid failure, you also avoid success."
“Luck is where preparation meets opportunity”
"People get promoted when they provide value and when they build great relationships"
RE: Recommend the best design book or website for the inexperienced MechE
For instance a quick search turned these up: thread404-278305: More Machining/Design Tips thread404-163892: Machining Parts - What school didn't teach me?! thread404-314910: Casting vs. Machining Drawing
The first one gives links to a couple of fairly good online resources http://procnc.com/resources/newsletters especially has a lot.
What is Engineering anyway: FAQ1088-1484: In layman terms, what is "engineering"?
RE: Recommend the best design book or website for the inexperienced MechE
That's what I did years ago, manual mill and lathe, then CNC programming. A year or two in a shop would further increase your understanding of the trade.
That coupled with your mechanical engineering degree, would make you an attractive candidate in pretty much any industry.
Regards,
Cockroach
RE: Recommend the best design book or website for the inexperienced MechE
Also, get your hands on all the old printed catalogs that you can. Items like cylinders, speed reducers, bearings, conveyors, power transmission devices. Most of the old school catalogs had engineering sections in the back with a lot of good information. And there's just something about a printed paper catalog for general browsing, learning, investigating...
I also learned a lot by studying, IN INTRICATE DETAIL, the drawings done by those that came before. A paper mill I worked at had drawings done in ink on linen from the 1800's. Real pieces of art. Those guys spared no effort to make a clear, easy to understand, fully detailed drawing.
When you're looking at an existing drawing, take some time to study it. Pick some small design detail, like a flange, or a hole, or a finished surface, and just start asking yourself questions - "Why did he do it that way? Wouldn't it have been simpler to do it some other way or not at all? What would happen if he had done it this other way?" Those questions will lead to answers that become lessons. And if you can't figure out the answer, ask someone older.
RE: Recommend the best design book or website for the inexperienced MechE
http://www.amazon.com/Illustrated-Sourcebook-Mecha...
-Dustin
Professional Engineer
Pretty good with SolidWorks
RE: Recommend the best design book or website for the inexperienced MechE
NX 7.5.5.4 with Teamcenter 8 on win7 64
Intel Xeon @3.2GHz
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Nvidia Quadro 2000
RE: Recommend the best design book or website for the inexperienced MechE
When you draw up a part, take time to ponder how it will be manufactured - what kinds of machines will do the work, where will they start cutting from the raw material or casting, what finish operations will be required, etc. Then after your part is reviewed by a manufacturing person follow up with them and let them describe how they would attempt to make it. If possible, go see the manufacturing whenever you get the chance. It's a long, slow process to learn but this subject matter is possibly the most important thing that differentiates a below-average engineer from an excellent engineer. All the calculations in the world will not save you from an overpriced or unmanufacturable design. Some of the very finest engineers I know started out as machinists, no coincidence there.
RE: Recommend the best design book or website for the inexperienced MechE
Tobalcane
"If you avoid failure, you also avoid success."
“Luck is where preparation meets opportunity”
"People get promoted when they provide value and when they build great relationships"
RE: Recommend the best design book or website for the inexperienced MechE
RE: Recommend the best design book or website for the inexperienced MechE
Also thought Omer Blodgett's weldments books from Lincoln Electric were some of the best bargains for old school wisdom of weldments etc.
Hit the Carr-Lane (and other tooling components) websites, get the catalogs, and start the journey of discovering exactly what all those little doo-dads are meant to do, and why they are designed that way. I have on my shelf SME's "Handbook of Jig and Fixture Design." Is of some interest, but isn't used much. If you can find a copy to borrow, that would be best.
I saw a lot of examples of equipment design practices by going to trade shows and ASME & SME local chapter meetings and tours. You could make good contacts there, also.
More recently I went on a discovery journey about "precision engineering", or how to design machine components for extreme tolerances. There are a couple books out there on the market, but you could start by websearching for a Ph.D. thesis by Layton Carter Hale entitled "Priciples and Techniques for Designing Precision Machines." This was posted on some government lab or university website for free download and contained a lot of similar info as the two books I purchased on the subject. Exposure to this gives good insight into what is required to attenuate mechanical vibrations for extreme precision devices.
TygerDawg
Blue Technik LLC
Virtuoso Robotics Engineering
www.bluetechnik.com
RE: Recommend the best design book or website for the inexperienced MechE
<http://pcsl.mit.edu/2_72/documents/Hale-New-PDF.pd...;
What is Engineering anyway: FAQ1088-1484: In layman terms, what is "engineering"?
RE: Recommend the best design book or website for the inexperienced MechE
Another benefit of membership is get to go to technical presentations, meet people in industry and even serve on committees. The latter may be later in your career but certainly gets you to the cutting edge of standards.
“The beautiful thing about learning is that no one can take it away from you.”
---B.B. King
http://waterhammer.hopout.com.au/
RE: Recommend the best design book or website for the inexperienced MechE
Depending on where you are going maybe an old copy of the CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics
www.practicalmachinist.com - just what it sounds like.
Thomas J. Walz
Carbide Processors, Inc.
www.carbideprocessors.com
Good engineering starts with a Grainger Catalog.
RE: Recommend the best design book or website for the inexperienced MechE
I found this book pretty useful.
The 5th Edition with Neil as the only author is available from amazon.
RE: Recommend the best design book or website for the inexperienced MechE