Producing Assembly Instructions...

[harryball]

My Bat House Assembly instructions are too wordy. I want to produce some pictagraph type instructions (think IKEA) to show the assembly steps with call outs using arrows to explain details.

I don't want to have to draw everything, besides not being good at it, it could take me a long while to do. I was thinking SketchUp would be suitable, but I've not used it in a long time and it actually has more detail than needed.

Something like this...
http://www.ikea.com/ms/en_US/customer_service/assembly/A/A74382110.pdf

Those are clean line drawings, not 3D renderings like SketchUp.

Ideas on how to easily do this?

OR... anyone do this kind of stuff that could take my instructions and produce a set? If so, PM me and let me know what you'd charge etc... I have my current instructions with pictures in a PDF I could send to work from.

[Kyle Stapleton]

If school were in this would be a great project for the kids, let me know if you still need it done in September.

[gc3]

Jana does all of our shop drawings, she could easily handle this. Although we are in Los Cabos this can be done with mails or skype.

[Davo]

Maybe just take real photos and use a program like snagit to jazz it up with arrows and call outs, then chunk it into a PowerPoint template with minimal wording

I use a mix of applications when making training material for the company

We use autocad so the 3D renderings are easy on that aspect, the rest I just make a lot of eye candy

[bill.young]

I'd recommend giving Sketchup a try, Just about everything I design these days is done in VCarve but I use Sketchup for instructions that are very similar to the IKEA ones.

I export the bits and pieces from VCarve as a dxf file and then import into Sketchup. Push-pull them for thickness and then assemble into a model. This give me the ability to spin the model around to get the view I need, and to hide things that I don't need to show. Then just take screenshots for the images I need

Here's an example from the instructions for a storage crate for Handibots.

25636

Bill

[harryball]

Can anyone get SketchUp to download? http://help.sketchup.com/en/article/115548
I've tried several ways, it just fails with no reason given.

[Brady Watson]

No problem here w/64 bit free version. Just tried it in Chrome.

-B

[harryball]

Must be on the internet somewhere then, been trying all day and it fails anywhere from 1K to 10MB into any file from them. Everywhere else works fine, just from them. I'll keep trying.

[gundog]

Have you thought about a video? Link on your web site or maybe include a disc in the box? I almost don't assemble anything any more and I plan to shoot a bunch of videos soon right now I make instruction sheets they are not great I save the Aspire drawings as a JPG with font on all the parts to identify them. My method needs a lot of help but I have decided to go the video route.

I am hoping in the future to use those funny code boxes on my labels that smart phones use to open a video showing how the product works also.

Mike

[Michaelodunk]

Try WORD very powerful.

[David Iannone]

Mike, the video idea sounds great to me. Time of filming, editing, etc. (with todays smart phones and apps is pretty straight forward) ya only have to do it one time per product? When I just read your post it reminded me of Donek tools. I have their drag knife and they have excellent utube videos that have helped me a lot.

just my 2 cents

Dave