autocad workstation peripherals

[stephen80]

while browsing the interwebs the other day i came across a few pages talking about using gaming keyboards and mice in conjunction with autocad. so i did a little bit of reading/research (things are slow at work) and found out it wasn't to difficult to do, and a new mouse was like $80. i thought why not give it a try. i took to amazon to get the logitech G600 for $49 w/prime shipping, i received it monday and tuesday i was off and running. the most difficult thing about it was choosing what commands to program on the thumb keys. it has the normal two mouse buttons and scroll wheel up, down, left and right, with third mouse button as a "shift key" for the 12 thumb buttons to make 24 individual keys, plus two other buttons with the scroll wheel that i believe select between profiles you can set. (haven't dove completely into it) after working with it for the better part of tuesday, this morning wednesday i reconfigured some commands on the thumb pad and printed out a cheat sheet to memorize. some of the commands like copy/past/cut work outside of Autocad which is a plus.

it has helped in some areas of accuracy typing commands like move between 2 points (i mistype a lot) but slowed other processes down just because its new and still getting to the nuances of operation. i believe it will become second nature as long as i don't change the commands often as i feel which ones fit best or needed more.

anyways i thought i would just throw this out there maybe it's something you would like to try or have some experience with or didn't know you could use. let me know if there is something else out there you have tried to work with.

 

 

links:

http://www.lifehacker.com.au/2015/05/why-i-started-using-gaming-peripherals-to-get-real-work-done/

 

http://blog.grabcad.com/blog/2010/08/28/best-for-cad-work-mouse-trackball-3d-device/

 

https://www.amazon.com/Logitech-G600-Gaming-Mouse-Black/dp/B0086UK7IQ/ref=sr_1_sc_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1486577758&sr=8-1-spell&keywords=logitehc+g600

[f700es]

Good post with good info. I tried one of those Belkin n52te (early version). I just could not "un-learn" all my normal keyboard movements and actions. Others might have better luck with them. I did not even get used to it with FPS gaming (the reason I bought it).

To add to this, I think a good gaming rig can be a good CAD station as well (depending on what CAD application you are using of course).

[stephen80]

i'm in the same boat about "un-learning" my physical movements that have become second nature. most of the inputs are second nature i catch myself in the process. i may revise my thumb keys again and use them for mostly the "right" click menu. i have been using "qselect" and "select similar" a lot (which are programed now) it helps a lot with that and purge.

[f700es]

I did use a multi-button mouse several years ago that was not too hard to learn. Just remember that I learned CAD on a puck in DOS (hella old, 46)

[stephen80]

well im 32 and about 13ish years into my autocad career, i used to work with autocad electrical and had some very intelligent and talented guys helping me learn, and now i am doing basic stuff in LT and i needed something to re-invigorate my autocad passion. so that explains the gaming mouse and why i redraw just about every part my company uses for assembly purposes as a dynamic block with attributes. which the previous drafter before me and the guy responsible for me had no clue what the capabilities an Autocad program can do.....

[zaphod]

I've been using my stuff so long, I have trouble at other workstations.

 

 

I also have a "Stinky" gaming foot board.

[f700es]

I bought my son a Razer mouse last year. He has the sensitivity turned up so high that you can blow a mouse-click on it. I am too stupid to use it

[SLW210]

It's still hard to beat standard and custom keyboard shortcuts, I also find that my thumb button programmed as ENTER speeds things up as well. Just too hard for me to get used to too many buttons, I had a mouse a good while back with several buttons programmed, but I came here and the standard mouse they gave me just has Left, Right, Middle is a Toggle and a Thumb button, working one hand on the keyboard and one the mouse I can go a lot faster than I did with all the other fancy equipment.

 

I am sure with enough practice one could take full advantage of all the extra buttons, if you actually used them enough, I found I only use a very limited part of AutoCAD for the most part on a daily basis.

 

Too many buttons on modern game controllers for me.