SolidWorks Sucks...
sbpowde...@gmail.com
Solidworks. The techsupport people send me E Drawings for dummies ; )
I've been using Solidworks at work for a year now (not by choice). And
I have to tell y'a if I had been givin the choice we would be running
ProE instead of that low end package. Don't get me wrong Solid works
is great for drawing pretty pictures and all. But to get actual work
done. Pffffff... The 2005 version can't even do a cross section
without the hatching. Telling you lots of fudging lot of waiting but
certainly no performance. I'm going back to CAD. XYZ here I come...
Cheers!
M.Design
dev...@semmlerclan.com
I've been using SW for eight years and couldn't agree more. It's STILL
slow and creates crap drawings. I happen to be in a bad mood right now
because of crawling solidworks.
fcsuper
LOL Flames from a burnout?
Jason
Sounds more like competitor VARs trying to start stuff.......maybe
they are in a head to head with solidworks at some company and are
about to lose the sale. Post some negative stuff here and then point
to it.
As for cross hatch...select it...then select "None" in the property
manager.
That70sTick
> without the hatching. Telling you lots of fudging lot of waiting but
> certainly no performance. I'm going back to CAD. XYZ here I come...
>
If you're going to slam SW, come up w/ something more credible. There
are multiple ways to turn off or hide hatching.
I've gotten plenty of "actual work" done with SW. I've also done
plenty with Pro/E and UG. You don't make a convincing case that SW is
the source of your problem.
TOP
Bo
I can understand why you are PO'd, having never learned how to use it
properly after 8 years. That must really be a bum feeling. Slow? If
you are too slow, you can always go to a CAD appl which runs on high
end workstations or mainframes. Why wait 8 years?
There simply wouldn't be 600,000 customers of SolidWorks if good
productive work could not be done, and no 3rd Party Developers would
waste their time if SolidWorks was not useful.
Well, it is obvious someone wants to stir the pot annonymously.
semmlerclan.com just points to Google Canada.
Bo
dev...@semmlerclan.com
>
> - Show quoted text -
I'm hardly anonymous and I assure you I know how to use SW. I have
used it full time for the eight years creating REAL machine drawings.
Ie. 8000 parts or more assemblies, thousands of drawings, weldments,
machining drawings and more. I worked for a VAR for some time teaching
and doing demos, I have my CSWP and was a certified instructor and
tech support. I've probably forgotten more about SW than you'll know.
The fact is SW still has many of the same problems it has for years,
for example hiding edges in drawings works like crap. Changing line
weights in drawings works like crap. Creating views of cast parts that
have all kinds of convoluted shapes and tangent edges is painful.
Added to that SW is SLOW. It is brutally slow with large assemblies
and even worse with those parts/assemblies' drawings.
SW doesn't crash as much as it used to but aside from that there are
minimal advances. For instance they added weldments some time ago.
Unfortunately you can't add a weld bead unless the parts are touching
which, if you had half a clue, you would know that in real world
weldments the parts are NOT touching, there's clearance. I also can't
add weld beads between irregular shapes. The weldment cut list and
it's corresponding balloons continue to be buggy (at least in SW 06
which I'm using right now).
I could go on and on but am not interested in trying to educate you in
the limitations of SW. The truth is I am as frustrated as ever with it
because it is grindingly slow with large assemblies. I have colleagues
using ProE who do not have the same problems and appear to be more
satisfied with SW than I. I also can't say I have ANY colleagues that
aren't disappointed daily with SW.
There are a lot more than 600,000 people driving a Kia but that
doesn't make it a good car.
Bo
If I had to do 6000+ part assemblies with weldments done right, then
I, too, would probably pick a higher end tool for the job, and
wouldn't blame anyone else for picking the best tool for the job.
Phil Evans
you may know a lot about Solidworks but you dont know much about
the Kia line of automobiles. They beat N American cars hands dowm
with a 5 year warranty, better quality and all the extras.
Kia is a subsidiary of Hyundai, excellent value for money.
600,000 people DO know what they are doing!!!
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sbpowde...@gmail.com
Thruth is I'm no salesman trying to bash SW. I'm just a poor old Pre-
Cad Tech user that converted to SW a year ago. I totally agree with
Devlin's comment of the slow (parts/assemblies' drawings). Has for the
hatching... Selecting none in the property manager doesn't do a thing
(at least not with the 2006 SP2.1version). I don't think I need to
get all techinical to say that SW suck's the work I do is mostly very
basic stuff. Parts, assm, dwgs... But if the program can't even select
a line to put a dimension on without giving me a fuss... Not that's
not very efficient is it?
Still wouln'd buy a Kia...
Cheers!
John H
Somebody from a Kia dealership has strayed in here!
John H
John H
<dev...@semmlerclan.com> wrote
>>
>
> There are a lot more than 600,000 people driving a Kia but that
> doesn't make it a good car.
>
>
Autocad/MDesktop, and that certainly doesn't make it a good package!
I think Solidworks has got where it has by:-
a) Having a name that everyone could remember, which helped greatly with
marketing (compared with UGS Unigraphics or SDRC I-DEAS)
b) It was greatly cheaper than the competition when it appeared
c) It's now achieved a marketing critical mass where everyone's heard of it,
everyone's heard that "600,000 people use it" and so managers who know
bugger all about 3D CAD systems feel confident to buy it - this is the
position Autocad reached many years ago.
d) Many of the licenses are virtually given away to students and educational
establishments
e) It's an OK product but with probably as many flaws as strengths.
I was relishing the prospect of learning to use it when I started my present
job 18months ago, but I have to say although I'm occasionally pleasantly
surprised by what it can do, I'm also endlessly disappointed by its
unreliability and poor attention to detail.
John H
Bo
"Slow" is a relative term, and I've been designing parts for over 30
years, over 20 on CAD. The 68040 Macs may have been slow, but I got
good 2D work done on them in the late 80s. It was a good tool for my
jobs. I've done assemblies with 5-6 dozen parts where every part is
rounded-conical and assemblies start to slow down, but SWks is good
for the job, and that is on a 1.7Ghz M60 laptop or my MacBook Pro.
I've never had to use techniques with SWks to allow me to work with
larger assemblies, but I know I've listened to more experienced SWks
users discuss it on this Newsgroup as to techniques to make it work
better, and some users here have put up papers on working with large
assemblies. Still, if I got boxed down on speed, I'ld upgrade
hardware quickly (the new Intel processors are almost here). Hardware
includes the PC its accessories (& crapware in the OS that must be
removed or zapped), the network, the server, and its software.
If Swks would not cut it for large assemblies with good hardware and
best large assembly techniques, I would simply pick a better tool, pay
for it and learn it. CAD programs are just another tool. I wouldn't
pick a Bridgeport mill to make an injection mold cavity in this day
and age, and I wouldn't pick a knee mill with a CNC add-on to do hard
SS milling, as it is the wrong tool for the job.
"Fuss" is sort of relative, too. I've never had trouble dimensioning
my simpler parts either in the solids or in drawings, & frankly don't
remember hearing about not being able to select a line to dimension on
this group, but I could have just passed it by. I assume that if
there is a situation about dimensioning a line that is common, various
people reported it and others are working on fixing it. What type of
line gives a "Fuss"?
So let's look at these nebulous terms "slow" and "fuss" and see what
options exist to deal with them. There may be some answers
hereabouts.
Bo
Phil Evans
just a happy owner of a fine Kia family automobile.
FrankW
Take away the cad system (any one) and replace it with a pencil/eraser
and drafting table.
Then tell me how much it sucks.
sbpowde...@gmail.com
Here's the whole story...
(Posted by André.)
Here's my situation:
We design and build Kiosks. Our sales department designs "dummy"
models in solidworks and then exports it to get rendered for the
client to approve, and that usually works out fine. The models are
fully solid, only surface details, etc.
When it comes to actually building the unit though, we've been unsure
how to proceed. The shop used to use Autocad and it would take a week
to update any kind of details for the shop drawings. About a year
ago,
they decided to "get with the times" and get a solid modeller.
Solidworks (basic version) was what was chosen at the time (pro-e is
still a little pricey, and the designer had bad experiences with
Inventor). Having a solid model driving the drawings would make
updating a breeze, or so we thought.
When it comes time to actually model a unit though, it seems to be
more complicated than we anticipated. They are made of wood primarily
(plywood, etc), with metal accessories (handles, slides, hinges,
etc).
Our first project was done as an assembly, with each panel of wood a
seperate part, but the assembly started to get overly complicated
REALLY quickly. Our project folders were immense, for what seemed
like
a simple product. For our drawings, we typically have to show a fully
assemebled unit, cross sections, indicating the panel ID's to
reference a cut-list. Sometimes drawer front or something would be
shown individually. As an assembly, it wasn't too hard to put
together
the required assemblies to insert into our drawing package, but the
actual design time was much longer than intended.
We then tried doing a welded assembly. This greatly sped up design
time, not having to name each part individually, deal with mates,
etc.
We could model a whole unit in a day or two. But then came the tricky
part: doing the drawings. Cross sections were 'ok' (semmed a little
slow to work with though). But when it came time to show only a few
of
the solid bodies as a seperate "assembly" in the drawing package,
were
we unsure of the best way to seperate that from the original welded
assembly. We originally selected the individual bodies, then selected
'insert into new part', and while thats fine as-is, we often found
ourselves wanting to add or remove a body from that 'export' we just
did, so as to still stay parametric to the original welded assembly,
but we couldn';t accomplish this without deleting it and basiacally
starting over; losing all the work we had done in the drawing. We
also
considered configurations, but that ended up being terribly slow,
seeming like it loaded thw whole assembly each time we wanted to do a
view, and it ended up taking 30+ seconds to switch pages in our
drawing package.
Basically we're at a loss, everything seems too slow and clunky to
work like we would want to. Our computers are by no means slow, 2
gigs
of ram, dual core intel bla bla..
Does anyone else have experience building and detailing assemblies of
this sort? what would you suggest? How would you go about building it
from the ground up? welded assembly? plain old assembly modeling?
configurations? etc? Anything suggestion that could help speed this
process up would help, and our VAR doesn't seem to be much help. If
you work with large assemblies, what tricks do you use to keep your
software running smoothly? opening a drawing package right now takes
ages, let along switching pages, it's getting quite irritating.
I had previously used solidworks in a machine shop for years and had
honestly no complaints, since i really wasn't working with large
assemblies, i was mostly dealing with sometimes complex, single
models
to be machined on CNC, quite a different world i tell ya!
Thanks!
André Richard
The idiot that suggested Solidworks.
Bo
I know there are a number of users who do large assemblies who will
answer questions in this group, and some of them are consultants who
help with planning implementation of SolidWorks and training, and one
of those may be a great help if you were to find a CSWP consultant
near you.
I remember discussions on this group of large assembly techniques,
lightweight parts, just suppressing certain parts or subassemblies,
using design tables to drive a family of similar products &
configurations in both parts and assemblies, limiting rebuilds and
more. You can use those key words to quickly search out some of those
techniques discussed in the past. I think these will get you some
help.
Bo
dev...@semmlerclan.com
It's not quite as simple as that. The reasons why SW is as popular as
it is are for the very reasons that John H has said. I saw it first
hand working for a VAR. Many people hadn't heard of anything except SW
and in fact many people honestly think that SW is the only 3d mech
package around. Then you show them a fancy pre-canned carefully
crafted demo and they're blown away. Demos that include garbage like
autoballooning and autodimension etc. etc. that NEVER work in the real
world.
So here I am, an experienced mechanical designer that is looking for
work. Which software package do I need to know to be employable?
Whichever is popular, not which is best.
Fortunately I'm working with a group of design consultants now that
are working directly for manufacturers and we're in a position to
choose whichever CAD package we need. Right now we're seriously
looking at ProE because there are people around here that know it. In
my neck of the woods it's all SW, ProE and Inventor.
While I'm continuing to rant I'll share another reason I'm PO'd at SW.
At this very moment I'm trying to hide certain edges in a drawing. SW
places edges over top of edges (big no-no in ACAD). When I select an
edge it invariably hides the entire edge if you know what I mean and
the screws up the drawing. Quite literally my very next move is the
undo button which does NOTHING. Then I try to select the edge to show
the edge and this fails too. Now I'm stuck with a screwed up section
view. This very problem has persisted in SW since the day I started
with it.
Thankfully SW now allows you to add a fancy diamond plate skin to the
feature manager because I really need that.
Dale Dunn
> edge it invariably hides the entire edge if you know what I mean and
> the screws up the drawing. Quite literally my very next move is the
> undo button which does NOTHING.
Apart from well desrved rants about how Undo is next to useless...
Do you get better edge selection when you hold the shift key?
fcsuper
I couldn't disagree with you more. It's ridiculous to say that a
software took over the market because it has an easy to remember
name. Being less expensive than ProE was a factor, but there still
has to be a good product there to hold the customer for years. Kia
does have 600,000 owners, but how many of them will buy a Kia as their
next car? With SolidWorks, retension has been vital.
As far as the "as many flaws as strengths" statement. Well, the grass
is always greener somewhere else. :) However, there's a reason ProE
fell far behind and why Inventor doesn't dominant the market (which
should've happened a couple years ago if what you are suggesting was
true). It's because it is a great package for the price. And ya'no,
it's even a better package for the price now more than ever.
TOP
to have a seasoned user come in and review "how" you are trying to do
what you are doing. With SW there is usually an easy way and a hard
way. Many times the old ways are the hard ways as they come with a
bunch of hidden assumptions that don't apply to solid modeling.
However, even with all that SW can be slow as it really should let you
do it your way and still perform well.
TOP
pete
That was a crap service pack and was slow as a dead snail.
Update to 2006 sp5.0, you will see a massive improvement and it seems to be
rock steady, (for me, anyway)
One thing I do have a gripe about, are hole patterns, these really slow
things down.
A good way to speed up designing, is to put commonly unchanged parts and
assemblies, into the design library folders.
Here another reason for slowness that is quite often overlooked.
example
Main assembly
sub assembly a
part a
part a1
sub assembly b
part b
part b1
Open and change "part b" from the main assembly
If you do not open and re-save "part b", drawing for "part b", "sub assembly
b",
drawing for "sub assembly b" and finally re-open and save the main assembly
and the drawing for the main assembly, this will slow everything down.
You can see this, when you go to check in the main assembly drawing, into
Pdmworks or similar package.
The drawings will be opened and then saved, BEFORE, they will check-in.
Pete
<sbpowde...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1175628314....@w1g2000hsg.googlegroups.com...
dev...@semmlerclan.com
> John H,
>
> I couldn't disagree with you more. It's ridiculous to say that a
> software took over the market because it has an easy to remember
> name. Being less expensive than ProE was a factor, but there still
> has to be a good product there to hold the customer for years. Kia
> does have 600,000 owners, but how many of them will buy a Kia as their
> next car? With SolidWorks, retension has been vital.
>
> As far as the "as many flaws as strengths" statement. Well, the grass
> is always greener somewhere else. :) However, there's a reason ProE
> fell far behind and why Inventor doesn't dominant the market (which
> should've happened a couple years ago if what you are suggesting was
> true). It's because it is a great package for the price. And ya'no,
> it's even a better package for the price now more than ever.
>
>
> On Apr 4, 6:00 am, "John H" <john.harland.del...@texkimp.co.uk> wrote:
>
>
>
> > <dev...@semmlerclan.com> wrote
>
> > > There are a lot more than 600,000 people driving a Kia but that
> > > doesn't make it a good car.
>
> > A better argument might be that there are supposedly 2million+ users of
> > Autocad/MDesktop, and that certainly doesn't make it a good package!
>
> > I think Solidworks has got where it has by:-
>
> > a) Having a name that everyone could remember, which helped greatly with
> > marketing (compared with UGS Unigraphics or SDRC I-DEAS)
>
> > b) It was greatly cheaper than the competition when it appeared
>
> > c) It's now achieved a marketing critical mass where everyone's heard of it,
> > everyone's heard that "600,000 people use it" and so managers who know
> > bugger all about 3D CAD systems feel confident to buy it - this is the
> > position Autocad reached many years ago.
>
> > d) Many of the licenses are virtually given away to students and educational
> > establishments
>
> > e) It's an OK product but with probably as many flaws as strengths.
>
> > I was relishing the prospect of learning to use it when I started my present
> > job 18months ago, but I have to say although I'm occasionally pleasantly
> > surprised by what it can do, I'm also endlessly disappointed by its
> > unreliability and poor attention to detail.
>
>
> - Show quoted text -
I suppose you haven't heard of Beta and VHS then? Inventor has as many
seats as SW. ProE doesn't because although it's technically superior
it doesn't have the vendor network with local training and sales etc
as much as SW and Autodesk, that goes a long way.
Retention of SW is because of market share. SW has reached a point
where the market share drives the sales. It would be a completely
different situation if 3D mech file formats were 100% cross compatible
but that's impossible.
Instead of speaking in generalizations perhaps you could share with us
specifics as to why ProE has fallen behind in market share? It's more
complicated and more expensive for sure but it's definitel better.
dev...@semmlerclan.com
That helps with selection but not always. The bigger frustation is the
inability to change the thickness and/or hide/show etc. The hide/show
problem has been around FOREVER.
swizzle
throw it in a drawer. The smell of ammonia from the blue print machine.
Electric erasers on Sepia copies. I'd go back in a heart beat.
>>> On 4/4/2007 at 8:06 AM, in message
<L72dnf5YxshbLY7b...@magma.ca>, FrankW<fw...@norpak.ca>
wrote:
bob zee
> I assume that if there is a situation about dimensioning a line that is common, various
> people reported it and others are working on fixing it. What type of
> line gives a "Fuss"?
>
> So let's look at these nebulous terms "slow" and "fuss" and see what
> options exist to deal with them. There may be some answers
> hereabouts.
>
> Bo
good ol' bob z. ran into the inability to dimension a line about a
week or so ago. it was the most frustrating thing for him at the time
because it needed to be done and done right now. ya know? one of
those pressure cooker scenarios. the line was just a line on the
bottom of a plate. nothing special about it at all. bob z. is used
to having a bit of an issue picking the edge of a circle, but this was
a flat plate.
bob z. doesn't complain about speed. bob z. just finished a part that
had 10,668 holes. now, that was a resource hog!!! it would've been
cool if it had been a flat part, but it was a bell shaped detail, so
each row of holes had to be it's own feature. (can't get into much
more specifics, non-disclosure...)
other than that, swx rawks hard. it is just the little things, ya
know? the little things.
:~)>
bob z. is discussing this post with a co-worker right now. he does
the big stuff - he has an assembly right now with over 8000 parts. oh
yes.
bob z.
p.s. kill the king. the king is dead. long-live the king.
sbpowde...@gmail.com
jlb...@gmail.com
> I'm hardly anonymous and I assure you I know how to use SW. I have
> used it full time for the eight years creating REAL machine drawings.
> Ie. 8000 parts or more assemblies, thousands of drawings, weldments,
> machining drawings and more. I worked for a VAR for some time teaching
You just need proper training. I was trained by Bob Zee. I have only
been using SolidWorks for about 4 yrs. and have done several large
machine designs completely in SolidWorks. The last machine had
10,000+ parts. I haven't had issues at all. Perhaps you could
contact Bob Zee and get a little training on how to manage larger
assemblies.
A little creating the drawings sure. Still better than Autocad so I
don't complain
sbpowde...@gmail.com
I just installed 2007 SP0. I got to say It's still pretty slow, for
the drawing part of it. I still can't get rid of the hatching either.
I mean a simple cross section. The tools option is set at none and the
auto hatching in the section view is checked of as well. I do not
want to right click all the hatching individually and turn it off,
which takes 51 seconds to do (yes I counted). Does anyone else has the
same problem?
Cheers!
MDesign
dev...@semmlerclan.com
Really? How the heck would you know that I need training or not. I
know how to deal with large assemblies already, believe me I've been
chasing the large assembly thing for years. I have machines that are
feature intensive and although they have some subs this particular
machine is mostly top level with many top level mates. If you had a
machine with 10,000+ parts and had no problems then it was because you
had it entirely broken into subassemblies with few top level mates and
in lightweight mode with simple parts. My product structure does not
allow for that.
Try most of the parts being top level, feature rich parts, weldments,
sheet metal and so on combined with the fact that the assembly needs
to be dynamic with moving hydraulic cylinders, splines and gears. It
doesn't work well and it has nothing to do with my training level.
Keep your assumptions to yourself.
jlb...@gmail.com
>
> Try most of the parts being top level, feature rich parts, weldments,
> sheet metal and so on combined with the fact that the assembly needs
> to be dynamic with moving hydraulic cylinders, splines and gears. It
> doesn't work well and it has nothing to do with my training level.
> Keep your assumptions to yourself.
Using Cylinders, gears and splines and then expecting them to be
dynamic is amazing.
You got me.
The last machine I designed that was 10000+ components was actually
comprised of 10000
1x1x1 blocks.
I guess instead of "chasing the large assembly issues" I have focused
on finding ways to
work with it instead of against it.
Dale Dunn
> sheet metal and so on combined with the fact that the assembly needs
> to be dynamic with moving hydraulic cylinders, splines and gears. It
> doesn't work well and it has nothing to do with my training level.
> Keep your assumptions to yourself.
I have to agree with Bob Zee's acolyte here. What you're describing says to
me that you're not taking advantage of the best methods for handling large
assemblies. Stuff that VARs may not teach. It certainly seems that SW could
be faster, but it sounds to me that you're not getting all the speed (or
un-slow) out of SW that you could.
You mention a few things that I might recommend (not necessarily
lightwieght) that your product structure does not allow. How is it that
your product is not compatable with large assembly management techniques?
dev...@semmlerclan.com
obviously the splines and gears aren't dynamic, that would never
happen. The machine is dynamic in other ranges of motion driven by
hydraulic cylinders.
speaking of 10000 blocks there is a benchmark you can use for large
assemblies creating a thousand blocks with a hole through the middle
and filleted edges. A colleague used this benchmark between SW 06 and
ProE and ProE smoked SW. The company he worked for at the time was a
manufacturer here that was using SW and had about 30 seats but have
since switched to ProE.
dev...@semmlerclan.com
What I'm referring to specifically is that I'm unable to use much in
the way of subassemblies. The nature of the part requires that the
assembly of parts be top level. The top level BOM needs to call the
parts individually, not as subassemblies. A lack of subassemblies
leads to an inordinate amount of top level mates. Add to this that
many of these parts are resource hogs and the top assembly becomes a
bear.
This is further complicated by the fact that most of are parts are
weldments that are then machined. We want to use the weldment features
adn show our fillets because the machine is tightly packed. We then
call these parts in a second part where the machining drawing is
created. We could use configs but this means one part file for two
drawings which creates it's own problems with our document management.
So we have a wldmt part called in a mach part that is then called in
the top assy. These references seem to start to kill SW in terms of
performance.
Of course the drawings are where the real pain is. The assemblies are
slow but the speed of drawings and the difficulties in getting true
high quality ANSI drawings is painful.
Bruce Bretschneider
all parts, even those in subassemblies, will be shown in a single BOM.
Even if subassemblies did show, you can exclude them from the BOM using
the BOM Contents option in the Properties of the BOM.
Am I missing something?
dev...@semmlerclan.com
>
> - Show quoted text -
I do have some subassemblies too though. I could be wrong but I think
if I "show parts only" then I'm showing all parts, no subassemblies
even thought there are subs that I want shown as subs. Know what I
mean?
dev...@semmlerclan.com
>
> - Show quoted text -
I was just testing it out and I don't see any way to show the parts of
a sub assembly in the BOM and show the subassemblies that I want to
show as subs. Maybe there's a work around I'm not thinking of but I
can't see how to do it. If I could it would be helpful, then I could
reduce my top level part/mate count and speed things up.
jlb...@gmail.com
> I do have some subassemblies too though. I could be wrong but I think
> if I "show parts only" then I'm showing all parts, no subassemblies
> even thought there are subs that I want shown as subs. Know what I
>
> - Show quoted text -
Have you tried the check mark box under configuration properties that
says "Don't show child components in BOM when used as a sub-assebmly"
dev...@semmlerclan.com
When you turn that on and then select "show parts only" for the BOM it
hides the assembly in question altogether. It doesn't just leave it as
an assembly in the BOM and show all the other parts.
Ben Eadie
I was hoping this one was going to work.... Seemed to be the most logical.
Ben
MM
Amen to that.
I bought my daughter a Sorento for her first car. Looked at a dozen other
midsize SUV's in the process. The Sorento is built better and stronger than
any of em. It has a full unibody with a hardened passenger area "ON TOP" of
a full ladder frame. It's built like a freakin tank. Great warranty, and not
a single problem in 45,000 miles.
Mark
"Phil Evans" <pev...@tagaerospace.com> wrote in message
news:MM2dncfzNJP7oY7b...@giganews.com...
> Hi Devlin,
> you may know a lot about Solidworks but you dont know much about
> the Kia line of automobiles. They beat N American cars hands dowm
> with a 5 year warranty, better quality and all the extras.
> Kia is a subsidiary of Hyundai, excellent value for money.
> 600,000 people DO know what they are doing!!!
>
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TOP
TOP
John H
<dev...@semmlerclan.com> wrote >> Why can't you use the "Show parts only"
>> all parts, even those in subassemblies, will be shown in a single BOM.
>> Even if subassemblies did show, you can exclude them from the BOM using
>> the BOM Contents option in the Properties of the BOM.
>>
>> Am I missing something?- Hide quoted text -
>>
>> - Show quoted text -
>
> I do have some subassemblies too though. I could be wrong but I think
> if I "show parts only" then I'm showing all parts, no subassemblies
> even thought there are subs that I want shown as subs. Know what I
> mean?
>
again at the end.
You CAN have as many levels of sub-assemblies as you like and still show all
the parts in the BOM as if they were added to the top level using the "show
parts only" command. It is totally mis-named and ought to be called "show
all components".
You can also mark each "dummy" sub-assy (i.e. ones that are just containers
to simplify the assy structure) so that they do not appear in the BOM, but
their contents still do.
Having said all that, it doesn't work that reliably for me. I've got a
small assembly which uses sub-assys to let me add in groups of optional
extras. Quite often many of the lines of the BOM are blank, or only some of
the columns are populated, but if I do enough ctrl-Q rebuilds it eventually
sorts itself out.
I've got another larger assy (not huge though) with sub-assys, and depending
on which rebuild you look at, the number of items in the BOM varies between
51 and 58 !!
John H
"fcsuper" <fcs...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1175702887....@p77g2000hsh.googlegroups.com...
> John H,
>
> I couldn't disagree with you more. It's ridiculous to say that a
> software took over the market because it has an easy to remember
> name.
From what I've seen of various CAD journals down the years, SWX has been THE
most heavily advertised 3D package. Combine that with a cool, quite clever
and easy-to-remember name, and it greatly helps the marketing effort.
> Being less expensive than ProE was a factor, but there still
> has to be a good product there to hold the customer for years.
Unless you create one-off, bespoke designs, changing CAD systems is a
nightmare most companies won't contemplate unless there's an issue that's a
complete job-stopper.
> Kia does have 600,000 owners, but how many of them will buy a Kia as their
> next car? With SolidWorks, retension has been vital.
>
> As far as the "as many flaws as strengths" statement. Well, the grass
> is always greener somewhere else. :) However, there's a reason ProE
> fell far behind and why Inventor doesn't dominant the market (which
> should've happened a couple years ago if what you are suggesting was
> true).
Not at all - the wider world hasn't heard of Inventor, but everyone has
heard of Autocad.
>It's because it is a great package for the price. And ya'no,
> it's even a better package for the price now more than ever.
>
The lack of PDM in the lower-end offerings is shameful, and the price when
you include them is not attractive. You could get I-DEAS with PDM as
standard for less than SWX (the merging with NX has killed that off). Sure,
there were some things missing at that price (sheet metal for example), but
it gives the lie to the argument that SWX is currently "great package for
the price".
I think it would be more accurate to say "an OK package for the price".
John H
John H
JOJO
concerning their work with 3D CAD software?
Of cause the amount of users of the nuts an bolts fraction are considerable,
but they are definitely no measure for the requirements of a sophisticated
and powerful cad software. Their only problem seems to be the amount
of parts the software is still able to handle and to flatten 3d data again
to 2d paper drawings with millions of crossing lines. ;-)
LOL 10.000 +++ parts consisting of piled up boxes and cylinders, only crude
geometry. That愀 nothin描ou need a cad software, you just need to take
some nice coloured wooden building blocks ;-)
I bet that I can also force down the performance of SW with only one single
complex part of a consumer good, designed for injection molding.
And that愀 real frustrating to me to see that SW still can愒 handle complex
geometry, surface-tangencies and precise predictable spline behavior in an
acceptable and efficient way.
Not to mention all further shortcomings of SW: bug legacies reaching back to
2001+, painful instalation, the lack of stability, altered geoetry,
redundant gadgets, decreasing quality while price is steadily increasing
....
just my 2cents of a non machine design guy
happy flaming ;-)
JoJo
Dale Dunn
> logical.
Hmm. It does work for me, all the time. This is how I do some hydraulic
cylinders, as flexible subs. I wonder what I'm doing differently.
TOP
Guess you never tried a machined project for real men like say an
eight cyllinder internal combustion engine. With all the castings and
forgings you have the worst of both worlds, complex geometry, drafts
and fillets galore and lots of parts. Isn't just the ID guys that do
complex.
TOP
PS You haven't lived till you've done a watercooled cylinder head
casting.
Dale Dunn
weldments: It sounds like you have a raw weldment with in-context
features to the assembly. The raw weldment is inserted into the machined
part file, which also has features in-context to the same assembly? Ouch.
Every rebuild of the assembly rebuilds the in-context raw weldment, and
finished weldment, then marks the finished weldment as needing a requild?
Or does it begin another round of assembly rebuild to bring the machined
weldment up to date? Either way, that sounds like some nasty multipass
rebuilding there, and a great change for circular refernces to sneak in.
Is there a better way? I'm thinking... Would your document process allow
this: Do the whole weldment in raw and finished configurations of the
same part. Insert the weldment configuration into a blank part file to
satisfy the filing system. That would get the weldment done in one
rebuild pass on the assembly, vs. two or more. The raw weldment would
only get rebuilt when working on the drawing.
I can't help with drawings of weldments. Last I checked, that just
sucked, no matter how it compares to the competition. There's a lot of
room for improvement there. Welds... don't get me started on weld models
and annotations.
I'm not sure I correctly grasp your weldments situation, but I hope I at
least gave you an idea or two for making things incrementally better.
It's a constant struggle, figuring out how to structure parts and
assemblies to achieve efficient rebuilds. Some say that we shouldn't have
to be thinking about this. I'm not sure I agree. All tools have right and
wrong ways to be used. The tools in CAD systems are no different on that
point.
Having said all that, we know from other systems that SW could be faster
by quite a large margin. I totally get being frustrated with that.
There's a lot that could be done, and not much sign of progress.
Dale Dunn
> casting.
Any chance you could provide such a thing as another modeling challenge? It
would be an interesting part, and probably the subject of a lot of fruitful
discussion. I'm not sure how to specify what we would all be working
towards in such a way as to isolate modeling issues from casting design
issues. Perhaps a drawing of a crude prismatic finished part to be made
into a realistic cast part? Specifying draft angles, corner radii and
parting line should nail it down pretty well. Perhaps it would have to be a
series of challenges.
dev...@semmlerclan.com
Dale, you wrote " Do the whole weldment in raw and finished
configurations of the
same part. Insert the weldment configuration into a blank part file
to
satisfy the filing system. " That is exactly what I'm doing. I'm not
inserting weldment parts into an assembly I'm creating a weldment part
file and inserting it into another part file to machine. I would never
do weldments as incontext assemblies, way too slow for SW.
dev...@semmlerclan.com
I'm not sure I know what you mean. I use hydraulic cylinders as
flexible subs too. If I have other parts then I want them to display
in the BOM as individual items and the cyl to be an individual item as
well. I haven't had any success using dummy subs as was illustrated by
someone else.
dev...@semmlerclan.com
Straight from a colleague who switched to ProE from SW and is working
with other designers that also had SW experience prior to ProE. Take
it for what it's worth.....
......Solidworks users and prefer it (ProE) based on stability and
large assy performance. The downside is the interface and menus are
weak compared to SW and the time to get up and productive is
definitely longer. Also, I've personally found reseller support
lacking.
So, it basically corroborates what I was saying. SW has better vendor
network and is certainly easier to use by from a purely technical
standpoint ProE is more stable and faster. Speed and lack of flaky
bugs would be the most important thing to me, that may vary for each
of you so draw your own conclusions.
End of rant.
Dale Dunn
> I'm not sure I know what you mean. I use hydraulic cylinders as
> flexible subs too. If I have other parts then I want them to display
> in the BOM as individual items and the cyl to be an individual item as
> well. I haven't had any success using dummy subs as was illustrated by
> someone else.
I mean that I have the subassembly show as a single item in the BOM, which
is set to parts only. The "do no show child components in BOM..." setting
does this for me without any trouble.
Dale Dunn
> Dale, you wrote " Do the whole weldment in raw and finished
> configurations of the
> same part. Insert the weldment configuration into a blank part file
> to
> satisfy the filing system. " That is exactly what I'm doing. I'm not
> inserting weldment parts into an assembly I'm creating a weldment part
> file and inserting it into another part file to machine. I would never
> do weldments as incontext assemblies, way too slow for SW.
Are both the raw and machined weldments in-context to the assembly?
richard...@l-3com.com
> On Apr 4, 10:08 am, "fcsuper" <fcsu...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> > John H,
>
> > I couldn't disagree with you more. It's ridiculous to say that a
> > software took over the market because it has an easy to remember
> > has to be a good product there to hold the customer for years. Kia
> > does have 600,000 owners, but how many of them will buy a Kia as their
> > next car? With SolidWorks, retension has been vital.
>
> > As far as the "as many flaws as strengths" statement. Well, the grass
> > is always greener somewhere else. :) However, there's a reason ProE
> > fell far behind and why Inventor doesn't dominant the market (which
> > should've happened a couple years ago if what you are suggesting was
> > it's even a better package for the price now more than ever.
>
>
> > On Apr 4, 6:00 am, "John H" <john.harland.del...@texkimp.co.uk> wrote:
>
> > > <dev...@semmlerclan.com> wrote
>
> > > > There are a lot more than 600,000 people driving a Kia but that
> > > > doesn't make it a good car.
>
> > > A better argument might be that there are supposedly 2million+ users of
> > > Autocad/MDesktop, and that certainly doesn't make it a good package!
>
> > > I think Solidworks has got where it has by:-
>
> > > a) Having a name that everyone could remember, which helped greatly with
> > > marketing (compared with UGS Unigraphics or SDRC I-DEAS)
>
> > > b) It was greatly cheaper than the competition when it appeared
>
> > > c) It's now achieved a marketing critical mass where everyone's heard of it,
> > > everyone's heard that "600,000 people use it" and so managers who know
> > > bugger all about 3D CAD systems feel confident to buy it - this is the
> > > position Autocad reached many years ago.
>
> > > d) Many of the licenses are virtually given away to students and educational
> > > establishments
>
> > > e) It's an OK product but with probably as many flaws as strengths.
>
> > > I was relishing the prospect of learning to use it when I started my present
> > > job 18months ago, but I have to say although I'm occasionally pleasantly
> > > surprised by what it can do, I'm also endlessly disappointed by its
> > > unreliability and poor attention to detail.
>
> > > John H- Hide quoted text -
>
> > - Show quoted text -
>
> seats as SW. ProE doesn't because although it's technically superior
> it doesn't have the vendor network with local training and sales etc
> as much as SW and Autodesk, that goes a long way.
>
> Retention of SW is because of market share. SW has reached a point
> where the market share drives the sales. It would be a completely
> different situation if 3D mech file formats were 100% cross compatible
> but that's impossible.
>
> Instead of speaking in generalizations perhaps you could share with us
> specifics as to why ProE has fallen behind in market share? It's more
> complicated and more expensive for sure but it's definitel better.- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -
Solidworks has retention because of market share? Pro-E had about a
ten year headstart into the market over Solidworks.
Solidworks is a better solution for many, alltough you have a point
about large assemblies.
Bo
>
> Solidworks has retention because of market share? Pro-E had about a
> ten year headstart into the market over Solidworks.
> Solidworks is a better solution for many, alltough you have a point
> about large assemblies.
SolidWorks got where it is because it offered better value in the late
90s up to now than IDEAS, Unigraphics, ProE or Catia, with customers
finding SWks usable at a good price.
Gut feel says that any very successful product must travel well on
word of mouth, & SolidWorks has had that because it offered a moderate
level of ability for fewer dollars than the other 4 packages above.
Swks also outplaced the "Inventors" in their lower dollar catagory.
CAD is just a tool, and even the high end CAD packages are not
particularly pricey compared to the price of good designers and the
work that has to be done.
Any time a CAD user says "SolidWorks Sucks", he has a choice of what
he can move to for a higher end CAD package. It is a free market.
TOP
around somewhere. The problem is getting definition on the intake and
exhaust tracts as well as the combustion chamber shape. I could
probably provide photographs and key dimensions as a starting point.
TOP
Dale Dunn
@q75g2000hsh.googlegroups.com:
That sounds interesing.
How many would be willing to work through the challenge?
simplemachine
Works. We have been in the "implementation phase" for almost 1 year and
still have issues with BOM's and balooning in large assemblies. Our
typical assemblies consists of 6,000 to 10,000 parts containing weldments,
machined parts and the associated motors, gears, belts, etc. to make things
work. Most of our work must go out in top level drawings with complete
BOM's. The issues of working in large assemblies in SW and the issues with
DB Works are taking their toll on our ability to get work out the door.
If you have a success story, I could use a little hope.
harry
"simplemachine" <charlie...@veoliawater.com> wrote in message
news:c6edd3d8ad8806f0...@localhost.talkaboutcad.com...
TOP
What are the problems specifically?
TOP
bokm9606
*no ability to explicitly orient sketch
*no ability to pattern curves, planes or axis or any datum feature. Patterning curves is very important to create/signify keepouts and keep-ins itc.
*Patterning SMT like components (components that are assembled into onto other parts "sans" mating features is impossible. you have to create "dummy features" in parent part,
pattern the dummy feature, so you can then pattern the component in assy based on the dummy features. This is not a good way to express design intent and bloats files unnecessarily.
*sketch mode is inconsistent at "autosnapping/autocontraining". sometimes entities that are snapped during creation but are not constrainted...sometimes they are...some like “auto-snap” = auto constrain 60% of the time…
*sketch mode allows "over-constrained” sketches..- sometimes..." inconsistent. Time consuming to re-constrain a sketch or repair a sketch. I have never spent so much time in sketch mode
*no ability to do multivariable parametric pattern tables...ie X, Y, Z, Theta, diameter, etc, etc. This is a huge one for …lets you know….control panels!
*no ability to put both endcaps and surface features (ie extruded surface lack both endcaps options)
*no auto orient and plane creations for sections used on sweeps. Creation of a sweep bundles the path and section into the feature….even though the path may have been created 50 features ago…..after the sweep is created you have no clue “when” that path was created.
*no ability to converted extruded boss to a cut or surface or vice versa.
*No ability to convert created thin feature to "not be" a thin feature or vice versa (after feature is created and you "edit definition"
*model/feature tree constantly needs resized just so the bottom "drag up bar" will appear
*sketch mode almost indistinguishable from 3d model mode. Daily i exit sketch inadvertently and think i still am in "sketch mode" or vice versa"
*no ability to flip which side an offset edge is in a sketch after you accept and create the feature
*no dynamic preview of draft features which is a bummer because on small draft angles it is difficult to ensure which direction correct.
*no feature copy command (IE create the exact same feature but use these new references to create the feature)
*no "use previous" sketch plane option upon creating new sketches
*no dedicated systematic feature re-route ability
*assembly mode, no ability to "roll back" in time on the assembly tree....almost behaves as if it is "history-less" but still has parent-child relationships
*datum plane colors are stored per part...not as an environmental variable....yuck...can have 20 parts open all with different colored datum planes.
*edrawing installation error as part of service pack update no machines here sucessfully got the prepackaged edrawings installed correctly.
*no comparable tool to pro/E's "simplified reps" in assy
*no abilibty to "suspend" children features off a feature when deleting. SW will just delete the feature. Yes I called quest on this on…just got…”can’t” answer
*heavy utilization of system registries for admin. good and bad here. updating configurations system-wide REQUIRES all users to be logged out of SW. This is tough to enforce….unless your admin like getting up at 4:00 am.
*constraining a sketch is ultra-time consuming. The ability to create underdefined/under constrained sketches allows for sloppy design and design intent.
*no "ref pattern" of features available. further proof that SW is very much a "transplanter" Geom cad in pattern mode...and not parametric...barf
*no ability to pick and choose what features curve etc you want from a base part….you get all or nothing…….you can turn off entities like Csys’s…but you can’t pick when ones you want.
bokm9606
*very limited top down design tools - you can insert a "base part" feature that is it. No scoping what you want to push to target parts via "publish" (pick and choose what to publish - surfaces, curves, axis etc)
*assemblies of any complexity resemble molasses in January (north of the equator of course)
Peter
Yes, and the list can be made longer... I have worked with Solidworks since
1997 and I probably have 50,000 hours on it by now. and i can tell you it
takes between 5-10 years for SW to fix a bug. I had a list of over 100 bugs
that i have sent to my VAR MANY times. One spend a full day to describe and
send samples files, but SW don't givs a shit, so i gave up. They always blamed
my computer or Windows, it is a standard way for SW to "solve the problem"...
I stopped paying for the subscriptions 5 years ago in pure protest. I refuse
to pay for "support" that is non existent and handled by aborted "engineers"
who have never built anything from scratch in SW, but just copying already
made parts and assemblies from a textbook.
Yes Solidworks *SUCKS*, and it get worse. SW IS FULL OF ISSUES which probable
are considered as minor, yes many are minor.,but they accumulate year by year
and has now become a huge pile of shit..
It seams like all brains have left the company nowadays. I do regret that i
did not left SW earlier, I looked at Pro/e, Solid Edge, IronCAD etc 10 years
ago but one always think that it will become better, but it got worse. Now i'm
too old to start all over with a new software. Im living good on but old work
so i might retire and do something else, but i have too many ideas in my head
so it might be hard :-D
--
for full context, visit https://www.polytechforum.com/solidworks/solidworks-sucks-56997-.htm
ffdsfds
I agree to OP, that software is a terrible piece of shit
NHEngineer
I beg to differ with you, sir. Crosshatching removal in 2005 is only a three
step process and fundamentally obvious if you take the time to apply yourself.
No, i won't show you how. Figure it out for yourself. There are only two
major things I have a problem with SolidWorks; (1) it is unnecessarily
expensive (aka "rip-off") and (2) the models on 3-D Content Central
(https://www.3dcontentcentral.com/default.aspx) only go backwards two
iterations while the same models on Mamaster-Carr go all the way back to
SolidWorks 1997. Of course Dassault Systèmes could do the same but then
they would sell so many overpriced seats of their software. I'm soon going
to OnShape anyway ( https://www.onshape.com/)
mike
> eague who switched to ProE from SW and is working with other designers that
also had SW experience prior to ProE. Take it for what it's worth.....
> ......Solidworks users and prefer it (ProE) based on stability and large assy
performance. The downside
Solidquirks. I refer to SW as "Fisher Price"