Synergis Adept and Solidworks

[dku...@gmail.com]

Has anyone had a good experience using Adept with Solidworks? It looks
like a great product with a ton of features. The folks at Synergis
have a lot of history supporting cad and engineering.

We are using Adept 6 and Solidworks 2006. We used Adept 5 before but
had problems with it. The thought was that Adept 6 was going to be
better.

It has been difficult to discover the source of our difficulties.
Synergis is rather adept at blaming Windows, Solidworks, the network,
etc.

Any suggestions are welcome. What alternatives do you use?

--dave

[TOP]

Who implemented it? How long have you been using it? What are the
specific difficulties?

The blame game never works very well because there is always a reason.
The reason needs to be found and fixed.

[dku...@gmail.com]

Their trained folks handled each it time. I doubt they'd let anyone
else. Two patches they sent to fix problems made it worse.

Before Adept they used NFM here for quite awhile (before my time).

I'm interested now in finding other folks who are using it without
problems. Two companies that I've talked with (using SW & Adept)
dropped Adept. IMHO those companies may have dropped it too quickly
but I'm not sure.

[TOP]

OK they handled it. But what are the problems? And again how long has
your company been using it?

[aha...@gmail.com]

What version of Adept 6 are you running and what types of problems are
you having?

We run Adept 6 (Version 6.0.7.20) here where I work in Melbourne,
Australia and have been running it for 12 months. We have had a few
small issues with the SolidWorks integration over the last 12 months
which have been fixed. We did have one major issue recently which
caused us some problems with referenced files not being copied down to
the virtual library with some of our files. When opening the assembly
files in SolidWorks, SolidWorks whould either ask for the refereced
file or would suppress the part. This issue has since been resolved
with Synergis Software sending us a special server side fix. The fix
is to be included in the next version. Have you been experiencing this
issue at all?

Andrew Hallas
Project Engineer R & D / CAD Systems Administrator
MacDonald Johnston Engineering
Clayton North, Melbourne, Australia

[dku...@gmail.com]

We are also running version 6.07.20. There are issues with the virtual
library. Synergis recommended clearing the virtual library to fix it.
When you mentioned that a fix will be in the next vresion do you mean
version 7?

At times Adept is unresponsive. The interface doesn't repaint so it
appears to be locked up to the end users. Sometimes it will freeze
Solidworks as well. The computer is nearly idle with little or no cpu
activity or memory use. Not much network activity either.

We got two patches from them. One for the server and one for the
client. Both patches created other issues making it worse.

I should say that I am a system administrator rather than a Solidworks
operator.

Thanks for your response , Andrew.

--dave

[TOP]

What is the problem with the virtual library? What does the problem
look like and how do you make it happen?

[aha...@gmail.com]

Dave,

The fix is to be included in version 7. The special fix that we got
was included on top of the server side components for version 6.0.8.21.
We are running version 6.0.7.20 at the clients and 6.0.8.21 at the
server due to the special fix.

What specifically are the virtual library (VL) issues? Are some
referenced files not being copied down or is SolidWorks using older
file versions? The fix that we received was for referenced files not
being copied down to the VL.

On occasion we find the user interface freezes up on users. It has
been hard to determine what has caused it. Sometimes it can be because
of Adept copying files down to the VL while a user is trying to open
the model, especailly if it is a large model with many referenced
parts. Other times it can be when searches are being done.

When Adept freezes are any other programs freezing? We sometimes find
that our ERP system will freeze when Adept freezes. I am not sure if
it is the ERP system causing Adept to freeze or Adept causing the ERP
system to freeze.

Have you done any web-ex's with Adept's help desk to show them what is
occuring? We did this serveral times with them so that they could see
first hand what was occuing so that they could reproduce the issue and
sort it out.

Regards

Andrew Hallas