Solidworks

[Robert Skapof]

I just want everyone to know that solidworks makes my life easier. My school only offers Pro/E and most of the class is unaware of solidworks.

For the formula design this year i have gotten everyone a copy of solidworks through the sponsorship. For the design of the car itself i set up a pretty neat series of sketches in a single part file. These sketches are SLA steps for determining suspension geometry. I have been referencing all of the parts for the formula frame and suspension (control arms, suspension, steering, etc) off of the SLA design (anti-squat and ant-dive features as well as arbitrary points). This makes it really easy to change the entire design of the formula suspension, all i do is change the original file which is the SLA steps determining the geometry and the entire car updates.

Got to love Solidworks

[Robert Skapof]

I just want everyone to know that solidworks makes my life easier. My school only offers Pro/E and most of the class is unaware of solidworks.

For the formula design this year i have gotten everyone a copy of solidworks through the sponsorship. For the design of the car itself i set up a pretty neat series of sketches in a single part file. These sketches are SLA steps for determining suspension geometry. I have been referencing all of the parts for the formula frame and suspension (control arms, suspension, steering, etc) off of the SLA design (anti-squat and ant-dive features as well as arbitrary points). This makes it really easy to change the entire design of the formula suspension, all i do is change the original file which is the SLA steps determining the geometry and the entire car updates.

Got to love Solidworks

[Adam Vaughan]

SolidWorks works well when it works...

... and when it doesn't, it at least keeps things interesting by conjuring up a unique crash message every day.

[Robert Skapof]

now only if there was a rapid prototyping machine that laid down chromealloy

[SamB]

Solidworks only works if you do things a certain way which can get very frustrating.

Does anyone use Catia?

[kapps]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by SamB:
Solidworks only works if you do things a certain way which can get very frustrating.

</div></BLOCKQUOTE>

I thought that was Pro/E... We also have a class for Pro and the company I work for uses it exclusively for design and manufacture. In FSAE, we use SW. All of us with experience in both platforms prefer Solidworks. Pro is quirky and you have to do things a certain way. When you go back to change something and it fails to rebuild, it's a pain to get it back. SW just suppresses the failed object and you can actually get back into it to figure out why it failed.

[SamB]

Yeah that works but for some things it is a right pain in the arse. Probably just me being pickly but I had to redesign my intake because the damned thing wouldn't unfold cones which had been made using a thin-loft...

[Bazanaius]

Hey guys, I wonder if anyone can help with a crashing issue I'm getting. I've searched all the solidworks sites I can find but no joy.

I'm rendering the car in photoworks - whenever I go in to change a decal or an appearance of something, when I click the tick to confirm the change, SW just crashes. No error or anything, just boom.

It's weird as initially it worked fine on my PC then one day decided it wouldn't. A reinstall did nothing to solve the problem.

Moved onto a second PC and it worked, then randomly it started crashing on the new PC and won't stop!

It's so irritating as I can render stuff, just not change the thing I'm rendering!!!

Has anybody else had this or something similar, and if so how did you fix it?! I'm tearing my hair out!

B

[SamB]

I found at the beginning that if you had one dodgy file and kept trying to use it, it will keep crashing in the same place. Have you tried it with a different image file? Or tried converting the file type?

[Drew Price]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by SamB:
Does anyone use Catia? </div></BLOCKQUOTE>



Western Washington uses Catia for modeling, and the NX Manufacturing module for CAM like we do.

This was last summer though, when I talked to their guys at West last year.



Best,
Drew

[Biggy72]

Does anyone use unigraphics? We use it at work and I'm pretty proficient at it now, but we used solidworks in FSAE. I hadn't ever even heard of unigraphics until I went for my interview. It's pretty good, but I really prefer solidworks for making assemblies.

[MalcolmG]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by kapps:
Pro is quirky and you have to do things a certain way. When you go back to change something and it fails to rebuild, it's a pain to get it back. SW just suppresses the failed object and you can actually get back into it to figure out why it failed. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

You obviously are not yet in harmony with the Pro/E failure diagnostics.

[Robert Skapof]

Pro/e is definitely more powerful, there is no question about that. If one is experienced enough with pro/e they just might be as quick at creating and designing as solidworks. But it takes way too much experience to be faster in pro/e than it does for an average user in solidworks.

The only thing i have run across that pro/e can do that solidworks cannot is create a chain linkage for the chain and sprocket in a convienent way.

[jrickert]

I have used Solidworks, NX(unigraphics) and Inventor enough to be able to compare them. I like all three but they each have their idiosynchraces. NX is powerful no doubt about that. Its also the quirkiest and hardest to learn. It seems like they just didn't think some things though. Inventor is probably the best organized but seems behind on some functionalities. Constraining sketches is not as easy as NX or solidworks. For a n00b its awesome overall. I don't know if i am imagining this, but i swear i use twice as many mouse clicks in SW as i do in either Inventor or NX. The lack of default keyboard shortcuts in SW is frusterating and the buttons in 2008+ are too small. It is also very picky as to what hardware it will run on in comparison to NX or Inventor. Solidworks sometimes does some really sketcky things. Today it decided it was going to freeze the computer for 7 minutes every time i needed to save a simple steering wheel part file.

[MalcolmG]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by jrickert:
.... Solidworks sometimes does some really sketcky things. Today it decided it was going to freeze the computer for 7 minutes every time i needed to save a simple steering wheel part file. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Reminds me of one of my favourite features of Pro/E - sometimes it just completely unexpectedly vanishes - no error, no freezing, no long, laboured attempt to generate a complex feature - you just click a button or enter a command and suddenly all of your Pro/E windows are gone and there's no trace of the program or any associated processes running on the computer. Wildfire 3 was absolutely shocking for doing this.

[overdrive535]

I think Wildfire 2.0 is even worse in this regard (yes, I'm still using 2.0 and no, please don't ask)

All it takes is one long round to foul itself and poof: freeze, something goes white, and desktop...

And why is the file management software always giving me the bird...

[Tim.Wright]

I have used both CATIA and Solidworks.

I worked with Solidworks for 4-5 years of FSAE and CATIA for the past year at work.

I have found that for general solid modelling, they are reasonably equal in capabilities - but the CATIA user interface is bordering on terrible. Lots of basic things which happen with a simple command in Solidworks take half a dozen clicks in CATIA.

Want to draw an octogon in SW? Select polygon, select 8 sides and draw it. In CATIA? draw a circle, 8 lines, set up tangent constraints... etc. When I was trained in CATIA I asked how to draw a polygon easily and the trainer said 'we can write a macro for you'.

Also, if you are doing a spaceframe chassis, the SW weldments feature is a gift from the motorsport gods. Sketch your centrelines, select a section size, trim and bang - it puts every member in with very little post processing. CATIA is a nightmare, you would do it the same way as you would have with SW 98. Sketch centreline sweep a circle, and thickness it. Unless you define the circle dianmeter and thickness with a user variable it will be a pig to change section.

When it comes to surfacing though, the CATIA GSD workbench kills SW. I also like the drafting workbench in CATIA more than the SW version.

I agree totally with the SW stability issues, but it is getting better each year. I've never had CATIA crash on me in just over a year of use.

There are lots of other differences, but I'll stop here at the risk of becoming a rant.

Tim Wright
Curtin FSAE - Compulsory life member

[L B0MB]

Nice rant T-Spoon