I am currently evaluating SW2006. Last year I purchased Alibre Pro and have enjoyed a lot of benefits switching to 3d-based parametric CAD. Perhaps I'm guilty of a "grass always greener" syndrome, but I've been tempted to look at SW mainly because Alibre is fairly weak in it's production of 2d design drawings with regards to speed (20-30 minutes for view creation on mildly complex assemblies) & aesthetic control (annotations and such are limited). At the end of the day, it's the drawing that still allows my shop to build machinery so the 2d production drawings are critical.
With my 30-day money-back guarantee slipping away rapidly, I'm trying to build some test assemblies in SW2006 to make sure the seven-fold increase in price is worthwhile. I've run into some sticky spots, some of which are surely my ignorance (though the lack of a proper manual is a tad frustrating at this price point!). In particular, I'm not sure I grasp the SW methodology behind the BOM.
In Alibre (pardon the comparison), a BOM is a separate file just like a part or assembly. The BOM is linked to an assembly and is automatically populated with the assemblies parts. In SW terminology, this is a "Parts Only" BOM there is no option for indented sub-assembly (though you can optionally specify a subassembly to be treated as a part). When working within a drawing, you can link the drawing file to a BOM. Then, any view, on any sheet will reference the same BOM file. In fact, you can have many drawing files (each with multiple sheets) all referencing the same BOM file. This can be convenient if a drawing file becomes unwieldy (which often happens around sheet 5), just start a new drawing file, link to the original BOM file and all item numbers are kept constant.
Using this approach, you can create views of parts or subassemblies and the item numbers ALWAYS match the BOM file. In SW2006, it appears that the BOM is attached to a specific view of an assembly. If I create a view of an assembly on sheet 1 and insert a BOM I can balloon the parts in the assembly to my heart's content. On sheet 2, I may want to create detail views of the individual parts of the assembly. If I then try to balloon those parts, the item numbers do not match the assembly (in fact they are all listed as "1").
I've done some googling, and searching on the SW forum, and it appears that many people find this behaviour to be problematic. Answers seem to range from:
- Manually override the balloons on the part views. Not an acceptable substitute as it leaves the drawings open for too many errors.
- Instead of creating views of parts, create views of the main assembly and hide the unwanted parts. Not acceptable substitute because this quickly brings the system performance down and seems to defeat the purpose of part, subassembly, assembly modeling.
- Use a custom property in each part file that is unique, and use notes that reference this property rather than the item number in the BOM. This seems the most likely candidate for success, and perhaps better than the Alibre method since accross the product line a part will have a consistent designator regardless of the assembly. The only downside is that using part designators is harder to look-up in the BOM. When a fabricator references the BOM to find the quantity of a particular part, searching the BOM for "DEB-1.5-6-STL" is harder to locate than "#6", which of course comes after "#5" and is thus easy to locat in a long list.
Whew! That was a bit long, my apologies. Please let me know if I'm missing the underlying philosophy of the BOM in SW, I really want to give Solidworks a fair shake and determine its cost/reward ratio when compared to my current software. My preliminary observation is that while I haven't been "blown away" by the capabilities, the 2d drawing package does show more polish than AD, which is what I had hoped.
Best regards, Gareth Conner