Fairly new

Joseph,

The good news is that I and a lot of folks have made a lot of models with SW and it has generally worked very nicely. You just need to find out what is causing you the problems. I have had a number of projects with an average of 200 to 300 parts with very little problems. I have had some issues as the assemblies start to get bigger then this, but most issues have been easily fixed by moving parts into sub-assemblies.

Ed

Thanks, it appears to be something to do with external references, and using call-back parts. i.e. parts used on other assemblies or in other directories.

I have set it up now with "NO" external references and have broken all external references in current project. This seems to have stabilized it considerably.

Is there a way that I can use call-backs without having to copy them into my working folder?

Thanks, Joseph

messagenews: snipped-for-privacy@i13g2000prf.googlegroups.com...

Probably the number one rule to follow in SolidWorks is not to have parts or assemblies with the same name living in different folders. The way that SW finds files when they aren't in the directory you open their parent from is not at all straightforward and can very easily get you into trouble.

It isn't a problem to have your "call-back" parts, so long as they stay in the directories where you originally found them. If you found them on a network directory, you might want to put a copy in a directory on your local machine, assuming that you aren't too worried about them getting out of date. If you do that, you need to make sure that your assemblies are pointing to the local copy. An easy way to be sure of that is to have the assemblies open when you save the part or subassembly to the new location from SW. If you can't do that, because there are too many large assemblies to have open on your machine at once, then it gets trickier.

Jerry Steiger Tripod Data Systems "take the garbage out, dear"

This is not a good idea. It is very easy to get into trouble when you have this checked. SolidWorks seems to have trouble working out the references when they can come from mutliple places.

Having "Search file locations for external references" checked and no location listed under "Referenced documents" should be pointless, but other people say that they have problems when they run that way.

Jerry Steiger Tripod Data Systems "take the garbage out, dear"

You may want to search this group for "best practices" and read thru many of the previous recommendations.

I normally design the first part in an assembly so that it references the assembly planes. Then plan the other parts so they mate with things which either don't change like planes and base features, or things that reliably change, such as fully defined sketch geometry.

When using imported cad models or native SW models from other sources think about redefining your mate options. You are not stuck with what comes out of the can.

Just because you can do something doesn't mean that's the most stable way to do it. With some experience and taking the time to learn those best practices SW is very stable.

regards, Diego