A dune buggy is my next project.
What is the best way for SW to handle the weld joints?
Example-Do I make the sweeps for the roll-cage with perpinducular ends, then use intersecting surfaces from the frame as the cutting tool?
Or-Do I just prepare the ends(virtual fish-mouth cut with a tube mill) and assemble the roll cage and frame using mating surfaces?
WV
I would use the weldment functionality
I saw an example of a dune buggy frame that was shown in a What's New in SolidWorks seminar a year or so ago. It used the weldment functionality and looked really good.
Check with your VAR to see if they can make that file available to you.
Best Regards,
Ricky Jordan CSWP Dynetics, Inc.
The weldment functionality of SW works well with people who do not do weldments on a day to day basis in a production shop. One must sketch each profile of steel they want to use (toolbox may have the shape, but the last I checked, nothing was ported over to the weldments area. Also, fabrication welders love gaps for fit up, it's easier to fill a gap than have to re-cut a member to compensate for over sized pieces. The last I checked, there was no offset from face or plane for extrusion lengths. Also some the welds functionality had problems on round members or filleted tubes (nothing to do with weldments, just venting).
The weldments is a great step forward, it just needs to mature a bit before it can be used in a real production job shop environment.
Keith
Keith is dead on, weldments look great when a VAR is selling their product to management, but its more trouble than its worth in the real world with those that have actual technical skills.
I find its best to use assembly feature cuts to add gaps afterwards, that way you can do a rough cosmos express analysis beforehand. I don't have assemblies much larger than a dune buggy, so manually generating the cut list is still better than fighting with weldments.
Ricky Jordan wrote:
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