Hi Kirk,
I am not familier with the Hardware selections. But I can suggest you that, you can handle the bigger assemblies in Soldworks with some production techniques. I mean, build the assemblies in planned manner. I can imagine that it's not as simple as like the word "plan". Presently I am trying to do a equipment with 100,000+ parts. Actually my result should be the 2D drawings of the Outline Layout and the Various sections of the equipment and later on the 2D detail drawings. It would be appreciated if the equipment model is as much as parametric!!! The plan is,
- Design a base Layout(skeleton)
- build the "Sub and Main Outline Layout" model of the equipement using "Skeleton" (here I have avoided most of the detailed parts that is not really work with Layout models/drawings)
- I have fixed the eqp. layout design intend in this stage as much as.
- I beleive I can use the dimensions/requirements for the detailed assembly from the sub/main layout models.
Anyhow I will defenitly have the day which all detailed sub assemblies in to one whole assembly model. But atleast SW can work faster in remaing days.
To build the SolidWork assembly models you should have to follow the do's-and-don'ts in Solidworks. For examble you should careful with the incotext feature. refer the link below
formatting link
I assume in near future, high number of Solidworks users will be the Large assembly builders. If it is...we need a strong knowledge base for the PC hardwares, production techniques, do's-and-don'ts and another important one is the "File management system".
Post your comments.
Best of efforts. JR