Just found this Forum... Glad to see that people still have hope in
Solidworks. The techsupport people send me E Drawings for dummies ; )
I've been using Solidworks at work for a year now (not by choice). And
I have to tell y'a if I had been givin the choice we would be running
ProE instead of that low end package. Don't get me wrong Solid works
is great for drawing pretty pictures and all. But to get actual work
done. Pffffff... The 2005 version can't even do a cross section
without the hatching. Telling you lots of fudging lot of waiting but
certainly no performance. I'm going back to CAD. XYZ here I come...
Cheers!
M.Design
On Apr 3, 1:25 pm, snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com wrote:
I've been using SW for eight years and couldn't agree more. It's STILL
slow and creates crap drawings. I happen to be in a bad mood right now
because of crawling solidworks.
On Apr 3, 12:33 pm, snipped-for-privacy@semmlerclan.com wrote:
I can understand why you are PO'd, having never learned how to use it
properly after 8 years. That must really be a bum feeling. Slow? If
you are too slow, you can always go to a CAD appl which runs on high
end workstations or mainframes. Why wait 8 years?
There simply wouldn't be 600,000 customers of SolidWorks if good
productive work could not be done, and no 3rd Party Developers would
waste their time if SolidWorks was not useful.
Well, it is obvious someone wants to stir the pot annonymously.
semmlerclan.com just points to Google Canada.
Bo
I'm hardly anonymous and I assure you I know how to use SW. I have
used it full time for the eight years creating REAL machine drawings.
Ie. 8000 parts or more assemblies, thousands of drawings, weldments,
machining drawings and more. I worked for a VAR for some time teaching
and doing demos, I have my CSWP and was a certified instructor and
tech support. I've probably forgotten more about SW than you'll know.
The fact is SW still has many of the same problems it has for years,
for example hiding edges in drawings works like crap. Changing line
weights in drawings works like crap. Creating views of cast parts that
have all kinds of convoluted shapes and tangent edges is painful.
Added to that SW is SLOW. It is brutally slow with large assemblies
and even worse with those parts/assemblies' drawings.
SW doesn't crash as much as it used to but aside from that there are
minimal advances. For instance they added weldments some time ago.
Unfortunately you can't add a weld bead unless the parts are touching
which, if you had half a clue, you would know that in real world
weldments the parts are NOT touching, there's clearance. I also can't
add weld beads between irregular shapes. The weldment cut list and
it's corresponding balloons continue to be buggy (at least in SW 06
which I'm using right now).
I could go on and on but am not interested in trying to educate you in
the limitations of SW. The truth is I am as frustrated as ever with it
because it is grindingly slow with large assemblies. I have colleagues
using ProE who do not have the same problems and appear to be more
satisfied with SW than I. I also can't say I have ANY colleagues that
aren't disappointed daily with SW.
There are a lot more than 600,000 people driving a Kia but that
doesn't make it a good car.
On Apr 3, 5:59 pm, snipped-for-privacy@semmlerclan.com wrote:
If I had to do 6000+ part assemblies with weldments done right, then
I, too, would probably pick a higher end tool for the job, and
wouldn't blame anyone else for picking the best tool for the job.
Hi Devlin,
you may know a lot about Solidworks but you dont know much about
the Kia line of automobiles. They beat N American cars hands dowm
with a 5 year warranty, better quality and all the extras.
Kia is a subsidiary of Hyundai, excellent value for money.
600,000 people DO know what they are doing!!!
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hehe not really :-)
just a happy owner of a fine Kia family automobile.
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Phil,
Amen to that.
I bought my daughter a Sorento for her first car. Looked at a dozen other
midsize SUV's in the process. The Sorento is built better and stronger than
any of em. It has a full unibody with a hardened passenger area "ON TOP" of
a full ladder frame. It's built like a freakin tank. Great warranty, and not
a single problem in 45,000 miles.
Mark
A better argument might be that there are supposedly 2million+ users of
Autocad/MDesktop, and that certainly doesn't make it a good package!
I think Solidworks has got where it has by:-
a) Having a name that everyone could remember, which helped greatly with
marketing (compared with UGS Unigraphics or SDRC I-DEAS)
b) It was greatly cheaper than the competition when it appeared
c) It's now achieved a marketing critical mass where everyone's heard of it,
everyone's heard that "600,000 people use it" and so managers who know
bugger all about 3D CAD systems feel confident to buy it - this is the
position Autocad reached many years ago.
d) Many of the licenses are virtually given away to students and educational
establishments
e) It's an OK product but with probably as many flaws as strengths.
I was relishing the prospect of learning to use it when I started my present
job 18months ago, but I have to say although I'm occasionally pleasantly
surprised by what it can do, I'm also endlessly disappointed by its
unreliability and poor attention to detail.
John H
John H,
I couldn't disagree with you more. It's ridiculous to say that a
software took over the market because it has an easy to remember
name. Being less expensive than ProE was a factor, but there still
has to be a good product there to hold the customer for years. Kia
does have 600,000 owners, but how many of them will buy a Kia as their
next car? With SolidWorks, retension has been vital.
As far as the "as many flaws as strengths" statement. Well, the grass
is always greener somewhere else. :) However, there's a reason ProE
fell far behind and why Inventor doesn't dominant the market (which
should've happened a couple years ago if what you are suggesting was
true). It's because it is a great package for the price. And ya'no,
it's even a better package for the price now more than ever.
Matt
http://sw.fcsuper.com
I suppose you haven't heard of Beta and VHS then? Inventor has as many
seats as SW. ProE doesn't because although it's technically superior
it doesn't have the vendor network with local training and sales etc
as much as SW and Autodesk, that goes a long way.
Retention of SW is because of market share. SW has reached a point
where the market share drives the sales. It would be a completely
different situation if 3D mech file formats were 100% cross compatible
but that's impossible.
Instead of speaking in generalizations perhaps you could share with us
specifics as to why ProE has fallen behind in market share? It's more
complicated and more expensive for sure but it's definitel better.
On Apr 4, 12:46 pm, snipped-for-privacy@semmlerclan.com wrote:
Solidworks has retention because of market share? Pro-E had about a
ten year headstart into the market over Solidworks.
Solidworks is a better solution for many, alltough you have a point
about large assemblies.
On Apr 6, 6:51 am, snipped-for-privacy@l-3com.com wrote:
SolidWorks got where it is because it offered better value in the late
90s up to now than IDEAS, Unigraphics, ProE or Catia, with customers
finding SWks usable at a good price.
Gut feel says that any very successful product must travel well on
word of mouth, & SolidWorks has had that because it offered a moderate
level of ability for fewer dollars than the other 4 packages above.
Swks also outplaced the "Inventors" in their lower dollar catagory.
CAD is just a tool, and even the high end CAD packages are not
particularly pricey compared to the price of good designers and the
work that has to be done.
Any time a CAD user says "SolidWorks Sucks", he has a choice of what
he can move to for a higher end CAD package. It is a free market.
I would be interested to hear other's implementation stories regarding DB
Works. We have been in the "implementation phase" for almost 1 year and
still have issues with BOM's and balooning in large assemblies. Our
typical assemblies consists of 6,000 to 10,000 parts containing weldments,
machined parts and the associated motors, gears, belts, etc. to make things
work. Most of our work must go out in top level drawings with complete
BOM's. The issues of working in large assemblies in SW and the issues with
DB Works are taking their toll on our ability to get work out the door.
If you have a success story, I could use a little hope.
Did I say that was the only reason?
From what I've seen of various CAD journals down the years, SWX has been THE
most heavily advertised 3D package. Combine that with a cool, quite clever
and easy-to-remember name, and it greatly helps the marketing effort.
Unless you create one-off, bespoke designs, changing CAD systems is a
nightmare most companies won't contemplate unless there's an issue that's a
complete job-stopper.
Not at all - the wider world hasn't heard of Inventor, but everyone has
heard of Autocad.
The lack of PDM in the lower-end offerings is shameful, and the price when
you include them is not attractive. You could get I-DEAS with PDM as
standard for less than SWX (the merging with NX has killed that off). Sure,
there were some things missing at that price (sheet metal for example), but
it gives the lie to the argument that SWX is currently "great package for
the price".
I think it would be more accurate to say "an OK package for the price".
John H
John H
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