solidworks2006 vs inventor11

Ed wrote: if the CAD software is

Pure bullshit. If anything it shows you have a lack of knowledge of the software, computers, or both. We run Inventor and SolidWorks side-by-side on un-certified hardware and we don't experience stability issues.

Reply to
jmather
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What kind of assemblies do you create? How many parts in them and how do they interact with each other? Or are you confined to one off part (albeit an intricate one) at a time? You do usualy help people to sort out some of the problems they experience with creating parts. But I don't recall your inputs when it concerns producing large assemblies and follow up drawings.

Igor.

Reply to
Igor Mironenko

I'm an idiot Igor, sorry for wasting your time.

Reply to
jmather

But then, in the current era of buyers, video tape and underwear and masks are a sign of being "Cool".

Bo

tail > I don't know about you, bubba, but I wouldn't consider a program from a

Reply to
Bo

Isn't that being inappropriately dismissive considering your "Pure bullshit" (which I must admit took me by surprise so I guess you have strong feelings on the subject) is based largely on classroom environment experience or are my perceptions in error?

Reply to
Jeff Howard

Jeffery,

I don't believe this is the best answer you could came up with. I was hoping you would elaborate on your original statement in line of my questions to you. Is there still a chance?

Igor.

Reply to
Igor Mironenko

Igor, I believe that you have a point. Almost everything that I do is involved with medium size and up assemblies. When I was using IV there were a couple of things that happened fairly routinely. The first was that I would save an assembly, be sure to rebuild etc. and that there were no errors etc. But, it periodically happened that when I opened the project the next time that there would be little red flags, almost always involving some constraint problem that didn't not show up before closing IV. I don't think that this has ever happened to me with SW.

But, my all time favorite, "free" feature with IV is when I go into a part, (usually a fairly simple part) and change one of the dimensions only to find that the rebuild of the part resulted in an number of constraint errors.

Now I realize that the assumption is the operator and it may have been but somehow when I switched over to SW these types of issues just went away. I have tried to look at what methods that I used could have caused these types of problems and when something is messed up with SW I can usually find out what I did to confuse the program. And most of the time the number of errors are less then 10. However, with IV I have seen 20 to 30 errors show up on totally unrelated parts from the one that I made a minor modification to. After 45 minutes of looking to find the problem I would typically start to suppress, basically at random various constraints and after a few of these, all of the error flags would disappear.

A few weeks ago a buddy of mine asked me to help him on a very small assembly where he was learning how to use IV11. No doubt many of the issues that he was having were because he was new, but talk about reliving old experineces...uggg. I especially loved the one where we saved the project carefully and the next day when he opened it, there were parts flying all over the place! The word that I use for IV is that it is much more "fragile" then SW. And, yes the bigger the assemblies the more problems that I have seen with IV.

Ed

Reply to
Ed

I will try to get back to this with a more thoughtful response when I have time. Unfortunately I have "volunteered" for more projects than I can handle and am jumping just to keep my nose above the water-line. But for a brief response, I am not aware of any CAD program that will not create drawings in a reasonably reliable set-up. To state otherwise is simply worth no more than the stuff you get on your boots out in the barnyard. Yes there are differences in size and complexity. (Our educational license of SolidWorks is always latest release -1, so my experiences might not be considered valid.) In my experience these two particular programs are essentially identical for most users. My modeling techniques in both are cross-influenced by how each works. I am certain I would be far less proficient in either if I had only used one or the other exclusively. While I do work as a consultant in industry during the summer months and do have 15 years manufacturing experience including 8 years out on the shop floor and 3 years in R&D I accept the arguement that I don't now work under "real world" conditions. My involvement in industry is now limited to "complex" (for mid-range MCAD) geometry problems that push the envelope of mid-range MCAD capabilities. (This past summer it was on wire-stripping tools for the CATV industry - a derivation of the cylindrical CAM-path problem for which Jeff has taught me much in the way of good-enough solutions while we wait for the capability to sweep one solid along a path in another solid resulting in the intersection being removed. This can sort-of be done now with the new guide surface sweeps but I still get errors and have to return to the method Jeff demonstrated several years ago.) However there is ample evidence that at least a couple of people have been successful in using these products to do their work. The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence until you jump over the fence and land in the "fertilizer".

Reply to
jmather

Thanks for the reply, Jeffery;

The thing is that most of your work revolves around one-off part. For me it is not an option. I design custom machinery and a range goes from some structural frames based machinery to a precision laser measuring devices. Thus, assemblies and their stability is of paramount importance to me. And not just that. Data management is equally important since it takes significant portion of design time. You probably recall my recent post at the IV forum under the heading "Design Assistance: Friend or Foe?". No one so far came up with the answer to the question. SolidWorks, on another hand, appears to be free from some questionable programming solutions Inventor is having if the field of file management. If we take a close look at some of the similar tools in both programs, I would like to compare Hole feature between the two softwares. SW is absolutely brilliant in the way they have implemented this tool. Can you say the same for IV? Absolutely not! And there are quite a few examples like that.

Now, to the million dollar question: why not to change platforms? The answer is similar to that why doesn't one changing his/her bank every now and then. The fees are high, the service at branches are low but not many people changing banks anyway. The answer to both questions will be somewhat similar, I guess.

Best regards,

Igor.

Reply to
Igor Mironenko

Hi Ed,

I am sure we are on the same wave length.

Thank you,

Igor.

Reply to
Igor Mironenko

I've heard of a couple of people using CAD software for assemblies. I've got to believe that it can be done. Maybe I should do a little more research.

Reply to
jmather

Hmmm?

I think it is about time to just sit down at your SolidWorks VAR and go through a small set of parts and then put together that simple assembly. I'm sure they ought to have an example of a large assembly, too.

Or find an existing SWks customer who would show you complex assemblies.

Bo

snipped-for-privacy@pct.edu wrote:

Reply to
Bo

It's nothing more than blatant sarcasm. Several of his responses fall into this category. Non-native English speaking persons will have a more difficult time detecting this.

:D

Reply to
kenneth

Apparently a little too subtle.

Reply to
jmather

You have lost me on this one. What your response has to do with my post?

Reply to
Igor Mironenko

You are probably right on this one (since I am non-native English speaking person). However Jeffery has a reputation of a serious and knowledgeable person in a field of design softwares. Thus I, for one, was taking what he was saying at its face value.

Igor.

Reply to
Igor Mironenko

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