Hi All,
I have just had the opportunity to use SolidWorks 2004 SP0.0 as downloaded from the SW website on a production job. Actually a customer specifically requested it. I have been using SolidWorks since version 96+ but have not had the chance to look at 04 yet. Nothing like jumping right into the frying pan.
I am designing a four cavity family injection mould with two slides per cavity and a contoured parting line.
Off the bat, I was a little confused by changes to some menu structure. Oh well, menus are menus and this will just take a little getting used to.
Don't like some of the new automation features. Specifically I don't like the way it automatically tries to insert the last open object into a new assembly. 95% of the time it is not what I want to do. Though I do like the automatic preview. I am also not terribly fond of the new assembly mating. when you only want to assign one mate you have to click twice to OK it and if you cancel out half way through assigning multiple mates, you lose the ones you had assigned already. I know I have to learn how to use the new functions, but I lost a few mates and features when I was in a rush to get an assembly done. I also do not like the office assistant style help key. Some of this stuff I am sure I just have to get used to. I'm sure I'll find a way to adjust preferences to work the way I want them to.
The system has been crashing more often than I'd like. I'm averaging twice per day, taking me to desktop. I save often. I'm confident they'll sort out the bugs in the first service pack.
I also had a problem with multi-sheet drawings. When inserting a second page the software was unable to load the sheet format. When that drawing was opened a second time (with a blank second page), it caused SolidWorks to crash to desktop. This may just be a corruption with my download/installation, but I would like to hear if other users have the same problems.
I'll leave on a positive note. The program does seem to run faster than 03 on my computer (Athlon2700, 1GbRAM, Quadro4-750XGL-128Mb). I really like the new surfacing and mold tools commands. It really helped generate the complex parting line on my tool. I am also excited by the new table features like the hole chart and revision block. I have wanted something like this for quite some time. The change from 2003 to 2004 is much more significant than the change from
2001+ to 2003. With some of this new functionality, I am all the more anxious that they fix the little bugs.
Cheers,
Rob Lemmen KORVER ENGINEERING Ltd.