New to Solidworks
New to Solidworks
(OP)
I have used Solidworks for a few years now but never full time because of the lack of speed. We are now trying to go full time on this but once again the speed is an issue. We do machinal design with large assembly that average 4000 parts. Modeling seems to be okay but doing the assemblies and especially drawings is were we see problems. Are there any suggestions on how to deal with this?






RE: New to Solidworks
Search this forum, you will find a great number of posts on the topic of improving/optimizing speed of workstations for Solidworks. This is a topic that comes up frequently.
MechEng13
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http://www.linkedin.com/in/alanetzkorn
RE: New to Solidworks
Which SW version and SP?
There have been major advances in both system and SW speed over the last 'few years'.
A 4000 part assy isn't that big. Are you using individual sheet or multi-sheet drawings?
RE: New to Solidworks
"Art without engineering is dreaming; Engineering without art is calculating."
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RE: New to Solidworks
Chris
SolidWorks/PDMWorks 08 3.1
AutoCAD 08; CATIA V5
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SolidWorks Legion
RE: New to Solidworks
The other solution is to move to a 64-bit OS like Vista. Believe it or not, people have had good success running SW within Vista 64.
Jeff Mowry
www.industrialdesignhaus.com
A people who value security over freedom will soon find they have neither.
RE: New to Solidworks
I have a a Dell Dual Core 2.66ghz. w/3.25gig ram and a Nvidia quadro FX 3450 video driver running solidworks 2009.
As far as what type assemblies????
what we have done is develop our main bodies in a part. This part has three solid bodies in it with one of the bodies being subtracted (indent) to form a cavity in the other two. this is then put into an assembly and then the other parts are added to it. most of these parts are our standard parts already modeled and are on a seperate server. the assembly and main bodies are on our local drive. As i understand it, working across the network can be a problem.
RE: New to Solidworks
RE: New to Solidworks
Jeff Mowry
www.industrialdesignhaus.com
A people who value security over freedom will soon find they have neither.
RE: New to Solidworks
The mech eng department that I work in uses 32 bit machines with 4GB and the 3GB switch, decent processors and graphics cards, good SW practices, but still struggle with assemblies and their drawings.
Lightweight mode can help but be careful with it. Pattern sub-assemblies as much as possible. Suppress fastener threads and other non-critical features. Saving assemblies as parts can help but when the assemblies are updated then the part will have to be re-created also.
Good luck.
RE: New to Solidworks
Saving the assemblies as a part? we tried this in order to send the assembly model to our customer and it increased in size for 6meg for the assembly to 45meg as a part.
Is there a way to save an assembly as a single part? basically as a "blob".
RE: New to Solidworks
Timelord
RE: New to Solidworks
SW 2009 now has something called "SpeedPak" that might work even better for you. Take a look at the "What's New Highlights" under "help" in SW for details.
RE: New to Solidworks
I suspect that you may have chosen the wrong options in making the part from an assembly. I have a made quite a lot and they are usually around half the original size, but like Timelord suggested, they only show the external faces.
Definately avoid too many top level mates and using materials that have any transparency, the latter will even make orientating a single part that has a lot of features impossibly slow, remove the material and it spins so fast you can hardly see it!
Trevor Clarke. (R & D) Scientific Instruments.Somerset. UK
SW2009x64 SP2.1 Pentium P4 3.6Ghz, 4Gb Ram ATI FireGL V7100 Driver: 8.323.0.0
SW2009x32 SP1.1 Pentium P4 3.6Ghz, 2Gb Ram NVIDIA Quadro FX 500 Driver: 6.14.11.7751
RE: New to Solidworks
Does top level mates mean mates in the assembly?
When i saved the assembly as a part i selected Exterior Faces. this gave me the 45meg file. i then did it again with the Exterior Components selected and it is 28meg.
I am going to look into the speedpak today.
when i tried SW in 2003 I came away from it with a not so nice attitude. Now trying it again I am getting the same attitude.
thanks for everyones help
RE: New to Solidworks
"Art without engineering is dreaming; Engineering without art is calculating."
Have you read FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies to make the best use of these Forums?
RE: New to Solidworks
At the very least, find and join a SWUG for your area. The group will contain very helpful people.
http://www.swugn.org/pages/find/directory.html
RE: New to Solidworks
Matt Lorono
CAD Engineer/ECN Analyst
Silicon Valley, CA
Lorono's SolidWorks Resources
Co-moderator of Solidworks Yahoo! Group
and Mechnical.Engineering Yahoo! Group