Generic question about weldments and assys

[MMike1]

The stuff we do at work is very basic. Heavy steel plate, structural tube and angle welded together and bolted onto trucks.

I'm intrigued with the "weldment" functions. I've dinked with the tutorial a little. I've turned a wire frame into steel tubes and all that. And it's neat and all, but do people actually use this functionality?

Coming from a CATIA v4 backhground, I know it had a lot of features which were sort of cool....but a little on the gimmicky side and I never really used in day to day life.

So far the few models I've built have just been individual parts that I've made and then mated them together so that they are fully constrained and called it good. However I'm having a hard time making weld symbols in the drawing.

Are actual weldments really the way to go?

 

[MElam]

We use the weldment function and I really like it. Before this capability existed, there was a lot of confusion as to whether to draw a frame as a single part or an assembly of members. The single part method was great for creating frames that go through many design iterations - editing was very simple. The assembly method would give an accurate BOM, but design changes took MUCH longer and there are all of the individual member part files to keep up with.

The new weldment feature is kind of the best of both worlds. It may not be exactly perfect, but for us it is definitely the best option. Your milage may vary.

 

[ctopher]

I can see it usefull for maybe welded tubing, or something similar. For detailed parts that have close tol or you send the models to a CNC software, I find it not useful. Ends up being extra work for nothing. IMO

Chris
Sr. Mechanical Designer, CAD
SolidWorks 05 SP1.1 / PDMWorks 05
ctopher's home site

 

[MMike1]

All tubes and angles are just cut on the saw. No mitred ends or anything. But we do have a "one part, one drawing" system. So even if a part is just a piece of tubing cut to length, it gets a part no. (otherwise the parts would get lost in the shop).

So it's sounding like the weldment function might not be the best way, eh?

 

[MadMango]

We do a lot of custom sheet metal parts (85% of product), very little structural tubing and angles (5%). We do not use this functionality in SW.

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[MElam]

You have a seperate drawing for every single piece of tube???

If this is what you need, the weldment feature will be a pain.

Although, I guess you could save the multi-bodies out as an assembly of parts. If your frames are fairly simple the assembly (from scratch) method would still be your best bet.

Some of my frames have been very large multi-level platforms with openings for hoppers and equipment. These tend to have a lot of growing and shifting during design. The assembly method was way too cumbersom for this.

Our drawings just show the total weldment with callouts for each member. We also have our own in-house fabricators who know how to cut the tube to make it work from the main drawing.

 

[MMike1]

Yeah... Our parts will sometimes sit for long periods of time between being cut and then being welded. IF we don't identify it, no-one will know what the pile of tubing was meant for...