Inventor or Solidworks?

[steinmini]

Hi to all.

Probably one of the top ten dumbest questions ever asked on any forum ever.

But I'll try to present the facts and that may get me a chance to get the best answer.

I'm designing and building recumbent tricycles for living. I'm actually a graphical designer, not an engineer, but in the past 20+ years had to learn everything that is related to the job I do. In the beginning, it was enough to take a piece of paper and make a doodle and build up a prototype from that. Times change, and now I have to go for a serious 3D CAD package. The dilemma is which one to pick. I have to start with a hand made sketch, transfer it to 2D/3D drawing and end up with a complete project with technical drawings for everyone involved in the manufacturing process. When the technical documentation is finished, it would be great to use the same data for support documents (installation, assembly, service and user manuals) and of course, proper presentation materials (animations, rendered images etc)

The final list got narrowed down to either SolidWorks or Autodesk Inventor.
SW appears to be pretty much ok, compact set of tools and does have everything within a single package. Maybe not perfect for everything, but for what I need it, looks just fine. Had some time spent with SW in a friend's company who produces agricultural machines and does some laser cutting and machining for us.
The Inventor, OTOH is just one of the many Autodesk's products, but was also highly recommended for the job.
I'm aware that probably both have their "flaws" and downsides, but I guess that's just a pebble on a road.

My personal problem is that I have to pick one and stick with it. In any case, it will be costly, used on a single machine (PC) and only used by me. The hardware is ok, AMD Athlon II X4 630, currently 2G DDR3 (1600MHz) and nVidia Quadro FX3400.

The difference in price is not significant, so, it all comes down to functionality for my needs.

If I need to give additional info to get the best tip (I expect no guarantee), just ask.

I will appreciate any answer that will help me make up my mind. Thanks in advance.

 

[CorBlimeyLimey]

Sorry to disappoint, but the final decision will come down to personal preference. There is no definitive answer to this eternal question. Either program will do the job.

Also consider the ongoing subscription support costs, and the quality of support itself.

 

[GregLocock]

Which can you get the most help with?

Frankly designing mechanical things (cylinders, fillets, bearings etc) is so far inside the capabilities of any 3D CAD system that they'll all do it.

I suspect you'll find a majority of SW fanbois. They may not be wrong. I agree that you have selected the two obvious systems, but if cost is important you may be able to get away with TurboCad or Intellicad.

Yes, I'm an agnostic when it comes to CAD. They all need a bit of learning, they all end up putting lines on paper.



Cheers

Greg Locock


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[ajack1]

I agree with CBL, there is no easy answer to this.

The advice I would give to anyone making this decision is firstly look at your customers and suppliers is one or the other dominant in your industry? Working with and sending out native data is a big plus against working in a neutral format.

Secondly get the potential VAR’s to come and give you a demo, once they have done their wiz bang demo get them to work on a real life project. This will not only highlight any short comings that they will hide in their demos but also give you a better understanding of the quality of support you are likely to receive.

One thing I believe to be true but you will need to check this out is Inventor has a catia translator but with Solidworks it is a cost (around £1,200) option. Of course this will only matter if you need to import/ export catia files and it is true, but neither side is likely to offer up any information on anything they don’t do.

Finally thank them for their time and say you will think about it, don’t worry they WILL call back, then see how hard you can negotiate on price, make ‘em bleed.

 

[steinmini]

At this moment, I'm already somewhat familiar with SW because I spent a few months with it. However, sitting for days and weeks and using someone's computer is not a solution that suits anyone. I have learned the basics, but it's time to make a decision. As far as I could gather from the past few months of experience, SW might suit me better for several reasons, one of them being intuitive (at least I learned a lot in a matter of few months) and straightforward compatibility with the main subcontractor who uses it.
If nothing else significant pops out as a great advantage of one over the other, I just might go on with SW. The fact that I can test drive the Inventor for a month period for free might be the drop that will tip the scale.
The cost is always an issue, but let's be frank. The times changed so much in the past ten years that guessing, doodling and hoping it will all be just as good as possible is not the way to go these days. Most of the competition builds their frames in Taiwan. Taiwan companies have all the machinery, materials and work very good, cost effective, they only need the properly made specs and drawings. I remember about 6 years ago when I invented a special narrow tricycle hub fpor small wheels, took me two months of getting the details right in CorelDraw. Once I've sent the drawings, it took them less then two weeks to get the two first manufactured prototype hubs in my hands. That's with whipping from the other side of the world. Most of our competition is seriously working on new designs, solutions, products. Not making steps forward means stopping and getting out of business. In such environment and circumstances, spending 4 or 5K for a serious and powerful tool is just an investment that will pay off. If it doesn't, then we were simply wrong when we got into this business. I know we do the right thing, but we also need to go further, better... I'm only not sure which hammer from these two I will be better off for this job. If it's all down to personal preference, then I'll test drive the inventor and see where does it take me.

 

[steinmini]

Forgot to point out a few things...

In both cases, the State will refund/support with up to 50% of the retail price (if I can prove that the investment is in the interest of getting better), the other bonus is that 100% of manufactured products is exported, and that is a great bonus. We're a small company, 9 employees and more or less, everything we build is basically hand made. To get the development and testing and manufacturing down to reasonable time, we started using laser cut pieces and CAD planning... Well, about support, we'll see. So far, the people from Autodesk appear to be much more interested to get our attention...

 

[KENAT]

thread724-223361

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(probably not aimed specifically at you)
What is Engineering anyway: faq1088-1484​

 

[steinmini]

Amusing thread, but locked.

So, my requirements are very specific. Well, the job I do is also, and the behavior of materials after applied procedures is almost unpredictable. Predictable to a certain degree, but not possible to calculate in advance. From that point of view, a handmade drawing will not be less worthy for production... There are numerous details that will probably never possible to pre-calculate within a CAD package, regardless of it's size, maker, price, complexity.
I would only like to point out to a few things that happen in the manufacturing/building process that can not be predicted (calculated and implemented) during designing...

One of them is the amount of deformation in the round, thin wall, precision cold drawn seamless steel tubing after welding. If the weld goes around the tube, the deformation in all directions will be approximately the same, but if you join two tubes to form a "T" shape, then, rest assured that the horizontal section will be deformed to some degree. There is no tooling in the world that will prevent that...
But I don't need the CAD package to tell me that, or how much. I need it to reduce the time from a raw idea to usable and working prototype. The latest thing I'm working on is a simple two wheel trailer for a bicycle for a customer who plans to spend the next two years of his life on a trip around the world. He needs to take quite a lot stuff, solar panels, laptop, camera, food (a "Vegan" in fact)and so on. The trailer itself should be as light as possible, durable (we expect zero maintenance), practical etc... In this particular case, the program can immediately tell me what it will weight if built from 22x1mm steel or 22x2mm aluminum tube... When I get most of the design formulated, I'll prepare some sort of presentation and provide the required details about maximum load, weight, delivery time etc...

Basically, I can do most of it the simpler, cheaper way, but have a lot of other things going on, and you know that every customer is equally important, always right, and needs to be treated so. Taking too much time to do something that may look so simple is something I can't afford. I can work about 16 hours a day, but that's about it... If I can save myself only 16 hours on every project I have to from scratch, that's adding up to a significant amount, and from experience, I know that the last few new customized designs I would not be able to finish in time with the old "trial and error" method... Yesterday I started on my first of 30 days for trial on Inventor. Will see where I'll end up...

 

[steinmini]

Unfortunately, after just a few hour of struggle with the Inventor 2011, I realized that I am about to uninstall it completely for the time being. Too heavy and too slow on my machinery. The hardware requirements are too high, it's sluggish on my PC and being aware that I will not be able to invest into both, I'll have to let it go. The trial will expire much sooner than I can afford to fulfill all the required hardware and spend enough time to work with it or learn anything useful. So, it looks like SW will be my choice. It works fine with even a weaker machine than mine.

(not bragging or whining, but this is what I have)
Mo-Bo: ASUS M4A785TD-V EVO
RAM: Patriot, 2G DDR3/1600MHz
CPU: AMD Athlon II X4 630 @3080MHz
GPU: nVidia Quadro FX3400 (256Mb DDR3)

 

[CorBlimeyLimey]

If you can stretch the budget to adding more RAM and the /3GB switch to the boot.ini file, you should notice a performance improvement.

 

[steinmini]

I have no doubts you're right, but as said, too much going on at this time. Have a new PC power supply on order and two 640G Seagate Barracuda hard drives with 64Mb of cache (yup, 64Megs, will run in RAID 0), an additional monitor, and for all these things I have the money reserved for. It would be easy if I could use the company account to pay for these as well. It's a bit on the complicated side. If the money goes from the company account for the hardware, the hardware must be present in the company's premises, but since I can only work on the computer in the evenings after my regular working hours, the hardware can only be at my home. Funny, because no one will ask about the software which costs a lot more...
Anyway, in a couple of days I'll be posting my application to the State agency to sort the paperwork so we can get some discount on the SW. That is, a load of papers to prove that the use of SW will actually improve the product and production, increase the profit and blah, blah, blah...
Hopefully, I will not run into a ten feet thick wall of dumbness as I did when I had to make a five page long explanation what exactly do we do for living... Recumbent ... what?

If anyone interested, google for Steintrikes. I would be the Stein... Mini is just a car I had and will never get over.

 

[MikeHalloran]

If you haven't worked with aluminum tube before, a customer project is not a good place to start. E.g., welding anneals aluminum, so you need special attention to joint design, or you need to heat treat the entire product after welding.



Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA

 

[steinmini]

OT: We don't use Aluminum for frames. Yes for some parts, but nothing of structural importance. As stated, requires special procedures. Once it cracks up, it's as good as dead. The special steel tubes we use are much more forgiving. The only downside is that the ST52BK can't be bent (as shaped by bending in a mandrel).

 

[mcgyvr]

steinmini,
Have you actually loaded SW on your current machine. I find it hard to believe that there is a big difference between SW and INV (hardware wise). INV2011 is more graphics intensive then 2010 but I just don't see SW being much better if you are having issues with INV. Did you even update your graphics card driver? Not trying to push you one way or the other but I have used INV on my POS HP laptop (which is less of a machine than you have and even with the onboard graphics chipset with little to no issues.

 

[steinmini]

I loaded for trial a copy of SW on my machine and found no problems with any of the aspects or parts of the application. I'm aware that 2G of RAM may not be the best possible amount of system memory, and also aware that having a second-hand Quadro (FX3400) with only 256Mb of RAM is not really the best available GPU, the driver for the Quadro is the latest package from nVidia site, and I downloaded and installed the special add-on driver package for Autodesk products.

As I said, I am not saying that Inventor is not good, or less good than SW 2010, I have no argumentation for that. I can only elaborate the details in Inventor's behavior on my hardware, which is not so important, but... It takes about three times more time to load the application. Inventor 2011 "hesitated" on every possible command during creation of a simple sketch, orbit or zoom in/out command. The screen was not "chopping" but rather delaying and doing everything in a "slow-motion" fashion. At the same time, all four cores were at full throttle, and the (system) memory almost completely occupied with the "Inventor" task... When I left "Inventor" to "idle", the processor(s) remained fully occupied with the task.
For comparison, when I open a 100 part assembly in SW, and leave it to "idle", it takes 0% of resources. 99% goes to System Idle and 1% to System process... (according to Windows Task Manager) CPU-Z shows that the processors are at 4x multiplier resulting with 880MHz on all four cores. With the Inventor, the multiplier got pinned at 14x frying all four cores at 3080MHz...

May be a "bug" on this side, but the differences are so great that I can not afford to play with being a tester.

The only real downside of SolidWorks at this time, from my perspective, is a lack of a demo or trial version. For a few days I had no other choice but to use an illegal copy on my machine to be sure if this is what I want, need and can get used to. Most of the learning process I spent on a machine in my friend's office which is actually slower than my PC... Even there, SW works fine. Of course, that one is a legal, licensed package. As soon as the paperwork goes through, I'll get my licensed copy as well...