SW Toolbox 1

[scrototee]

I'm just airing my grievances here, but has anyone else come to the conclusion that the SW toolbox is more trouble than it's worth!?

-- On my SW2013 install, a bunch of the toolbox items became corrupted and persistently failed to load certain configurations.

-- Assigning internal part numbers seems to work most of the time, but cross references to BoMs and the metadata in SW explorer fails to easily represent the toolbox parts with our internal P/Ns

-- Moving toolbox components to WPDM is presenting problems because the configuration names / custom part numbers do not appear as tags in the vault assy tree.

-- Anyone have any tips to reduce the headaches? Otherwise I'm going to manually break references to thousands of Toolbox Bolts and save them as discrete files

!@#$

 

[ctopher]

I quit using it a couple years ago. I personally didn't have much issue with it, but too many other users having issues with it.
To minimize headache, I stopped.
It's a matter of learning the ropes, but most users can't, or will not, learn it.

Chris
SolidWorks 13
ctopher's home
SolidWorks Legion

 

[AnnaWood]

We have never installed Toolbox.... Blissfully unaffected by all its issues.

Cheers,

Anna Wood
SW2013 SP4, Windows 7 x64

http://www.renderbay.com

http://www.solidmuse.com

http://www.phxswug.com

 

[CorBlimeyLimey]

Tried it when I first got into SolidWorks. Didn't like it so created my own library of parts as needed.

 

[Nella95]

My 2¢ - Like CBL - I have my own library of parts - I'm fairly certain, if I went to the trouble of spending the time, SolidWorks tool box would be well worth it - I was kind of amazed when my VAR showed me his version. - and it would definitely save time - if I went through the trouble of inserting every fastener.

SW Professional 2012
64 bit SP1.0
Intel Xeon X(R) CPU 1603 0 @ 2.80 GHz
8.0 GB of RAM

 

[Updraft]

The trick to getting value out of the Toolbox is setting it up. It is actually really easy once you know the stupid hidden button. (See attachment.)

We manually edited Toolbox to include a few of our fasteners then exported that out to use as a spreadsheet template. We then dumped all our fasteners (Z####) and their descriptions from our ERP system into a spreadsheet then arranged/formatted them into the spreadsheet generated by the Export from Toolbox, then imported that spreadsheet. Now we have a very easy to use tool (Toolbox) for adding and changing fasteners in our assemblies. They even show up in our BOMs with the correct part number and description.

Toolbox has been much maligned and years ago it deserved it, but today I think people need to really look into it with fresh eyes. It is very handy and adds great utility to our work.

- - -Updraft