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OMG thank you whoever posted about the EAA solidworks deal. I use it daily for work but have been either frustratingly using Fusion for home projects or just snuck in time on my work license. Now I can curse solidworks' mother when it freezes on me on my personal computer as well! Hopefully the version that comes with the membership is fully featured as the professional version, I'm way too used to the advanced features to go back.
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Apr 5, 2021 18:29
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biracial bear for uncut posted:Here's the info if anybody else is interested. Thanks for posting the link that I was too lazy to! I mentioned this deal to a coworker today, and he said that there's some SWx bullshit where files generated with the student version are incompatible with professional versions, and vice-versa. Is that true? I have a decent collection of parts and assemblies I made for personal projects with my work license that I'd rather not lose.
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Apr 6, 2021 03:30
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Sagebrush posted:You can open files back and forth between the educational edition and the commercial edition of SolidWorks. However, the educational ones have a little mortarboard icon on them when opened, and it spreads like a virus. Add one educational part to a commercial assembly and the assembly gets tagged with the icon. Save the assembly and every contained part gets tagged. Those parts can go on and spread it to other parts and assemblies. There's no way to remove it. Yeah a little mortarboard icon is fine with me. Once I migrate all my personal files off my work machine I'll never do the opposite. Even if I did I work at a tiny company that gave me a blank stare when I asked how to access the PDM system when I started. Between that and having half a dozen silo'd projects going at once would stop that from spreading. On an unrelated note, does anyone have any advice on how to convince my coworker that assemblies exist and are worth using? He constantly creates multibody parts that will end up with like 20 bodies in a part file, including Insert Parted fasteners. I'm not talking about master modeling either, he does this without ever creating assemblies. Protip to people learning Solidworks - pretend multibody doesn't exist until your competent with single bodies.
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Apr 6, 2021 03:54
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Forcing him to fix his poo poo works most of the time. I'll keep that police option as a backup in case it ever fails. I love me a well structured master model but I'd almost give it up if it would make people stop horribly misusing multibodies. Or get the ProE/Creo option of skeleton models as a separate thing.
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Apr 6, 2021 04:48
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You can also play with the printer settings to print the drawing at 1:1 scale. I do this once in awhile to create templates to trace. It works best if you delete the drawing format so it's just the part/assembly left to print.
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Apr 12, 2021 17:22
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At my first job about ten years ago I had to create and edit production drawings in og AutoCAD. Not create drawings from 3D CAD, create them directly with lines. This was to maintain compatibility with the legacy drawings dating back to the 60s that were kept in the fireproof vault.
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Apr 21, 2021 17:00
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This is a bit of an advanced series but even after ten years of daily use I learned quite a bit. The master modeling stuff around video 17-18 was what I found the most interesting. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL8KljvRjqworyIQsSoYrII5baNwmKS5KZ
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May 17, 2021 22:19
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Just read that too and I'm pretty disappointed. I still have access to SW through work but it was really nice having a personal copy so I could keep things separate. Does anyone know what their replacement offering costs? Dassaut's product pages are so bad it's hard to tell what their actually selling.
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Aug 18, 2021 17:36
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Sagebrush posted:Out of curiosity has anyone ever had any Value Added by a Value Added Reseller At a previous job our Hawk Ridge tech support was great. Anything from install issues to sorting out the constant bugs SWx has they were on top of it and didn't care if I called twice a week. I switched jobs and the new companies VAR (also Hawk Ridge) is run by weasly sales people who barely know how to use their product and essentially lied to me about the existence of an included PDM system and tried to get my 20 person company to buy the full enterprise version instead. In short VARs are a land of contrasts.
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Aug 19, 2021 21:48
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Kaiser Schnitzel posted:Thanks for the info. I haven't done any physics since high school AP physics uh....15 years ago? This iss almost exactly a question that I was asked in an interview almost 10 years ago and got wrong lol. Still got the job at least and it made me much more aware of how important fundamentals are. So what you're describing is a "statics" problem. The bottom edge of the base is a fulcrum that the table will rotate around if it gets into a tipping state. Keep in mind that if you're using the software to do a static analysis (nothing moves), and it gets into a state where things do move, it'll usually poo poo itself because the math assumes no motion. Anyway, here's a diagram of your situation, only showing the right hand side of the table because that's all that matters. Note that for the purposes of this calculation the heights of both the CoG and load don't matter because the CoG force is straight down (gravity) and I'm assuming the load on the table top is vertical as well:  I'm treating this as a torque balance problem, so the equation that describes that diagram is: [250lbs] * [10.8in] = [x lbs] * [12.2in] When the two side of the equation are balanced, "x" is force it takes to start tipping the base. x = (250/10.8) / (12.2) x = ~221 lbs So, at 221 lbs of force straight downwards on the edge of the table top, the base will begin to lift. If you kept applying this force or higher, the table would continue to rotate until it's CoG was no longer support by the base, at which point the whole thing would tip over. Its a little more complicated than that though because the lever arm lengths change depending on the angle of tip.
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Aug 26, 2021 19:02
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^ Yeah that's mostly what I meant. It still doesn't matter that the CoG is lifted, just that as it rotates around the fulcrum the horizontal distance (lever length) changes.Baronash posted:What are some good resources for learning this stuff? Once upon a time I went to school to be an engineer, but couldn’t manage the math. The stuff you did here seems really useful though and (maybe?) not too complicated, so I’d love to learn it. This is about the simplest "statics" problem I can think of but also one that comes up all the time (cranes, tables, buldings, etc.). What defines it as a statics problem is that A. nothing's moving, and B. nothing's deforming. This type of problem got beaten into me so many times in engineering school I just snap to this analysis the first time looking at it. The value of all that repetition is being able to identify what type of problem it is quickly, then solving it is just chunking through the fairly straightforward math. Turns out a shitload of practice helps lol. Unfortunately I'm not sure how to go about learning it outside of an academic setting. I did some quick googling but all the resources I found didn't look great and assume you know the basics or are in school already. Typically college courses about this sort of thing are called "Statics and Dynamics". Now that I've been in industry for awhile its frustrating that math is used as a filter for engineering school. I rarely if ever actually use the higher level math I had to learn so thoroughly, and the real value in all that effort is so that I know it exists and what it's used for. That way, when I see other people's solutions I have a pretty good idea of how they did it even if I don't remember anything about the specific type of math they used.
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Aug 26, 2021 20:32
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Kaiser Schnitzel posted:Thank you! That’s extremely helpful and simple. Does it matter that some of the weight of the top is out there towards the edge and not actually over the COG? Yep you got it re: where the weight is located. The CoG accounts for all of that at once, which is why its used so much in engineering. For your followup question, this is exactly the interview question I failed. Short answer is again no, the height doesn't matter.  Here's the free body diagram for this situation. The equation to describe it is: [CoG force] * [CoG horizontal distance] = [table top height] * [side force] Once again, this is just the force it takes to start it tipping. If you want to figure out what angle it'll tip over at, you need to do a stability analysis. This doesn't involve the forces, just the location of the CoG relative to its support. If the CoG isn't supported, the table isn't stable and will tip all the way over:  edit: To explain a little more, if the CoG was really high, you'll get into this unstable state at a smaller angle than if it were really low. This is pretty intuitive if you ever tried to tip something over. The tricky part of that analysis is realizing that its that initial force to start it tipping that really matters. oXDemosthenesXo fucked around with this message at 21:44 on Aug 26, 2021 |
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Aug 26, 2021 21:41
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You just happen to catch me during my vacation day, and while I'm actively doing computer work for home projects. I'll keep answering these questions if you keep answering my woodworking questions  I used to be awful at explaining these things but after a decade of consulting work actively explaining this type of thing to non-engineering clients I slowly figured out how to make it understandable. The one group that always gets me is the ~~~designers~~~. They know just enough to be confident they understand, but not enough to recognize that their perpetual motion machine won't work. A basics of engineering thread would have a 50 page long OP lol, its such a potentially huge topic.
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Aug 26, 2021 22:00
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meowmeowmeowmeow posted:Nice job on that paintball speed loaded! Within the top level assembly, set the sub assembly to 'solve as flexible'. Do this by right clicking on the sub assembly and going through its properties until you find it, or in newer versions it's a toggle available in the context menu that appears when you right click on it.
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Nov 1, 2021 02:01
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Lol good point. The model that meowmeow described sounds simple enough I wasn't going to mention that but yeah, SW's mate system is a shitshow. You'll learn real quick which order to mate things in to avoid launching parts off screen, and I frequently resort to just fix mating parts temporarily while setting up the real mates. Kinda like clamping work pieces while you assemble them. The one upside of all that instability is that if you're designing a complicated mechanism and it freaks out in cad, then it's likely it's underconstrained in reality as well. Typically for assemblies that are going to be fabbed I'll avoid using reference geometry for mates and only use the surfaces that will interact physically. I've caught a ton of mistakes over the years by doing that. All bets are off if you use limit distance or angle though.
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Nov 1, 2021 18:54
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Do you have a picture of the design you're working on? I've done some cam design before and it's always a pain in the rear end to get right. Usually I end up making reference geometry to mate to target than the actual contact surfaces.
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Nov 15, 2021 20:13
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Holy poo poo I'm using this for every small part design I do. It's so easy to lose track of the scale of something when you only look at it super zoomed in. I used to put a 1:1 scale penny in models but this is way better. And it'll help head off questions like "why can't you make it smaller/thinner?"
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Jan 6, 2022 03:13
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Zero VGS posted:I'm about to start paying an engineer on one of those freelance sites for CAD modeling ($100/hr, but I found someone who's in my state so I'm at least stimulating the local economy and there's no language barrier). I do contract engineering so I can comment on this a bit. First off, be as clear as possible up front with your engineer what your end goal is and what the product's requirements are. Is your engineer just a jockey, or are they responsible for fabricating prototypes and testing as well? If you've preselected components that'll save them time, but also boxes them in. If possible, assign values to your selected components like "must use", "can be substituted", "I found this in 5 minutes and know it could be improved". If everything is locked in before they start they may end up with a lovely design to accommodate things you weren't actually 100% set on, or ones that you'd be willing to change if it was causing major design issues. If you haven't already, make a list of requirements for the device. Try to only list things that are truly required. Make sure they're very specific, only address one thing, and aren't overly restrictive. A good rule of thumb is that a requirement must be something that can be tested against. Things like "easy to use" are not requirements because they are subjective. Think X-Y-Z dimensions, weight, drop test performance, electrical safety performance, etc. You can also break out things as "marketing requirements" if you do need to account for less technical things like aesthetics and price. RE: Analysis. The first thing to know about FEA/FEM is that it is not intended to be used by itself, and it is not a guarantee that the device will or won't perform like the analysis says. Its primary function is to get you fairly close to a good solution, which you then validate with testing. It should never be trusted without being validated by real world testing. Because of that, I'm a huge advocate of only doing light FEA and then getting right to building and testing. Solidworks has fluid thermal analysis in one of its simulation packages, but your engineer may or may not be paying for it. On top of that, CFD is notoriously difficult to do at all let alone get good results from. If I were working on this I wouldn't even bother trying to do anything more than a very crude analysis, then just build the drat thing and test it. At $100/hour you will very quickly burn more engineering time than building a full unit is worth. Your engineer might also have other analysis programs they're more familiar with, in which case go with that. I'm less familiar with fatigue analysis so I can't comment on that. If you're actually worried about shock from dropping, that's again something I wouldn't trust any analysis with, its very much a build-it-and-see problem. Acrylic might not be the best choice if shock is a concern, its quite brittle. If you just want to do some static load analyses the basic version of SWx (I think) includes a tool to do that. For material properties, there's a built in library in SWx that has most common materials (steels, aluminums, engineering plastics) but you'll want your engineer to doublecheck the values in them. They're also sometimes missing properties, like the steel entry might have very detailed mechanical properties but be missing the thermal ones. If you need to create new ones its easy once you have the values. The first place I always check matweb.com. The site is obtuse but has a huge amount of information. Some unsolicited advice: Don't source hardware from Amazon. Dubious quality, inconsistent stock, the vendor might pull a switcheroo on you or whoever tries to follow your build in the future. Even that link you posted doesn't have proper dimensions for the standoffs (overall length is listed but not the standoff spacing). Here's a few more options: - Mcmaster.com The gold standard for low quantity hardware. Nearly every part they sell comes with free, downloadable, native SWx files. Will usually be more expensive than other options but they are completely and utterly reliable. Often I'll use their site just to figure out if a particular piece of hardware even exists because their breadth of stock is so huge and search tool is so good - Grainger.com Solid industrial hardware supplier - Fastenal.com Another solid hardware supplier Also, Hadlock, Lexan is a brand name for polycarbonate, not acrylic. Its more impact resistant and stronger overall than acrylic but I agree its also a poor choice.
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Jan 10, 2022 07:37
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A Proper Uppercut posted:I'm well aware I'm not using it for it's intended use, (as I did say that) hence me coming here asking for alternatives. Can you post a picture of the tool you're trying to model? I think I know what you're working on but images would clarify alot. It may be that there's a slightly advanced solid modeling technique you can use that let's you avoid some of the sketching.
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Jan 13, 2022 19:19
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Has anyone bought the 3DEXPERIENCE For Makers license yet? My EAA based license ran out and I have some projects I want to work on. $100/year instead of $40/year is frustrating but I'll pay that if the product isn't crippled in some way. I'm mainly interested in: - Is it truly SWx Professional? Nothing's locked out? - What version year(s) does it include? Only the latest or can I back rev to 2021 if I want?
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Jan 15, 2022 23:15
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NewFatMike posted:I’ve got it, let me know if you want me to test anything. I’ve used the toolbox in it so far, which is my big feature get for Professional. Can you access the sheet metal and surfacing tools? Are there any stock features grayed out? If it is a legit Professional install it should have all of that stuff. What version year(s) did it give you the option to install?
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Jan 17, 2022 03:27
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Sounds like it has everything I need then. I've gotten way too used to having the full Pro suite and I'd probably go crazy if any tools I was expecting were missing. I'd prefer 2021 because I don't trust their updates for the first few months, but its better than being stuck on 2020 like I was with the EAA license.
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Jan 17, 2022 05:05
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A Proper Uppercut posted:"Ohh uh can you send over a stp file instead because we're really cheap and a month behind you?" Ugggggghhh .X_t or gtfo For personal use the version year issue is mostly an annoyance, but for work my company keeps a license for the last few years versions so we can match whatever system our clients use. Sometimes this means we're using multiple years at the same time for different projects. Yes this causes all sorts of weird issues because SWx installers suck
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Jan 17, 2022 18:29
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After mulling it over for awhile I went with the monthly 3DExperience option to get a SWx license. I'm already glad I didn't get the yearly one because 3DExperience is a dumpster fire. Its like they hired a bunch of developers from 2005 to create a first gen web-integrated product. It took me a solid 10 minutes just to find the download link despite having step by step directions (which didn't work of course). SWx 2022 itself seems fine so far. The only thing I can find wrong with it is I can't find the option to set icons back to their proper Classic colors. It still mystifies me why they made a new defaults for colors, the classic one makes it so much easier to tell symbols apart. I'll probably use out the month then see if its still driving me crazy before deciding to reup for a full year.
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Jan 24, 2022 01:55
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I'm a hobbiest, willing to pay, and want to use it. But after spending twice as much time figuring out their absolutely awful 3DX system as I did using the drat modeling software I can't be bothered to renew it. The cad part works fine once it's set up at least. Tell them to fix their lovely system and maybe I'll tell my friends to try it. Until then they can do their own marketing.
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May 20, 2022 17:42
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Just wait until your subscription is lapsed and it locks you out of the entire interface. It took me most of an hour to figure out I had to go back to the main SWx website and pay again as if I was getting a new license. Most web based services trip over themselves to take your money but this one was actively hostile.
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May 21, 2022 05:00
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Ambrose Burnside posted:still haven't gotten a download link email 20 minutes later, but fear not, i have been auto-added to several 3DEXPERIENCE maker's social media pages. are you gently caressing kidding me. i paid for software and can't actually access it for an arbitrary and undefined length of time because they take their time emailing you a Secret Download Link. this would be a loving insane and infuriating way of handling a software purchase if it were a one-man indie production, it's beyond the pale for loving solidworks Lol I forgot about that part. After wasting an hour figuring out how to renew, I had to wait overnight for it to activate.
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May 21, 2022 05:49
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Rectal Placenta posted:Freakin' fillets in Solidworks, man What horrors have they inflicted on you today? Incidentally fillets are so bad in my experience that I use them as a litmus test when evaluating other people's models. You can tell if someone really knows what they're doing if they keep the bulk of the fillets at the end of the tree.
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Oct 4, 2022 02:49
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Hadlock posted:
Whoa what is this? I could totally use this for some actual work stuff. I've been able to do similar work with the basic Simulation tools and iso-clipping but an automated version would be great.
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Oct 4, 2022 05:15
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Does Fusion have anything similar to master/skeleton modeling like in solidworks? Any time I make a complicated assembly in SWx I usually create a bare bones master model to locate and roughly size/shape most of the parts. Next I'll create part files for each component and import that master model. The master model then gets used as a reference to build the part details. Finally the parts all get put into an assembly. If it's a static assembly I'll just use the default positions and won't use mates. Any position changes get made way back in the master model so they're controlled parametric ally. If it's a moving assembly this gets more complicated with mates but I use the same overall system. This might sound complicated and confusing, but it's incredibly powerful. I've had assemblies with 20+ moving parts where I could change major dimensions that affect half the parts and get the assembly error free in just a few minutes.
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Oct 12, 2022 20:16
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NewFatMike posted:Man there’s a person I kinda have to put up with who is convinced: Yeeesh that's bad. I'd quit in shame if I hosed up that badly. It's also why I insist on assembling my prototypes personally, so that I have a huge incentive to not half rear end the design details.
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Oct 18, 2022 23:40
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NewFatMike posted:I mean, smart fasteners alone is such a huge time saver. I’m glad I’m not just being a CAD weird about it Just skipping interference checks would have gotten me fired from some jobs. That's like mechanical design 101. I haven't actually used smart fastener, the things I work on tend to have a small number of oddball fasteners that I want tight part number control of. Does it work pretty well?
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Oct 19, 2022 00:42
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At my first job out of school in ~2010 we used exclusively 2D autocad. We also regularly pulled velum drawings out of the fireproof vault, made small edits, scanned them, and reprinted in full D sized glory to hand to the machinists. I thought it was bonkers at first, but because they hadn't changed their product line meaningfully since the 60's (industrial bulk processing equipment) it worked fine. The shop expected well made 2D prints, the parts were designed for fairly manual machining although they did use some CNC, and so they just kept trucking with the old school way. Converting everything to 3D and then making drawings from that would have been a massive upfront effort and the engineering team was like 3 guys. It was actually a super good learning experience for about 6 months, then I started to go crazy.
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Oct 20, 2022 04:00
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LloydDobler posted:And for mass calcs all you have to do is weigh a few parts and see how exactly right the prediction is. I've been very impressed with it as long as it has the correct density for the material. And if it doesn't you just edit. For any even roughly homogeneous material the calculation should be very accurate and reliable. It's literally just density*volume and a 3D modeling program better drat well know the part volume. Assuming your cad reflects the real geometry of the final part.
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Oct 21, 2022 21:30
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queeb posted:I'll check those out! Since i got a start in fusion 360 on a couple things, I'm going to finish them out in that and then try out the others you mentioned. I am proud of myself though, i went from never having looked at a CAD before to making this: Welcome to the club! Are you making all of those interlocking pieces line to line? You'll want to make some test pieces to see how much clearance you need between the fitted parts so you're not stuck sanding all day to get things to fit.
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Nov 4, 2022 03:24
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queeb posted:
Don't tell anyone but I've been using solidworks for like 10 years and I still do that at least every couple days.
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Nov 4, 2022 15:17
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queeb posted:Finished off my first CAD to laser project! Extremely happy with it for a first attempt. The tabs are a wee bit loose so I'll have to play around with tolerances but poo poo, im proud. That's a helluva first project! And it's clearances you want to play around with. Tolerances are what makes clearances necessary.
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Nov 14, 2022 22:15
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queeb posted:Glowforge basic, super happy with it so far, cuts 1/8 MDF like butter. If I can generate a decent amount of sales on MDF stuff I might look at an omtech for something more heavy duty and stronger Will it do acrylic? If you can do up to ~6mm/.25in you can do all sorts of fun stuff.
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Nov 15, 2022 18:33
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meowmeowmeowmeow posted:Any thoughts or advice on textbooks or technical guides on GD&T, ISO fit classes and tolerances, and tolerancing in general? I've been stumbling my way through it with acceptable results for a while but tired of not quite knowing what I'm doing and wanting to actually learn to do it right. What's your goal for learning those things? Just for the sake of improving our do you have something specific? There's several textbook correct ways to do tolerancing. In some industries it's done pretty ad-hoc and not by the book, while in others drawings have to be perfect or they'll get sent back by the fabricator.
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Nov 16, 2022 00:23
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meowmeowmeowmeow posted:I'm an engineer who doesn't do a lot of mechanical drawings and tolerancing and while I can figure out something that works and communicates the design intent and works as intended I'd like to feel more confident in what I'm doing and start re-training my 'hard' engineering skills before they get any worse. Like right now I'm dealing with some parts with an ISO fit spec that doesn't fall into the standard recommended fits and relying on a scattered series of partial book scans on ISO fits is a pain vs having a good reference. Ah, gotcha. I'm somewhat in the same boat myself. I've never really needed to learn GD&T or even very rigorous or complicated traditional tolerancing due to the nature of the work I've done. I'll be keeping an eye on what folks recommend too.
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Nov 16, 2022 04:25
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