Category: Resource Review

Various SolidWorks Discussion Forums (Part 1)

There are more than a few discussion forums available for people looking for SolidWorks specific conversations online.  Here’s the list of all the forums I use (in alphabetical order), with a quick personal statement of my opinions.  Feel free to add to my commentary, disagree, or even mention others. 

3DCADForums – This website has forums for AutoCAD, CATIA, Inventor, IronCAD, ProE, Solid Edge, SolidWorks, UG/NX, VX CAD/CAM, and 3D Studio Max.   Membership (free) is required to participate in discussions.  It lists all topics in order of most recent activity.  This forum seems to attract very little attention from SolidWorks users.  I find that the site loads very slowly.  Additionally, advertisement placement is very distracting.  I do not recommend this site.

comp.cad.solidworks (link is via Google Groups) – This forum is accessible via many usenet readers.  It is SolidWorks specific.   Many SolidWorks users frequent this group.   It is not uncommon to find new postings occuring hourly.  Depending on access method, topics are listed in order of topic creation.  The forum  environment can range from extremely helpful to extremely hostile.  I cannot recommend this forum to new users.  It is OK for experienced users who have a thick skin.

ENG-TIPS SolidWorks 3D CAD products Forum – Eng-tips is a vast site with a diverse selection of topics covering many different Engineering related fields.   It requires membership (free) to participate in its discussions.  It lists topics by most recent activity.  It is heavily moderated.  This can be beneficial at times, but also detrimental at other times.  Contact between members is limited to the website itself.  Email addresses are banned.  It does have some advertisements, but they are not intrusive.  The site owners send out infrequent spammish emails (one email a few times a year).  Because of these facts, this site has many detractors.  However, in my mind, the advantages outweigh the disadvantages on most days.  There are many knowledgeable contributors that frequent the site.   Additionally, I have found this site to be a good source for API assistance.  One further advantage is that there are a bunch of other engineering related forums that make this a convenient one-stop location for those who have interests outside of SolidWorks.    Activity occurs on a nearly hourly basis.  I recommend this forum, with the caveat that one should expect its strict rules to be heavily enforced.

mCADForums – This website has forums for AutoCAD, Inventor, Mechanical Desktop, SolidWorks, Alibre, Pro/E, Solid Edge, GrafiCalc, many user groups, and some general engineering discussions.  It lists topics by most recent activity.  Membership (free) is required to participate in discussions.  It seems to attract very little attention from SolidWorks users.  However, activity may be increasing.  It has advertisements that are slightly distracting.  I do not recommend this site to SolidWorks users solely based on the fact that activity is light.

Part 2 of this article will list other sites, including consideration of the main SolidWorks forum.

SolidWorks World 2008 Day 3 (Jan 23) Breakout sessions

My first breakout session of the day was SolidWorks Sheet metal: Why do I do it like this or that?.  This session went into a lot of detail about sheet metal functions in SolidWorks.  There was discussion covering tears, closed corners, dimensioning preferences, K-factors, when to use normal cut, and the fact that all thicknesses on a sheet metal part need to be identical.  One good point was that closed corners work only when the flanges have the same parent feature.  Like all good sheet metal presentations, miter flanges where also discussed.  One problem I had with the presentation is that way too much time was spent on discussing creation of flat patterns.  When several attendees confronted the presenter with the fact that flat patterns are not often necessary for a designer to create, he argued the point without really understanding why the attendees contested it.  According to ASME Y14.5M-1994, the drawing represents the final product.  Adding intermediate steps (such as flat patterns) are unnecessary since the vendor is responsible for the final product represented on the drawing.  Besides that, most sheet metal shops are much better at determining K-factors and knowing their shop’s limitations than most designers.  I think more information could be packed into the presentation if less time is spent on flat patterning.

After lunch, I attended Leveraging the Design Tables and Configurations….  Many points where covered.  Here’s a few.  It is important to establish a good naming convention for configurations.  Effort must be taken to determine how the model will be represented (drawing, BOM, literature, etc).  Utilize folders in the Model Assembly.  Utilize formulae in the Design Table instead of equations area.  One good point was the suggestion to save backup copies of design tables outside of SolidWorks in Excel itself.

My final Breakout session of SolidWorks World 2008 was Demystifying PDMWorks Workgroup Triggers.  Although I’m not familiar with PDMWorks API, I did learn something about what is possible in PDMWorks.  Also, I learned about the setup required to utilize the triggers. 

I didn’t take many basic how-to Breakout sessions this year.  My main focus was on developing my skills in configuration, customization, more detailed how-to’s, and set up.  I made sure I attended several API related sessions.  Overall, I feel the experience was something that I would not want to miss.  I’m glad I had the opportunity be involved in this experience. 

SolidWorks World 2008 Day 3 (Jan 23) General Session

Several presentations stand out in my mind from the Wednesday General Session.  This was the session that really got down to the business of talking about the SolidWorks community and the future of the SolidWorks software.

Richard Doyle introduced the SWUGN regional leaders to the General Session.  I’m guessing this is the first time many people even heard of this group. This is an important group that is responsible for increasing the number of SolidWorks User Groups nationwide; and worldwide too.

SWUGN Leadership

Another memorable presentation was Engineers in Crisis comedy skit used to introduce us to many of the new functions and improvements that will appear in SolidWorks 2009.  The skit consisted of a supposed talk show host addressing many frustrations that CAD users (unnamedly SolidWorks users) experienced when using their CAD software.  The frustration was collectively referred to as PAS (Performance Addiction Syndrome).

Engineering in Crisis

Who isn’t addicted to something that performs well?  They showed short videos of some engineers who were going mad because of issues they were having with an unnamed CAD program.  To help, three “doctors” presented the videos and then explained the solution offered in SolidWorks 2009.  This one particular engineer in one of the stories was vexed by “too many steps.”  This was prolly the funniest of the bunch.  I remember when they showed him getting out of his co-worker’s car.  His co-worker double beeped his remote to lock his car.  The engineer (Bill, I think) preceded to yell something like, “You only need to beep it once!  Doing it twice is too many steps!  Ughh!!!”  The interviews with his boss and co-workers were icing on the cake.

PAS

Anyway, the point was that SolidWorks 2009 would be adding functionality and simplifying some tasks.  Just to name a few:

  • Big news is that SolidWorks 2009 will accept negative dimensions when adding dimension values to objects within a sketch!
  • Handling of large assemblies has improved substantially.
  • Features created at the assembly level will be transferred to the part.
  • BOM tables can now be directly added to the Model Assembly.
  • Slot tool has finally been added.  (In fact, I recently participated in a questionnaire regarding how this feature will be dimensioned on the drawing.)
  • In sketch mode, dimensioning for sizes of objects will automatically pop up and ask to be populated when the object is created.
  • Routing now supports flat cables, and so on.

This skit was immediately followed by a demonstration of the speed differences we can expect from SolidWorks 2009.  They had a side by side comparison between SolidWorks 2008 and 2009.  It does appear that performance will indeed be massively improved.  This is of course based on the presentation.  I will reserve my final judgment for when I get a chance to use 2009 for myself.

SolidWorks Real Reward (Smart Button)

SolidWorks USB Web Key Smart ButtonSolidWorks has a new Real Reward program.  This new marketing scheme is being kicked off by mailing out these USB Web Key smart buttons.  All you need to do is plug this device into your USB port and press the button.  It kinda reminds me of the easy button from the commercials of one of those office supply stores.  Of course, those easy buttons pretty much solve whatever problem with which you happen to find your self.  This smart button does one thing.  It takes you to the SolidWorks Real Reward program website.  Oh, and it has an LED that glows at you all day (assuming you leave it attached to your computer).  No matter how many times I press it, it always takes me back to the Real Reward program website.

Yup, it did it again.

The Real Reward program allows you to give the SolidWorks Marketing Department all of your friends and family email addresses so that they may email them with an offer for a 30-day free trial of SolidWorks, along with online support and training.  Matt Lombard’s recent post about the Walmart dollar bin comes to mind for some reason.

Once I plugged it in, I pushed it.  It went to the Real Reward program website.  Oh, dang, I just pushed it by accident and it opened up my web browser and did it again.  The documentation that was included with the smart button suggested that the button was programmed with two websites, but unfortunately, both actions with the button goes to the Real Reward program website.  It would’ve been cool if the second setting went to the main SolidWorks website or something so that I have an excuse to keep it plugged in for more than 5 minutes.  Marketing, huh?  Oh well.

Anyway, I then started looking for ways to reprogram this dang thing to make it actually useful.  No such luck so far.  I’ll report if I find a method.  In the meantime, it will light up my desk with its tiny LED reminding me to sell my friends and family’s email addresses for free to SolidWorks so they can promote a $6000 program to them.  I’m sure my Aunt Cathy (a nurse by trade) will appreciate the offer and snap up a copy as soon as she tries it out.

Oh, I didn’t mention the best part.  See, you don’t really sell the email addresses for free.  I was exaggerating.  Here’s the deal, if the people you refer actually buy SolidWorks, you start collecting prizes!   Seriously, check it out.  There’s some pretty cool stuff.  Maybe we can all send in each other’s email addresses so everyone gets credit for everyone else’s purchases so we can all get the free computer!  Oops, did I already find the MLM loop hole in this Marketing scheme?

Update (12/18/2009)

This program was cancelled by SolidWorks Corp as of December 2009.  I am not able to fulfill any further submission requests for the trial version of SolidWorks.  It is my understanding that SolidWorks still has other programs available.  Please contact a local VAR for details.  To find a local VAR or for information about current offers, please see the SolidWorks.com website.

[30-trial, 30-day trial, 30 day trial, thirty-day trial, 30-trial program, 30 day trial program, 30-day trial program]

SolidWorks World 2008 Day 2 (Jan 22) Breakout sessions and such

Finally, after two days of being strangers passing in the night, Chris MacCormick and I finally had a chance to meet up on this day.  But more of that later.

After the General Session was over, my first breakout session of the day was the Hands-On Session Creating SolidWorks Add-ins.  Although I dabble in creating and editing SolidWorks API to help shortcut common functions, I still am just a hack at VBA programming.  I had hoped this session would’ve been useful to continuing my exposure to VB.NET and making add-ins for SolidWorks.  I was very dissatisfied with this session.  This was particularly disappointing because this was my only Hands-On session for the entire SWW8, even though I had logged-on to the SWW8 website at the right time to allow me to get any Hands-On sessions I wanted (way back in 2007).  The session didn’t start off well.  There was a typo on my schedule card that pointed me to the wrong room.  Once I found the correct room and sat down, it took too long to get the session started.  Once the presenter started, he asked a question to check every-one’s experience level.  He asked the question so quickly, I do not believe anyone understood what he said until he uttered the words something like, “Good, everyone will know what I’m talking about.  Let’s get to this.”  Once he did start with the lesson, he flew through so fast, most everyone just gave up trying to follow along.  It took forever to get his attention to tell him no one know where he was in the lesson.  He just wasn’t paying attention to the attendees.  Worse yet, very few of the computers were even configured correctly to allow us to successfully follow along, even if we tried.  By the time some of us finally were able to bring this to his attention, half the session was over.  Many of us had not passed the first few steps.  He then discovered our computers had a wrong setting.  As we moved on again, we again found we couldn’t follow along.  He found out that yet another setting on the computer was wrong.  Basically, the presenter did not make sure the classroom computers where set up properly for his lesson.

At that point Chris MacCormick gave me a call to check when and where we were going to meet up for lunch.  I was so frustrated at the poor quality of the session, I answered the phone without apology. Chris and I planned to meet up in a few minutes.  I then just walked out with 15 minutes to spare. By that time, I was about the fifth person at a Hands-On computer to walk, and I wasn’t the last.  Also, almost all back of the room observers had left by that point.  What did I learn?  Know when to hold them; know when to fold them; know when to walk away; know when to run.

I finally met up with Chris just before the cafeteria opened.  It was about time.  He turns about to be a cool guy with a lot of dynamic energy.  Lunch provided by SWW8 was pretty good.  (I had given up on the SWW8 breakfasts by this time.)  We were later joined by Richard Doyle and another acquaintance of mine.  Chris had missed the SWUGN Annual Summit Meeting on the day before, so Mr. Doyle filled him in on some of the details.

After lunch, my first breakout session of the afternoon was Chris’ own Using the Power of 3D to Teach GD&T.  This session was geared towards being an interactive event between educators.  There were a lot of others who attended that may not have understood this paradigm.  Chris went into detail about the DimXpert and how to use this an other functionality to demonstrate GD&T, including possible limitations or dangers with relying too much on the software to define specifications.  I’ll let Chris go into more detail about this and his other session if he chooses. His session did spark a lot of dialogue between educators.  After the session, I witnessed more people flood up to the front of the room to talk to him than any other presenter at any other session I attended throughout SWW8.

Chris MacCormick

My final breakout session for the day was Exploring the SolidWorks API from a Battleship.  This session was more of a demonstration of how to use SolidWorks and its API creatively for unusual tasks.  The game of Battleship was completely modelled and emulated within SolidWorks.  It was very cleaver and extremely comprehensive.  The presenter did go into his methodology for writing API.  In part, these are some of the points:

  • Identify goals and level of user interaction.
  • Build API ready SolidWorks data (in the model and any files that will be used in the program).
  • Outline the code and define variables; including organization of classes and modules.
  • Explore SolidWorks API for automation.
  • Use clear naming convention for variables.

Because of the nature of the demonstration, this session proved to be a bit self-serving to the presenter.  However, this is also why this particular session was prolly the most entertaining of the day.

SolidWorks World 2008 Day 1 (Jan 21) A Commanding Presence

One of the stars that kept popping up all over the place at SWW8 was the famous/infamous Matt Lombard.  As mentioned, I attended his Hybrid Modeling breakout session.  Before showing up, I didn’t know what to expect.  First of all, his breakout session was in one of the large rooms, that could seat possibly  500 people.  I don’t really know.  I know it was pretty full in comparison to other sessions this year.  I’m not going to go into too much detail about the session’s agenda since I covered that already.  Instead, there are other items of note. 

In a moment of surreal quality, right in the middle of an audience member asking him a question, Matt recognizes him and declares something along the line, “I’ve been looking all over for you! I have it right here.”  He then proceeds to find a copy of his SolidWorks book and brings it down to his faithful attendee.  At the same time, I see a hand reach out from the front row or so grasping some amount of dollar bills.  Matt makes the exchange, declaring some self-derogatory statement and continues the presentation. 

This photo here is of Matt lording over the model he is about to render subservient to his will.

Lord Lombard commanding his model

Two other moments came up where he recognized others in the audience (if I remember right, SolidWorks perennials of some sort)  and declared his complete amazement that they where there listening to little ol’ him.  Just because you write a highly regarded book about SolidWorks doesn’t preclude you from being in awe of others.

The session was informative and entertaining in the shear unexpected natural phenomenon known as Matt Lombard.Â