CAD Archives - Cad ADMIN

15Oct 2020 by admin 4 Comments

OneDrive and SOLIDWORKS file management

Administration, CAD, Software, SOLIDWORKS, TOOLBOX

Nowadays OneDrive or any other cloud storage is essential part of computer software. General office applications are moving step by step to cloud. For some users it's continuing with old habits, just saving files to synced folder on windows and for them what happens next is magic. Transitioning CAD files to cloud is much more painful and takes longer to implement. Not to forget, there are already some fully (or semi) cloud-based CAD systems (Onshape, 3DExperience, Fusion). As switching to cloud CAD is longer leap than most of users today are willing to do. Quite often there are questions also about security, where are my files and what happens when interned is down ( quite rare but still a possibility) In this post we however focus more traditional cloud based…

16Feb 2020 by admin 15 Comments

PDM FRUSTRATION LIST – things that keep us from using the full Potential of the SOLIDWORKS PDM

Administration, BOM, CAD, PDM, PDM Dispatch, SERIAL NUMBERS

The heading might sound harsh so do not get us wrong, we still believe that Product Data Management software is a must for engineering and fabrication companies. But lucky (or unlucky) person who will be responsible of implementing PDM system should understand some simple principles before doing so and experience working with different companies to understand different situations is a strong recommendation. Managing implementation without experience is doomed to fail. Furthermore, there are many things going on with SOLIDWORKS PDM that seem straight forward to solve but in reality, will be one very painful challenge. The workaround seems to be custom macros etc, but those will increase implementation complexity, cost and time significantly. And if the system is new for users, it makes it near impossible to learn in…

22May 2019 by admin 1 Comment

Download section

CAD, Uncategorized, WELDMENTS

Here is small notice that there is now available “Download” section in menu. This is literally place where you can useful things for your SolidWorks. As first thing one of most wanted content – weldment profiles are there for download. Please share your ideas what else should be added to download section. Direct link to DOWNLOADS.

31Mar 2019 by admin No Comments

Weldments, Cut list and data management

Administration, CAD, WELDMENTS

How to create the perfect SOLIDWORKS weldment profile? To most CAD administrators, this is an essential topic. Fortunately, there is tons of information floating around on the internet with some pretty good examples.So, should you ask why you should keep reading, then I'd tell you that the most important topic, Weldment and Cut List Data Management, is not covered by the results on the first page of Google. Today, you can look forward to getting a better understanding of your next steps in the world of data management.No time-back guarantees though! Profiles creation method As forementioned there are tons of instructions available online on how to draw geometry. The usual approach for doing it is to draw the shape of a profile and then use Excel to create all of the…

23Dec 2018 by admin 4 Comments

Revision table and PDM integration

Administration, CAD, PDM

Vox populi vox dei – a famous sentence from ancient Rome. Some would dare say is happening with the design table in PDM. First of all I would like to state that we don’t believe that a revision table is sufficient to describe a drawing. Revision table history The revision table is a historical relict from a time when drawings were made onto paper. Back then every change, no matter how small, required a lot of effort and drafting hours. To this day there are stories from older engineers of how hundreds of drafters implemented engineering changes into drawings. Obviously today's 3DCad systems are doing this job within moments. A great idea to save time was to make a small table such as a drawing logbook (Raise your hand, who…

11Dec 2018 by admin 2 Comments

CAD, PDM, BOM, and ERP

Administration, CAD, Software, SOLIDWORKS, Tech, Uncategorized

CAD, PDM, BOM and ERP – four three letters abbreviations that most of engineers have heard more than enough of. There are lots of rumors, sales messages, and wishful thinking in the social media and communication channels resulting in a thinking model that has nothing to do with reality and that only has a purpose to help sell more products without the functionality, that they claim to have. This article is written to state our opinion on how these things work in real life. Hopefully this helps readers to avoid following will-o'-the-wisps. (more…)

05Nov 2018 by admin No Comments

Mirroring – assemblies with parts in the assembly 3/3

CAD, Features, PDM, WELDMENTS

Warning! Only follow this if you're an advanced user and even then proceed with caution. (more…)

16Jul 2018 by admin No Comments

Wooden beams as weldment profiles

CAD, Features, SOLIDWORKS, WELDMENTS

Summer is there. I assume, that lot of us has some building project in waiting what need kind of wooden construction. Before taking steps with real tool, I recommend to draw out what are planned to do (and preferrably agree with your wife :-) ). Generally is nice to use weldment tool in SOLIDWORKS to model particular object and then get right cut list before taking saw or visiting local building material shop. One simple problem what appears is that out of the box SOLIDWORKS do not have any wood material profiles in library. Generally wood material is pretty local, depending from county, supplier, local shop preferences or fact that some material are waiting in your garden… Wooden material profile template Here is one simple weldment profile template (SW 2016 version). This…

08Jun 2018 by admin 3 Comments

Mirroring – A lot of headache behind simple concept – Part 1/3

Administration, CAD, Features, SERIAL NUMBERS, SOLIDWORKS

Mirroring and symmetry are like some sort of an ancient code that is visible everywhere in the world. Most living creatures are somewhat symmetric. This also holds true in the technical world, where objects have a tendency to be symmetrical. There are many places in even simple design that need symmetry -for example using both left and right-hand components. Due to this, the first reaction may be that this is going to be easy and let's get to it, but since we're working in a not-so-perfect CAD-PDM world, it's best to be prepared and to build a common understanding of how these things are handled. (more…)

14May 2018 by admin 1 Comment

Some thoughts on external references

CAD, Features, PDM, SOLIDWORKS

Both, External References and In-Context design are excellent modeling techniques to make the lives of the engineers much easier. However, they're riddled with details that every user should know and that every CAD admin or company has to take into consideration when letting the engineers use these features. In this article, I'll share some thoughts and from real life, particularly from the data management side of things. (more…)