NEWSUG Meeting Minutes
While this report generally covers the meeting events, they have been arranged into a logical sequence and refined with the purpose of making them helpful without necessarily precisely representing the facts as they happened..
24 people attended this meeting.
Click on links for easy navigation
Overview of Best Practices and Standards
Best Practices and Standards at Miller Electric
Best Practices and Standards at Kimberly Clark
Announcements—Moshe Saraf
Icon competition
We presented icon candidates and voted for them. The first place winner is posted at the top of this page. Here are the finalists.
Justin Fahser
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Jason Manders
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Dan Scheber
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Survey Results
In the survey done a year ago, these topics were listed with the number of votes for each.
Sheet metal 7
FEA 2
Configurations 1
Data exchange 1
File management 5
Customization (VB, Macros, etc.) 9
Libraries 3
Molding 3
Castings 2
Industrial Design, Surfacing, Shapes, Lofting 4
Rapid Prototyping 7
Hardware, Peripherals 0
Networking, Drivers, Benchmarking 0
Third Party Applications 3
Workarounds, Bugs, Enhancements 6
Certification Test 2
Version Updates 2
Drafting Techniques 6
Migration from AutoCAD 1
Concurrent Engineering, PDM 3
Best Practices 10
Parametrics, Design Tables, Equations 2
Large Assemblies 10
Bi-directional AutoCAD Translation 0
The top five items from that survey that have been covered over the last year are:
Large assemblies
Customization (VB, Macros, etc.)
Best practices
Sheet metal
Design tables (part of “parametrics, design tables and equations”)
We have not yet covered parametrics and equations with any depth.
The nine top items from the survey taken earlier this year are:
Best Practices
Large Assemblies
Customization (VB, Macros, etc.)
Sheet Metal
Rapid Prototyping
Workarounds, Bugs, Enhancements
Drafting Techniques
File Management
Industrial Design, Surfacing, Shapes, Lofting
Resume posting on NEWSUG web site
NEWSUG will post on our web site the resume of any member who wants it. Because this is a public forum, it is most suitable for unemployed members. Full guidelines and procedures can be found on the web site www.newsug.org.
SolidWorks World Report – Moshe Saraf
SolidWorks World 2004 was held in
SWUGN – SolidWorks User Group Network
At that session the main points were the change of the organization name from SNUG to SWUGN, the updated website, www.swugn.org, and the plan to create a presentation database to help user groups share presentations. Please check out the free library with many cool models (see below).
Animation as a technical tool
This presentation gave a great insight of what can be done with SolidWorks and Animator to communicate assembly process, to visualize functionality of a component, or to explain technical concepts to non technical audience. For additional details, click, Animation as a technical tool, to open the actual PowerPoint presentation that was used in the conference (file size is 5.3 MB). Also, to review examples, click on any of the video clips on the bottom of http://www.me.berkeley.edu/E128/.
Hands-on sessions
I attended the following sessions:
· COSMOSMotion: Next Steps to Physical Simulation
· COSMOSFloWorks: Fluid Flow Simulation in SolidWorks
The main message was that these solutions are integrated in SolidWorks and have become more usable to all users.
eDrawings: Communicate with 3D CAD Inside and Outside your Organization
eDrawings have become a common tool to share information among various CAD systems and among various teams. Highlights were the following:
· eDrawing is generated and used by PDM systems
· Assembly process can be communicated using the animation between views in eDrawing
· And, eDrawing is linked to the internet to enhance communication and marketing.
SolidWorks tips and tricks
The recorded tips will be shared in future meetings.
Handling Large assemblies using SolidWorks 2004 – Tips and Techniques
The audience was composed of users from various industries. Each of them experienced large assemblies’ symptoms of reduction of productivity. The number of components in each user’s assembly varied from 100 to 10,000. The presentation defined the factors for large assembly symptoms and proposed techniques to push the envelope. To view the PowerPoint presentation click, Large assemblies presentation.
Viewing information
The presentation was kindly published by the presenters on their web site. The file size is 11 MB, and download may take 1-3 minutes, using fast connection. The file will open directly in an Internet Explorer browser. It will not open into Netscape. In that case, save the file into a folder, and open in PowerPoint.
After the meeting, in discussion with SolidWorks developers, they expressed their need to review large assemblies. These assemblies will be used in testing and improving new codes for future service packs or software releases. If you are frustrated by large assemblies, please help to work toward a solution by sending your assembly to the large assembly developers at SolidWorks. They may return to you with resolutions.
SolidWorks 2005 sneak preview
A sneak preview of SolidWorks 2005 was well presented with the following features noted:
- User interface follow Windows XP icons
- Context-sensitive task pane to be used as Explorer, feature palette, and blocks
- Repeat command on Enter
- Sketch can be mated to parts in an assembly.
- Bent weldments (Weldments profiles that are swept along predefined sketches are available in SolidWorks 2004. The limitation in SolidWorks 2004 is to linear sketch entities).
- Many editing improvements to notes: color and style of font can be modified within one note. Other annotations can be inserted in a note while maintaining associatively, for example, surface finish. Also, tolerances could be specified in notes.
- A note can be attached to a dimension and will move with it.
- A note can be located using the arrow keys (as in Word or Excel).
- Video clips will be available with eDrawing 2005.
- Mold design is improved to allow quick definition of split surface and tooling creation.
- Cross hatch will stop if a note is placed on it.
- A task panel with any favorite symbols, parts, blocks, or notes will offer a quick drag and drop.
- A detail of a detail or a cross section of a detail will be available.
- eDrawing is planned to produce 30% smaller files than today’s eDrawing files.
- Inserting views will be easier, and views will be placed according to the location of the pointer relative to the first view.
- To move a view just click and drag anywhere in the middle of the view. All views will move with respect to the moved view, not dependent on the main view.
- 3D ContentCentral will be integrated in the open file or insert existing file.
- Auto-dimension will be available in drawings and will include partial auto-dimensioning.
Overview of Best Practices and Standards – Mark Kuckuk
Mark presented some definitions and strategies for best practices and standards.
Best practices are techniques or methods used in the construction of SolidWorks Models, Assemblies, or Drawings that extend the life and usefulness of a given file. Best Practices are typically “recommended” company by users and therefore are not company Standards.
As a whole process consideration, companies develop best
practices to improve the “ease of use” of Models. For example, when used
in assemblies, drawings,
A part of best practices is capturing design intent. Whether assembling or reworking models, design intent can be partially captured if best practices are established and used.
Mark described robustness as a disciplined construction method that can make the difference between starting over and expanding on work that has already been done. A flexible model will easily transition into design table configurations.
Maximize functionality by using careful, clever practices that enable a wide range of options.
Once best practices turn into habits, collaboration opportunities improve as Engineers, Designers, and Drafters “get on the same page” regardless of the company size.
Mark gave these examples and demonstrations.
If you have a profile, stretch the cross section and extrude the length for maximum flexibility.
Use the default planes heavily for more robust models because they have a stable reference.
Align datum planes on the default planes.
Build models from the default planes.
“Strike off” from default planes in logical ways so that the planes can be used for assembly mating. This is especially important for mirrored parts.
Separate bosses from cuts in order to create features separately and maximize visibility.
Use patterns for patterned features, and not bury them in the sketch, in order to leave patterning options open.
Best Practices and Standards at Miller Electric – Mark Achtner
History at Miller Electric
SolidWorks was implemented in 1977. They developed basic SolidWorks standards at the time.
Miller Electric implemented PDMWorks in 2002. At that time they created a committee to revise the standards, revised the SolidWorks standards and developed PDMWorks standards.
Miller Electric General SolidWorks Standards
Standards include:
· Templates for part, assembly and drawing models.
· Custom properties macro to fill in title block custom properties.
· Standard location for custom files. At Miller, all files are stored on each user’s local hard drive. The files are distributed at installation and when there are updates.
· SolidWorks set up at installation.
Miller Electric Part Standards
These standards are in place:
· Origin location
· Color
· Part details
· File names
These standards are in process:
· External reference limits
· Configurations
· Derived parts
Other SolidWorks Standards
· All sketches must be fully defined.
· Standard assembly file names.
· Standard on top down verses bottom up design.
· Drawing standards.
Miller Electric PDMWorks Standards
· File naming conventions
· Working folder location.
· Library folder
· Description of all folders.
· Default option settings.
· Procedures for different situations.
Miller Electric Plan for Developing and Publishing Standards
Miller uses a small committee to develop standards. They use an e-mail discussion forum to develop standards. Before publishing a standard, the draft is e-mailed to all users for review. The committee meets with all users every few months to discuss issues. Standards are published on the Miller Electric intranet.
Standards Future at Miller Electric
· Miller wants to develop a method to enforce standards.
· Miller wants to continually review and revise their standards.
· Miller wants to develop best practices.
· They want standards for add-in software.
· They want to develop templates for sheet metal, plastics and other standard types of models.
SolidWorks best practices and standards at Kimberly Clark – Moshe Saraf
Best practices and standards in Kimberly-Clark are maintained by existing design standards, CAD department, and a PDM system. The existing design standards are not unique to SolidWorks but define the product that is required from the designers.
The CAD department supports the engineering community by holding a help line, publishes information on the intranet, facilitates training, and develops a PDM system. For example, installation is done using a script that can be activated from an intranet site. The script installs the SolidWorks and sets system-properties settings automatically. Also, file locations are set by the installation script to point to standard templates, standard library, blocks, BOM, and pallet features that are located in central location.
The PDM system includes the following:
· Drawing number creation interface
· Title block entries interface program
· On-line issuing and approving process that includes many electronic checks
· Search engine
· Tiff image creation for people who do not have SolidWorks
· Revisions
· Protection and backup of files
All of these tools provide an infrastructure for many users to use the software in a consistent and productive manner.
Next meeting
Our next meeting is scheduled for