Thoughts on DriveWorksXpress
Although this is obviously a very powerful and useful tool as evidenced from all the demos and videos floating around on the WWW I have found some issues.
1. You can never find a tutorial or demo that does exactly what you are wishing to do. (Like how would anyone know what I want to do anyway?)
2. All the tutorials and examples that I’ve seen start at the DriveWorksXpress use. You really and truly need to be thinking DriveWorksXpress when designing the parts initially.
3. You can’t teach the logic of DriveWorksXpress in a tutorial. If you don’t have a grasp on the logic of what you are trying to do you will never get it to work. This is not a fault of the program but rather a fault in my brain.
I spent a total of 5 hours over the weekend trying to make a DriveWorks database to drive a metal cabinet design that we have. At some point yesterday I finally admitted defeat to myself. Please understand that the program does exactly what it is suppose to do and does it well. But from my experience I’ve learned a few things that will help me in the future. Oh and BTW when I say that I ‘admitted defeat’ it doesn’t mean that I’m giving up, it only means that I think I need to start the process of using DriveWorks earlier in the design cycle.
What I’ve learned:
1. You can take an existing design that you did over a year ago and build a DesignWorksXpress database around it. But be forewarned you better have a complete understanding of how your design works (no pun) and interacts with other parts in the assembly. This is where I am with my cabinet project.
2. Limit or eliminate arrays of features with dimensions that need to be driven. I had several arrays with only 3 elements in them. While I’m sure that DriveWorks could deal with them it’s one more dimension rule you will have to create. I’ve found that using ‘linked’ dimensions within the sketch to make multiple features works better.
3. In my original design I did a lot of in-context part creation in the assembly. This seems to cause problems. If trying to use DriveWorks on an existing assembly you might want to go back and break all the references making sure to track down any other parts that might reference the part you just broke the references to. This includes mates in the top level assembly.
4. Your directory where the assembly resides is going to get very cluttered with the new parts and assemblies you create. Make a copy of your directory before each ‘test’ run of DriveWorks. I used Pack and Go to make a flattened copy of all the components within the assembly.
Please understand that I don’t mean this to sound like I’m putting the product down. Heck I even know that eventually I could get this to work on the mentioned cabinet assembly. But I also know that if I had of stopped 3 days ago and went back and redid the cabinet with the intention of using DriveWorks I would have been ahead of the game.
Expect additional posts on this subject and eventually a working DriveWorksXpress assembly.
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Friday, September 12, 2008
COSMOS is now Design Simulation
COSMOS is now Design Simulation
At the September 11th WNC SolidWorks User Group Meeting Dana Parish from Central Florida gave an excellent presentation on the Who, What, When and Why of design simulation. I left with the feeling that this is something that should be in my CAD toolbox. Dana’s presentation really focused in on how the tools can help designers and engineers alike in their endeavors to design and build products in a cost effective manner. Dana’s partner, Ramesh Lakshmipathy showed us how the software worked using real world examples. One of his example files was from Precision Gear provided by our own Phil Behm. It was a housing that Precision Gear has cast overseas. Phil said it was designed in the old days when steel was cheap and the ‘When in doubt, make it stout’ finite element analysis was the preferred method. By running the design simulation tools on the housing Ramesh was able to trim 8 lbs from the part. And he did all this in about 30 minutes. He went through the process for us and I must say that it was impressive.
Today I’m up to my eyebrows in DriveWorksXpress. We have a perfect project for this application. Look around in your kitchen at the cabinetry and picture these made from #3 brushed stainless steel. They are used in a pharmaceutical laboratory. We have made the cabinets twice before and both time I was thinking that there must be a better way. The sizes and the configuration of the cabinets change based on the wall space available and their actual use. There are single door cabinets of various sizes but they could hinge on the left or the right sides. There are double door cabinets of different sizes and there are cabinets with door and drawers and some with just drawers. It’s really confusing since some parts will be the same for multiple cabinets and some will be the same except for a single hole…You get the idea. And if I’m not confused enough the shop guys really lose their minds when the assembly starts.
I’ve watched videos, read tutorials and worked through them. I talked to Michael Jolley last night and he gave me a few pointers. So as I told my boss this morning, it’s now down to me figuring it out as I do it. I’ll keep you posted on my progress. Or not!
What ‘bout them Tarheels! Great win guys!
At the September 11th WNC SolidWorks User Group Meeting Dana Parish from Central Florida gave an excellent presentation on the Who, What, When and Why of design simulation. I left with the feeling that this is something that should be in my CAD toolbox. Dana’s presentation really focused in on how the tools can help designers and engineers alike in their endeavors to design and build products in a cost effective manner. Dana’s partner, Ramesh Lakshmipathy showed us how the software worked using real world examples. One of his example files was from Precision Gear provided by our own Phil Behm. It was a housing that Precision Gear has cast overseas. Phil said it was designed in the old days when steel was cheap and the ‘When in doubt, make it stout’ finite element analysis was the preferred method. By running the design simulation tools on the housing Ramesh was able to trim 8 lbs from the part. And he did all this in about 30 minutes. He went through the process for us and I must say that it was impressive.
Today I’m up to my eyebrows in DriveWorksXpress. We have a perfect project for this application. Look around in your kitchen at the cabinetry and picture these made from #3 brushed stainless steel. They are used in a pharmaceutical laboratory. We have made the cabinets twice before and both time I was thinking that there must be a better way. The sizes and the configuration of the cabinets change based on the wall space available and their actual use. There are single door cabinets of various sizes but they could hinge on the left or the right sides. There are double door cabinets of different sizes and there are cabinets with door and drawers and some with just drawers. It’s really confusing since some parts will be the same for multiple cabinets and some will be the same except for a single hole…You get the idea. And if I’m not confused enough the shop guys really lose their minds when the assembly starts.
I’ve watched videos, read tutorials and worked through them. I talked to Michael Jolley last night and he gave me a few pointers. So as I told my boss this morning, it’s now down to me figuring it out as I do it. I’ll keep you posted on my progress. Or not!
What ‘bout them Tarheels! Great win guys!
Friday, September 5, 2008
No politics spoken here!
No politics spoken here!
Things are finally starting to calm down at the Cox household. The last few weeks have been a blur of activity. From refurbishing sixteen computers to trying to get the yard work done has been a struggle. There was some mention by my wife of having my nose in a computer screen for the last three weeks. But all that is finally behind me now. The Shelby HAMfest has come and gone and I managed to sell all the computers but three. I still have a bunch of 20” CRT monitors that are in excellent shape if anyone is interested…I will make you a deal on one or two or three or…
The HAMfest was great. The new location is better as far as the facilities but some of the older people were complaining about how spread out it was. If you have never been to an event like this I suggest you try one out. Whether you’re into HAM radio or computers you will find a bunch of people with like interests who are just dying to strike up a conversation. Last year I took my Commodore SX64 and a bunch of people stop by to reminisce about their Commodore 64 days. This year my brother took some token-ring switches and had similar results. BTW – neither the SX64 or the token ring gear sold but we did get a lot of traffic to our table because of them.
During the process of setting up the PCs for sale I learned a lot about Linux and in particular Ubuntu Desktop. I’m tempted to set up one of the left over machines in my house just to see if I can make it do all that I typically do on a Windows machine. With a little searching around the web and a bit of under the hood tweaking I believe that this can be a windows alternative. Excluding SolidWorks of course! In fact on the new build of my ‘regular’ desktop machine I installed OpenOffice instead of Microsoft Office. I’m wondering if there is a way to hook the OpenOffice spread sheet into SolidWorks instead of Excel, this will be my next project. I did temporarily install Outlook just to get my contacts imported. Does anyone know of an alternative that can sync your contacts with your pocket PC? I’m not worried about the email since I use Google’s Gmail almost exclusively now since I just found out that I can add my Pop3 accounts to it.
In response to comments made on some of the blog entries I would like to thank the ones who read and responded. The situation concerning the ‘limited user’ status on the CAD machines at Byers has now been lifted with yours truly being responsible for the computers in the CAD department. Whoever said that I should just keep bugging the IT manager about this was right.
Thanks for all the tips on the imported sheet metal part. I foresee someday SolidWorks recognizing a sheet metal part and making the necessary adjustments to the dumb solid on its own. This is what I meant by ‘Smarter SolidWorks’. I do wish that when you comment on the blog that you would leave enough information so that I will know who you are. I removed the requirement that you be logged in to comment to make it easier for all of ya’ll but please in the spirit of community tell me who you are.
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