Drawing Layouts

[cninneman]

Can anyone give some advice on how you currently setup your drawing layout/structure? I understand what works for some, does not work for others. I'm just looking to see how others are going about this, and if my thinking is way out in left field or not.

Some background: The company I work for has just begun with solidworks, I've pretty much been in charge of getting everything geared up and ready to go. We build industrial use material handling products (trailers, carts, etc.), 75% or better, of these products, are custom orders, we don't have all that much standard product. With autocad, we have always stuffed the drawings on 2 to 4 sheets, D size if need be. The first sheet contained the ballooned out assembly print, the second/third sheet would contain the weldments, and the third/fourth would contain all of the individual piece parts needed to build the weldments. Imagine how confusing that could be at times. Anyhow, this is what I envision our drawings to look like in solidworks:

First sheet would be the same, overall assembled product. The following print would contain the first weldment, next would be individual sheets for each piece part to build that weldment, then would come the second weldment, individual parts for it and so on.

The major drawback to this method would simply be the size of file I could potentialy end up with. The average assembly is probably going to use at least 35 sheets, all of varrying sheet size. Can anyone see any long term problems I may end up with, by doing things this way? Am I nuts? I'd realy rather not have to create a seperate drawing file for each weldment, or worse, each part. Unless that would be a better, more stable way of doing things.

Thanks for any and all input.
Chris

 

[CMcF]

I have found using mutiple sheets a bit tiresome, because you are forever regenerating them.

 

[SBaugh]

CNcF,

That depends on your assembly. I have built many of multi-sheet drawings and never had a problem. The biggest multi-sheet drawings I built was like 113 sheet drawing and there wasn't many slow downs at all. So it's going to vary on your assembly and the views in your drawings.

cninneman,

Are asking is your way the best, or what? I guess I don't understand your question, because you said answer in your first statement.

I understand what works for some, does not work for others

Regards,

Scott Baugh, CSWP
3DVision Technologies

http://www.scottjbaugh.com

Merry Christmas
faq731-376
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[CorBlimeyLimey]

Because of the numbering systems my companies use, I usually have two sets of multiple sheet drawings. One for the Assemblies, Sub-assemblies &, Weldments and one for individual parts. I have had very few problems with 50+ drawing sheet sets.

However, this may not be the best way if you have, or intend to get, a PDM system in the near future. Others in this forum who use PDM will be able to offer their advice.

 

[ctopher]

we have separte p/n's for every part and assy. Much easier to track and control revisions. Each part and assy have their own dwg.

 

[MadMango]

I see something being hinted at, but not being said. The drawing format you choose will depend largely on the number system you have in place.

We have seperate drawings for all parts, weeldments and assemblies. The only time we have multi-sheet drawings is when information for such parts and assemblies will not fit on on a single sheet.

Cninneman, If you have a top level number for your assy (12345) and all components that go into the assy are dash numbers (-001, -002, etc) then I think it would be safe to have the multi-sheet drawings as you have described.

The only draw back I see if individual part revision control. If one part changes, does the whole assy get a rev bump?

I can't speak from experience from large multi-sheet drawings. The most I have ever dealt with was about 10 sheets, all for detail and section views of a complicated molded part. I didn't have any issues, but again, it wasn't 35 sheets, and was only of a single part.

[green]"But what... is it good for?"[/green]
Engineer at the Advanced Computing Systems Division of IBM, 1968, commenting on the microchip.
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[cninneman]

Scott,

I'm just looking for advice, before I get neck deep in drawings and then realize that I should have done it a different way. Maybe someone sees a flaw, that I don't see, in what I'm proposing.

I have modled and drawn one complete trailer, to see how this would work, it looked good to me. Our VAR rep stopped in yesterday, to see how things were going, and he mentioned that he had never seen anyone do it that way. So, it just got me thinking, that's all.

Thanks
Chris

 

[cninneman]

MadMango,

Our number system is like this:
52-001-001 for the top level
52-001-001-100 this would be the first weldment
52-001-001-101 this would be the first part, in the first weldment

Our company is very loose on the revision control, so it has always been that the rev is held at the top level. If one part gets changed, the whole thing bumps.

It's sounding to me like I shouldn't have much of a problem doing things the way I envisioned them to be. It's just nice to have reasurances, rather than assuming I know what I'm doing.

Thanks
Chris

 

[CADALL]

Howdy,
Can someone tell me how to reorder the sheets? I created a view on sheet 3 and need to move it and all the contents to sheet 5. And I want to move sheet5 to be the main Layout1.

thanks! -Chris

http://www.illustrativedesigns.com

Product Designer of Contract

 

[CorBlimeyLimey]

CADALL ... Just drag & drop the sheets in the "View Manager" at the left side of the screen.

 

[ctopher]

Ctrl/Select each view from the current sheet, cut, paste to new sheet. I do not think you can re-order sheets.