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Here's a part I'm having problems with.

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davidinindy

davidinindy

Industrial
Jun 9, 2004
695
It is a vacuum-formed tray to hold cylinderical shaped components.
It's got a lot of geometry, but it is simple drafted diameters, and ribs that have been linear patterned "X" number of times. I created the "inside" shape first, which the toolmaker can roll back to and have the mold itself, then shell it outward to get the "backside". Removing the fillets doesn't help a lot in this case.
I have gone thru all of the "slow performance" threads, checked all of system properties to Solidworks recomendations, checked and tweaked my settings, etc... I still wait for 45 minutes each time I make a minor change to the file for it to rebuild.
If anyone sees a way to create this part while keeping the file size managable, I'd really appreciate it.
{img}
 
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tray2.jpg
 
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Parts like this are going to be a pain no matter what. It looks very similar to a part I made a few years ago for a medical company for transporting components across the clean room. I remember having looong rebuild times, etc.

Can we get a image of the Feature Tree for this model.

[green]"But what... is it good for?"[/green]
Engineer at the Advanced Computing Systems Division of IBM, 1968, commenting on the microchip.
Have you read faq731-376 to make the best use of Eng-Tips Forums?
 
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The last couple planes and cuts were supressed. They are just to get a small corner to make an SLA part.
The revolved features are the two main cylinder shapes. I've tried them as "stacked" extruded features also, but the results were the same... slow.
 
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Yeah, parts with large patterns like this are always slow in SWX.

Couple suggestions (maybe you've tried these)
1.) Try using geometry pattern, this can sometimes speed things up (or slow them down).
2.) If you have a bunch of changes to do, try suppressing the patterns, making your changes, and resuming them.

Also, what are your computer specs? I wouldn't recommend anything less than a P4 3GHz or Athlon 3000 with at least 1GB or RAM.
 
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SolidWorks Sercive Pack: SP0.1
Operating System & Service Pack: WinXP SP2.0
Graphics Card and Driver version: Nvidia Quadro FX1000
Driver version 6.14.0010.5303
Amount of installed RAM: 20GB
Virtual Memory settings: Minumum 2mb Maximum 4096mb
CPU Type & Speed: Xeon 3.2Ghz
Assembly Statistics:
Recent changes to system: none
Recent changes to file/document: trying to edit sketch of patterned feature
Does problem exist on other computers: no… I’m only one running solidworks
Does problem exist with other files: yes.
 
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Take a curvy spline and "cut out" diagonally from one corner to the other all the unneeded detail leaving the other two to put dimensions. We used to do this in the "board" days to eliminate unnecessary detail. Your toolmaker doesn't need to see all the round detail to understand what the part looks like. I have had great success with SW doing complex parts this way.

Mike Elias
 
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We need a full picture of the part for presenting it to our customer. This is not an option in our case. Thanks for the thought.
 
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Have you tried to model one row of features, then pattern the entire row? I think that is how I squeezed a bit more performance out of the part I worked on.

[green]"But what... is it good for?"[/green]
Engineer at the Advanced Computing Systems Division of IBM, 1968, commenting on the microchip.
Have you read faq731-376 to make the best use of Eng-Tips Forums?
 
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MadMango.
I have tried that. I created a sketch that made one row, extruded the features, then patterned it in only one direction. That seemed to shrink the file, but I lost some adjustability with the spacing. I might just have to make that sacrifice though.
 
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Just out of interest, I modelled the same part (or as best I could based on the available images) in Pro/E WF 2.0 .......
Hardware Dell M50 laptop, 1.8GHz 1Gb RAM

Full regeneration time 3 minutes.

I know that this doesn't help your cause, and I'm likely to get some people doubting this result.
Can anyone suggest a method of validating these findings, i.e. does anyone have SW & WF and a few minutes available to model this part?

Why is WF so much quicker at regenerating (rebuilding) features than SW in this type of model?
 
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RocketRonnie,
I appreciate the effort. Did you rebuild it after making a change to a feature? or just "redraw" or "refresh" it?
Try changing the spacing in each direction and see what it takes to rebuilt it. Also, did you use a "shell" feature? (not sure if Pro-E has the same terminology)
 
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I modified the first extrusion feature, causing a full part regeneration - changing the spacing causes the same regeneration time - the longest regeneration is for the final feature - the shell which takes about 1 minute (Pro/E has pretty much the same terminology as SW)

I do have a couple of fillets (rounds) before the shell which seem to be on your model, one round the outside of the plate, and a complex loop round the outside of the cylindrical bosses and ribs.

I could post a picture of the model, but am waiting for an account on the groups.msn.com site.
 
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Thanks... I think that the problem is in the way solidworks handles the shell operation.
I supressed everything from the shell down, changed something, then rebuilt, and it took less than a minute each time. Then I unsupressed the shell feature, and waited... and waited... I opened task manager, and it's at 100% CPU usage, then as the PF usage goes up, it maxes out at 2.8GB (I have the 3GB switch done)...
I waited 20 minutes, and gave up.
I'm thinking about adding a hard drive and putting my virtual mamory there... I'm officially putting in a enhancement request for more efficient handling of the shell feature to SW.
 
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David,

How much memory do you use up when you make the change? Have you watched your Task manager? I'm testing your file right now. I only have 1 gig and I have exceeded that. I was all the way up to 1.64 Gig over.

It finally went down and return the model to me after about 15 minutes. The shell failed. Note: If you get and error, that will increase your amount of time when it's rebuilding. So since the shell failed I'm goign to blame that slow rebuild on that process. I changed the base feature from 774 to 780.

I'm changing it back. As soon as I get a result I'll let you know.

Regards,

Scott Baugh, CSWP [pc2]
3DVision Technologies

faq731-376
faq559-716 - SW Fora Users
 
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Well, it's kind of a "trial and error" to see if the shell will work with different changes. It's waiting 20 minutes to find out that it failed that's the problem. Maybe that should be my enhancement request. Either way, something has to change.
I'm not sure what you're asking as far as "How much memory do you use up when you make the change? Have you watched your Task manager?"
I noted what my task manager was saying in the reply above.
Thanks for all of your effort Scott.
 
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I changed the base feature in WF and then watched the Task Manager, the CPU maxes out at 100% for the 3 minutes, but the memory doesn't go up at all.

I guess the actual geometry could be making the shell difficult, is it possible for you to give some dimensions so we're comparing like for like?
 
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David,

The problem is the Shell. If I open up your file and do a Crtl-Q on it. The Sheel will fail. I don't have change anything. The reason your time line is soo long is because the Sheel fails and SW tries several times to make it work. The only way to stop the rebuild is to click the "Esc" key. You need to find the area of what feature that causing the shell to fail.

Here is the Error or What's wrong:

"The shell operation failed to complete. One of the faces may offset into an adjacent face, a small face may need to be eliminated, or one of the faces may have a radius of curvature which is smaller than the shell thickness. Please use Tools Check to find the minimum radius of curvature on appropriate faces. If possible, eliminate any unintended small faces or edges."

I hope this helps you out... not that I found a solid answer, but at least you have a new starting point.

Also check out the Tools\"Feature Statistics" - This will tell you where your big time % is at.

Regards,

Scott Baugh, CSWP [pc2]
3DVision Technologies

faq731-376
faq559-716 - SW Fora Users
 
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