I want to change MDT6 for another cad software. Which one do I choose?

[PatCouture]

Hi, I'm a Mechanical Desktop 6 user for 2 years now, and I heard about the sheet metal utilities of other software and the welding assembly and adding to all this I'm sick and tired of having fatal errors or corrupted files. So now I want to go with a new cad software, but which one do I choose between Solid Edge, Solid Works or Inventor.
Your help would be nice cause when I'm talking to each retailers they all say that their products is the best so I'd like to have other opinion about that.

Thanks

Patrick

 

[jwillison]

Unfortunately, fatal errors are not just caused by the MDT software. They're usually related more to the interaction with Windows and the way that Windows handles memory. You won't avoid the fatal errors by switching to a different program. A better approach for that is to double check that you have the latest video drivers (and the correct ones) for your video card, and thet the setup of the drivers is correct. It also helps (at least with Solid Edge) to have static virtual memory instead of the default dynamically-allocated virtual memory. Set it to at least 2x your installed RAM. That should at least mimimize the amount of fatal errors. Also, save your work a lot.

I have been using Solid Edge steadily for about 4 years now. Before that I used AutoCAD for about 14 years. The difference between the two (and MDT is similar to AutoCAD) is amazing. Solid Edge is very strong in sheet metal, and from what I've seen in demos is the best of the three (although I'm sure others will disagree). My main complaint is that I use the mouse a LOT more with Solid Edge, which led to some wrist problems until I switched to a trackball. No commandline to type in shortcuts.

As for which would be best for you...
1. Do you have legacy work you need to convert? If so, check that very carefully. The three programs are not very good yet at translating work from one to the other and maintaining the feature structure. Probably going from MDT to Inventor (since both are AutoDESK) would be the least painful where this is concerned.

2. Do you do a lot of assembly work? Solid Edge's main weakness is in that area as far as I'm concerned. Solid Works is probably a little better. Inventor I don't know about.

3. Do you have access to local expert advice (friends, co-workers, neighbours, user groups) in any of these programs? Once you choose one of them this local expert advice may become invaluable to you to getting up to speed. On-line help is also very useful but there's usually a delay between question and answer. Getting the answer right away will help a lot.

Hope this helps and good luck.

 

[rghay]

I both taught and consulted using MDT3, MDT4 and MDT5.

There is no comparison if you need to do sheet metal work; Solid Edge is by far the way to go.

I was doing a lot of work in castings and with MDT it was very time consuming to add the required fillets, especially between lofted features and conical features. Solid Edge had no problem doing this.

Finally, I disagree with "jwillison"; Solid Edge is very capable of handling assemblies with thousands of component parts and subassemblies.

Recommendation: take a very serious look at the Solid Edge product and all it offers: modeling, assemblies, sheet metal, weldments, motion, rendering. Everything is in a single unified package.

 

[jwillison]

Solid Edge is capable of creating a huge assembly of thousands of parts, yes. What it seems to fall down in is maintaining all those relationships when changes are made to the parts in the assemblies. I can't count the number of times I've made a change to a part and discovered the assembly was full of red links. And all I did was change the length of the part. No adding features or removing surfaces. So yes, there is definitely room for improvement there.

Of course we are still using SE V11 so we're hoping there have been major improvements in V14.

 

[PatCouture]

Thanks guys, your comments are very useful.

Since I started evaluating changing my CAD software, I made some research on Solid Edge V14, SolidWorks 2003, and Inventor. I eliminated Inventor because I didn't like the way Autodesk was developping their products between MDT and Inventor. So I got a demo from EDS for Solid Edge and I went thru all of the tutorial, And I made the same with SolidWorks. I think that because I worked a lot with MDT6 I founded that solidworks at first sight looked much more similar to MDT6 Than Solid Edge. And also what help me a lot is that when I was in CEGEP (In Québec we have 5 years of high school and then CEGEP instead of 7 or 8 years of high school) I got a formation on SolidWorks 2001 so I am a lot more familiar with SolidWorks than with Solid Edge and finally I'm sorry for Solid Edge user but the fact that a lot more people are using SW instead of SE influenced me to go with SolidWorks 2003


Thanks again for the help

Patrick

 

[HermanHaasbroek]

Hi Pat,
I see PTC's Pro Engineer Wildfire is not on your list. It outperforms all the mentioned packages. Go have a look @ PTC’s web page (

http://www.ptc.com).

Cheers

 

[littlef8]

I'm a big Solid Edge fan. There's to many can'ts in Solid Works. Although they do have some whow tools, they don't help when it comes to serious modeling. (alot of work arounds). If your doing sheetmetal you definately want to check out the can'ts.

Ask Solid Edge and Solid Works Reps to demo your parts giving them only a few days to put it together. This will give you a good idea as to whether or not they can accomplish what you want. Don't hold back on anything you may consider complicating. Stress the fact that you want things demo'ed without using macros.

Doing this, I believe you will be satisfied with the end results. My advice, don't take their word for it that they can do it, ask them to show you.