NX6 annoyances

[tomstickland]

Every time I find something that appears to be illogical I'll add it in here. I can then see if anyone else agrees, and hopefully the NX6 developers might be able to take it on board.

1)OK, Apply, Cancel.
Different menus behave in different ways.
Sometimes if you OK the action it occurs again.
Sometimes you apply things then cancel.
Sometimes you OK to make something happen and then exit.

2) Menu clicks required to edit a parameter.
The new hole system is a lot better than the old one and now a double click allows you to edit the dimensions. This is good.
However, old features like slots, you still have to go through:
right click
edit dimensions
then select add, delete or edit
then edit
then ok, then ok again

3)Drafting and model views
When several files are open, some are on drafting view, others are models. As you navigate between the windowns you have to keep changing from model to drafting application. Why can't the various windows remember what application they are running?

4)Quickly finding specification files
If I have a model open and want to see any specifications, the only way seems to be to do a search in the file-open window. Is there a direct way to get to specifications?

5)Editing arrays
Why can't I click on an instance to edit the feature and on the array to edit the array? Instead I have to click on an instance and then select "edit feature" or "edit array". This makes the whole process more labourious than it should be.

 

[wmalan]

"I used mechanical desktop (Autocad 3D) for a few years and believe that that had a better interface than nx. It was certainly a lot simpler, but seemed capable of doing the same work."

Have you played with Roles or some of the other customization tools? Check out Help on the topic. You can completely alter the look and feel to your needs. Get rid of the icons you don't need as well as lay them out in a friendlier configuration.

I'm a cam guy but as an example we had a new user coming off Mastercam. He could not get his head around the interface (of course no training... another story) so I re-laid it out to a very simplified bare-bones look that sort of matched Mastercam. He did much better after that and has not looked back.

Also, you mention "I'm just stacking up loads of variations of orthagonal and turned components." Perhaps you could setup a template to streamline the task. I assume your using Assemblies as well? Lots of opportunities to reducing the task I've found.

--
Bill

 

[JohnRBaker]

If I hide all the solid bodies in the model and then go to the assembly navigator to turn selected bodies on then it won't show them.

So in one case it turns things off and allows them to be turned back on. In another it turns things off regardless of what the assembly navigator says.

Be careful NOT to confuse Components with Bodies. If you had used the 'Show and Hide' function and decided to apply the Hide to all of the COMPONENTS, then you would have gotten the expected behavior. Granted, if you are only creating solid models and that is all that you expect to ever use in the your Assembly, then it's hard to think of the Component as NOT also being the Body, but in reality a Component could just as easily have been made up of curves, datums, points, text, etc NONE of which are Bodies. So when you hide a Body you are NOT hiding the Component itself but only what was INSIDE the Component.

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Design Solutions
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA

http://www.siemens.com/plm

http://www.plmworld.org/museum/

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

 

[tomstickland]

"I'm just stacking up loads of variations of orthagonal and turned components." Perhaps you could setup a template to streamline the task

I'm not literally doing that. What I meant was, all the assemblies contain conventional machined parts, not 3D splined surfaces representing turbine blades or car body panels or whatever.

 

[BOPdesigner]

That ancient, external ug_convert_part needs to be modernized into an NX menu.

 

[JohnRBaker]

It may be 'ancient', but it does what it does.

Besides, the vast majority of our users have no real need for it so there is no compelling reason to add it to NX itself, except for making it easier to use, which may be a valid reason to consider doing something, but at best I would vote for some standalone utility, with an albeit better interface than just a command-line routine like it is now, however that would be the extent of what I think most people would consider as being a reasonable use of resources.

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Design Solutions
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA

http://www.siemens.com/plm

http://www.plmworld.org/museum/

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

 

[cowski]

That ancient, external ug_convert_part needs to be modernized into an NX menu.

If you don't mind tinkering a bit (or have an IT person with a few minutes to spare) you can integrate the 'convert part' program into explorer's right click interface; see thread561-261407.

I'll add an NX6 (6.0.3.6) annoyance to the list, perhaps there is a better workaround than the one I have found. In drafting, if you add an ID symbol with a leader and then start the command again to add an ID symbol with no leader, there is nothing you can do that I have found (short of resetting the dialog box) to allow creating a symbol with no leader.

 

[JohnRBaker]

I'll add an NX6 (6.0.3.6) annoyance to the list, perhaps there is a better workaround than the one I have found. In drafting, if you add an ID symbol with a leader and then start the command again to add an ID symbol with no leader, there is nothing you can do that I have found (short of resetting the dialog box) to allow creating a symbol with no leader.

I'm running NX 6.0.5.3 and I don't see any problem whatsoever. When I open the dialog the second time I can just drag the previewed ID symbol (circle only) to where I wish it to be, make a screen selection and there it is, an ID symbol with NO leader. 'Easy as cake.'

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Design Solutions
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA

http://www.siemens.com/plm

http://www.plmworld.org/museum/

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

 

[cowski]

darn cosmic rays!

 

[BOPdesigner]

That right click on the file setop to convert part units is nice. However, close the file, find it in the folder, right click and convert, reopen the file. That is quite a few steps. And how would you do it in the TcE enviornment? While this external utility may not seem odd to a magority of the users, to new customers who may have just switched to NX from multiple other CAD programs where it was an operation directly from the applications menu, this is not productive.

 

[JohnRBaker]

Now let's not confuse 'ug_convert_part' with wishing to model features using a 'unit-of-measure' which is different than the 'base' units of the current Work Part.

When creating Expressions, this can be done explicitly by just selecting alternate units from the option at the right-lower corner of the Expression dialog just below where you define the dimensionality of an Expression.

Or if you would like the system to just start acting as if you actually WERE working in a different 'unit-of-measure' scheme, go to...

Analysis -> Units

...and select your desired scheme, or you can even create your own custom units, such as Furlongs/Fortnight ;-)

Now while this will allow you to create features with the dialogs now expecting you to enter numeric values based on the unit scheme selected (or return information and analysis results in those units as well), this does NOT actually change the base units of the part and when you next open that part it will revert back to behaving like you would expect it to, except that all of the features added to the model while working in those alternate units will still be stored which those units. However, for that period of time that the change had been in place, it DID allow you to work in a scheme different than normal.

Anyway, I just wanted to make sure that we weren't trying to go down a path that wasn't really necessary.

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Design Solutions
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA

http://www.siemens.com/plm

http://www.plmworld.org/museum/

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

 

[BOPdesigner]

Correct, I am aware of how to change your analysis units display. We often import component part files from vendor web sites that are in mm and we work in inches. Not a big deal to leave them in mm but then you are faced with a new annoyance when you try to make the mm component the work part within an inch assembly file.

 

[JohnRBaker]

Just trying to make sure that no one was guilty of 'software abuse' out there ;-)

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Design Solutions
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA

http://www.siemens.com/plm

http://www.plmworld.org/museum/

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.