The 'board' is an archaic design method in a modern world, it doesnt matter if the job is a one off or not.
The wealth of data that can be exhumed from a digital design in 2d or more so in 3d far outweighs any apparent misguided 'fastness' on the drawing board.
Of course, if 'fag packet' sketches are how you want to run the 'design' office thats upto the company isnt it, but the majority of businesses need the digital world of CAD for other aspects such as fast modifications and compliance to ISO9004 standards. There is simply no argument for the drawing board in todays mechanical engineering world in my opinion.
Sure, if I wanted one of the guys on the shopfloor to make a pin or a bracket as a one off 'panic job', obviously a hand scribbled design is quick and sufficient to get the job completed and shipped back to the customer before dinner break - there would be no point drawing a fancy fully parametric 3d model of the pin or bracket and then issuing the drawing because the job just doesnt warrant it.
To undertake a full design on the drawing board today is a huge NO-NO in my opinion and reminds me somewhat of the luddites smashing the looms up in Lancashire mill towns, lol. Im afraid theres no going back,
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When a company's designer can not only define a 3d model of the tool, use that tool for manufacture purposes, encorporate fit form and function definitions to a die face and mating parts, detail that from the model and any updates automatically reflected in not only the 2d design layouts, but in manufacturing programs, its bound to blast out the water any rival shop using a drawing board or 2d design system.
Another aspect is the quility of Toolmaking staff, with todays freeform geometry and forms on dies of any kind, the tradional skills of being able to produce that part without an electronic model is fastly dying out, 2d design does not fill this gap either. Somebody somewhere at some point will have to redraw the majority of the job for CNC programming or wiring or whatever, and thats wasting time when the job could have been done from scratch that way.
If the process isnt fast enough, perhaps the staff are not trained effectively and/or are using the wrong product.
Now, after my heated debate, lol, my thoughts and questions on tool design:
I am very interested in this thread, beacuse we are reaching a point where we are needing to ditch our 2d software and replace it with either 2d Autocad Mechanical or even LT2004 or get a comination of 3d and 2d like the Inventor Series, or move to full 3d only design like Solidworks etc.
We design Jigs, Fixtures and prestooling (small stamped/formed automotive parts). There is STILL no dedicated CAD market for these disciplines in 3d modelling apart from very long winded and expensive applications, which even still, the majority cannot cope with deformed sheetmetal properly. There is a good one for solidworks as an addon, but thats about it.
Personally I would encourage a move to 3d if I was confident about the tools we had at our disposal, even if the jobs are 'one off', becuase the amount of times we 're use' designs for 'similar' jobs - even if the componet is different (ie keep the dieset, pillars, bushes, stripguides etc etc) is quite high, and the prospect of parametrically adapting jobs to suit new tools is very exiting, and not only that, with proper shape definition and less calculation (and error) trying to generate 2d views of what it may look like in a perticular orientation is bound to make the job run smoother and faster downstream from the design office.
Tool design (as in presstools) is still a long way lagging behind, and I have to admit that 2d is still an effective tool for this purpose and still deserves a rightfull place intil it can be fulfilled in 3d solids properly and cheaply.
I would be very interested to hear from other toolmaking designers who produce Jigs/fixtures and presstooling as to thier opinions on where things need to be going and what they feel is the best method regarding CAD.
If it was upto me, Id like to look at AutoCad Mechanical DX, where you have somewhat parametrical 2d design tools, and a feature tree of 'components' in 2d.....holes, shafts, views etc and the ability to use 3d views of the component model in the 2d design where you could potentially adapt your 2d design to the changes in the 3d model I suppose.
Anyway, Ive gone on enough
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Please take the time to answer the original question by Smokehouse, as its a hot topic with me personally.
Cheerio
Sirius2
