PTC Pro/Engineer Wildfire 2.0 SE for Personal Use

[geoffthehammer]

I notice that the Personal Use version of Pro/Engineer has been mentioned now and then in these forums. I am considering buying it to put on my home PC to learn the product and I want to ask a few questions specifically about this product.


Has anyone direct experience of buying and using it?
Have any problems been experienced installing it on a home PC (subject to minium spec. requirements)?
Are there functionality issues?
Any other comments?

 

[Heckler]

I can't speak for WF but I have Pro/e 2001 SE. It requires the CD be in the drive to run the software. It has no functional limitations other than you can't open the files with a commerical version but I've heard their is a way around that. I have all the modules and I also purchased Mechanica. I bought it through the local community college when I was taking a CNC programming class. It's a great way to learn pro/e or sharpen skills. My commerical copy at work is limited in functionality so having unlimited access to a SE version has enabled me to learn other methods.

Best Regards,

Heckler
Sr. Mechanical Engineer
SW2005 SP 4.0 & Pro/E 2001
Dell Precision 370
P4 3.6 GHz, 1GB RAM
XP Pro SP2.0
NIVIDA Quadro FX 1400
o
_`\(,_
(_)/ (_)

"There is no trouble so great or grave that cannot be much diminished by a nice cup of tea" Bernard-Paul Heroux

 

[Guest0527211403]

The Personal edition has the same hardware requirements as the Commercial edition (they are basically the same program, with subtle differences). I use a lower end nVidia graphics card at home and it hasn't given me any significant problems.

The Personal Edition doesn't have some extra modules that let you do specialized work (Piping, Cabling, Manufacturing, etc), but there's plenty to learn from with what's included.

Getting the personal edition is the best way to learn, really. A few of the books discussed here are good to help you get your feet wet and show you around some of the core techniques. Once you get past that, I'd say bring a couple of drawings home from work (if they let you do that sort of thing) and try and work out modeling strategies for the kind of parts and assemblies that you work with on a day-to-day basis.

All in all, it's well worth the investment.

 

[cadcamguy]

Like Heckler I am involved in cncs, I got the r2001se when I was taking a class at the local college.

It's like any software the more you use it the easier it becomes..tho with ProE you keep finding more things to use.

Tho the files might not carry over to the comm. vers.... most mapkeys and the config options do..making life easier.

If you are someone whos best ideas come to you when you get away from the distractions of work then go for it. it's a win win deal

 

[wes616]

The WF SE is pretty nice. I have it at home, and it's pretty simple to use. Don't know what the com. version is like as we use CATIA at work. And I mean for $200 can you really go wrong?

Wes C.

 

[HDS]

A couple of the books come with a copy of the software included in the price. That is a good deal.

For a home system to practice with here is my minimum.
a video card with 64MB ram. A stand alone card is best. Nvidia's card (drivers) work well.
You may not need a network adapter with the SE or student edition. I can't remember.
A Pentium 4 or Athalon XP is best but a good Pentium III will be O.K.
256MB of RAM
1 gig of free hard drive.
Windows 95 can work but NT, 2000 or XP are much better.

The important thing is stability and display quality not speed. A $500 PC will run Pro O.K. with the right graphic card. I have seen old cards that would not display some of the surfaces of models. The help with the SE is good for describing the problems with weak systems.

 

[Heckler]

The (2001 Pro/e) Student Edition requires the CD be in the drive to run unlike the commerical version that requires you sign over a first born child.

Best Regards,

Heckler
Sr. Mechanical Engineer
SW2005 SP 4.0 & Pro/E 2001
Dell Precision 370
P4 3.6 GHz, 1GB RAM
XP Pro SP2.0
NIVIDA Quadro FX 1400
o
_`\(,_
(_)/ (_)

"There is no trouble so great or grave that cannot be much diminished by a nice cup of tea" Bernard-Paul Heroux

 

[cadcamguy]

does the WF version..include mech. .. all the bells and whistles that r2001sv does....also does it allow export to step amd iges??

 

[Guest0527211403]

Yep.. WF 1 and 2 SE include Mechanica and most, if not all of the output options... When I had 2001 Student, Mechanica was not included, or Pro/Mfg, for that matter.

If you have a part in 2001 Student, make the whole thing a UDF and open that UDF in an empty part in Commercial. Wont work for assemblies, AFAIK. PTC corrected this in WF Student. Otherwise you need the Floating Options that the schools get (and don't turn on, usually) in order to convert.

 

[Guest0527211403]

I gave away my 2001 student disc and never got it back, but I'm wondering:

If you make an image of the CD as a BIN file, and virtual-mount it using a program like Daemon Tools, could you forego the need to have the CD in the drive?

My old laptop had a separate CD drive and it was quite annoying to have to plug that in just to start Pro/E. The old brick could hardly run the software anyways.

 

[gaufridus]

The minimum spec appears to require a network adapter. My home pc is not networked. Why should it require a network adapter if the pc isn't networked or am I missing something obvious?

 

[Guest0527211403]

If you are using Wildfire Student, you need to get a License file from PTC to run it. This license file tied to the MAC address of your computer's network adapter.

That same old laptop had the same problem. If I tried to run WF on it, though, I think it would most definitely have caught on fire or something...