Solidworks Made in China

[dubbed]

I would like to know if anyone has had a prototype manufactured in China and if you just provide them with Solidworks drawing. Provide 2D drawings along with the 3D I presume would be helpful but very time consuming on my part. Would a 3D model be enough for a prototype assuming they also have solidworks?

 

[Beggar]

I have.

I provided 2D drawings because that is an engineering document; a solid model is not.

Somebody's going to have to make drawings from the model. If you do it, it's likely they'll accurately reflect what you want. If they do it, you have no idea. If they do it, you'll want to have them send the final prints to you for review and approval.

Trying to just hand off an assembly model and expecting to get a functional prototype is a recipe for disaster.

--------------------
How much do YOU owe?

http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock/

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[rfus]

China is very good at production. If you give them a design ready for production they are very good at making it. Their tooling vendors are going to take your 3d part and use it to make a mold. Ask for detailed drawings of the mold. If you rely on them for design and engineering your schedules will suffer. You should provide prints with the important tolerances of your part. I agree, It is tough to put a tolerance on an injection molded part and then push them to hold it in manufacturing. After you have worked with them a bit you will get an idea of what is doable and what is not, what they are good at and where you can give them some design freedom. I had no idea how cheap it could be to get fairly complicated side actions into my designs.

RFUS

 

[Rocko1]

Just be prepared for knock offs if you have a good product.

 

[rfus]

Is your proto just an SLA? If your doing tooling for proto's is it soft tooling? Stuff will be done just from the 3d file. More time consuming that creating a print is going back and forth with them over engineering changes and modifications and then waiting for the next rev to show up.

 

[ctopher]

My experience with China, we had to hire a translator to translate all SW dwgs to Chinese. They were used for inspection purposes. The actual building of units came from Job Travelers with color renderings from SW to show how to build because the workers did not understand how to build anything.
They are good at operating machinery. So, a lot of companies just send CAD files to machine from via CAM, molds or some form of Rapid Prototype machine.
As Rocko1 wrote, China is major business for knock-offs, no matter what the product is.
I have actually seen SolidWorks and all other CAD software for sale, with legal licenses, for $10!
Mattell here in L.A., CA sends their ProE models to Hong Kong for molding.

Chris
Systems Analyst, I.S.
SolidWorks 06 4.1/PDMWorks 06
AutoCAD 06
ctopher's home (updated 06-21-06)

 

[Heckler]

If you want to do business in China or Taiwan you have to have a person off-shore that:

1. speaks good english
2. that you can trust
3. that knows your business (QA, Design, & product)
4. that knows how & where to get your designs manufactured

Everyone that does business talks about their "factory" in China or Taiwan. That fact of the matter is no one owns a "factory" in those countries except the government. The government has their hand in a lot of pots.

The biggest challange that we have had taking designs off-shore besides all the pirating of goods is getting mechanical hardware.

Best Regards,

Heckler
Sr. Mechanical Engineer
SW2005 SP 5.0 & Pro/E 2001
Dell Precision 370
P4 3.6 GHz, 1GB RAM
XP Pro SP2.0
NVIDIA Quadro FX 1400
o
_`\(,_
(_)/ (_)

Never argue with an idiot. They'll bring you down to their level and beat you with experience every time.

 

[Theophilus]

What kind of prototype are you talking about, dubbed? I had an SLS model created by the production vendor for a hand-held electric horn they were going to produce back in 2003. Plastic parts designed to handle +/-.005" on all surface fits. Worked great and they even finished the model with respective paint colors. No problems.

This really all comes down to what you want and who you're dealing with (just like in the U.S.)--only it's complicated with language, cultural, and other barriers just like traveling outside the U.S. You'll always find frustrations if you try to push a vendor beyond their experience or competence (no matter where you are). So the trick tends to be finding someone with a match of talent for what you need.

Meanwhile, I normally get my prototypes locally (or at least domestically), since I don't have to pay for shipping (if locally), can cope with my own language and culture more readily, and find no price benefits for prototypes overseas. It's also easier for me to find good vendors here, since I can easily get recommendations from friends or go to the shop myself to see samples of work.

Jeff Mowry

http://www.industrialdesignhaus.com

Reason trumps all. And awe trumps reason.

 

[dubbed]

I'd like a bike frame built and would like to work with manufacturer that already builds bikes in china. I have yet to contact somebody to see what they are capable of but nothing too complicated is needed.

seems like getting it custom built in the states here costs way more than the plane tickets to go to china so thus looking into it.

Thanks for the responses. i see that the interactions between me and them is going to be the biggest obstacle into meeting my expectations.

this will be my first time in designing and manufacturing anything aside from college so learning a lot right know.

 

[Rocko1]

By a bike frame are you talking about pedal bikes (bicycle) or motorcycles, just wanted to clear that up. Also are you talking the steel, carbon fiber, aluminum, or titanium type of frames for bicycles? You may want to visit this link

http://www.damonrinard.com/carbon_fiber.htm

 

[ctopher]

Be careful of customs and ITAR. If you are working with a company that sells outside the USA and you personally deal with China on your own (or within your emplorer), ITAR is a must. You and your company can be in hot water if ITAR is not followed.

Chris
Systems Analyst, I.S.
SolidWorks 06 4.1/PDMWorks 06
AutoCAD 06
ctopher's home (updated 06-21-06)

 

[Theophilus]

Along the lines of Rocko1's post, check out this:

http://www.rqriley.com/

I did some work for Bob a few years back (Phoenix area) and he's got all sorts of plans you can download with instructions on how to build his designs. The recumbent bike instructions/plans are cool--probably similar to Rocko1's link.

Jeff Mowry

http://www.industrialdesignhaus.com

Reason trumps all. And awe trumps reason.

 

[Rocko1]

Ctopher, isn't ITAR for The International Traffic in Arms Regulations , I mean a bike frame would not meet any of the criteria for that. Unless i misunderstood your post?

 

[ctopher]

True, but can also depend on who the end user is. You can design a bike, have it built in China. Sell it in France, used in the Iran army. (just an example). Always worth checking into. It's a crazy world these days.
To send CAD data to China, we found it safer to have someone that is traveling there to bring the file, or setup some type of FTP site to upload it. Never email it.

Chris
Systems Analyst, I.S.
SolidWorks 06 4.1/PDMWorks 06
AutoCAD 06
ctopher's home (updated 06-21-06)

 

[Theophilus]

I use a secure area of my web site--password protected--and watch the stats within my site manager. After the file's been accessed, I can delete it (just in case someone might pass along the email with the file link, user name and password to the file).

Jeff Mowry

http://www.industrialdesignhaus.com

Reason trumps all. And awe trumps reason.

 

[TheTick]

I have never based vendor decsions on which particular CAD package they use. A shape is a shape. A drawing is a drawing.

I send all 3D in parasolid and IGES, and all 2D in PDF. I never send out featured models. No reason for a vendor to tinker with a model. f the vendor has SW, then SW can assimilate parasolid perfectly.

Also, if a vendor is not capable of handling an order based on parasolid/IGE plus PDF, I am not interested in finding out what else that vendor can't do.

 

[Heckler]

dubbed,

This is what I would if you're still in the prototype stages. I would find a domestic frame builder (Strong, Ventana, Steve Rex, or Sycip) I would fine tune the design before taking it off-shore. The largest manufacture in Taiwan is Giant. They make frames for Specialized, themselves and a host of other labels. You need to work with a custom frame builder and from what I read Strong is the best bet.

http://www.strongframes.com/

he welds steel, aluminum and titanium.

http://www.bikeschool.com/frame.htm

Best Regards,

Heckler
Sr. Mechanical Engineer
SW2005 SP 5.0 & Pro/E 2001
Dell Precision 370
P4 3.6 GHz, 1GB RAM
XP Pro SP2.0
NVIDIA Quadro FX 1400
o
_`\(,_
(_)/ (_)

Never argue with an idiot. They'll bring you down to their level and beat you with experience every time.

 

[Heckler]

dubbed,

I know Sherwood Gibson of Ventana and he will weld anything if you toss enough money at him. I would also think about doing some prototyping in aluminum since it's so easy to form tubes and weld. Did you see my comments in the bike forum?

Best Regards,

Heckler
Sr. Mechanical Engineer
SW2005 SP 5.0 & Pro/E 2001
Dell Precision 370
P4 3.6 GHz, 1GB RAM
XP Pro SP2.0
NVIDIA Quadro FX 1400
o
_`\(,_
(_)/ (_)

Never argue with an idiot. They'll bring you down to their level and beat you with experience every time.

 

[Heckler]

Here is a website for aluminum and carbon tube sets

http://www.eastonbike.com/PRODUCTS/TUBING/tubes__top.html

 

[ctopher]

I don't know if Trek uses China, but they use SolidWorks. Maybe contact them for their input?

Chris
Systems Analyst, I.S.
SolidWorks 06 4.1/PDMWorks 06
AutoCAD 06
ctopher's home (updated 06-21-06)