SW and MS Access 97

[deek05]

I work for an Ammunition Manufacturer and we are seriously looking at purchasing SW and have a some questions. We build all of our manufacturing and packaging machines. I would like to get answers from users instead of our dealer.

Can you link SW with MS Access 97? if so is it possible to exctract any of the following information titleblock info, notes, dimensions...into a MS Access database? or what kind of info can you dump into a database?

We have 30,000+ AutoCAD drawings. Obviously we won't convert them all but on a as needed/worked on basis. We have some drawings that represent a 4x6 card with part info on it. What do we do with these, continue using AutoCAD?

We also have some product drawings. Small detail with a few dimensions. The rest of the drawing is notes, text and some tables. Would you ever want to convert these? Would you want to use SW for new product drawings?

What is a good CNC program that works good with SW?

Sorry the post is so long. I have many more questions, but this will get me started. We just want to make a smart informative decision.

 

[tstanley]

Surfcam works well with Solidworks. There is a free translator that allows you to save your Solidworks drawing directly in the Surfcam format. Surfcam reads it no problems. We use it daily.

 

[rocheey]

As of 2001, Solidworks is pretty much 'normal' VBA. Take your existing Access Code, drop the module into your SW project, list the reference for early binding, and off you go. Beats re-coding.

SW handles acad drawings pretty well, and will keep your blocks/entities/2d stuff pretty much together. Its doesnt particularly like multiple solids tho, and trats them as an assembly (separate files)
Ive done a lot of interfacing between acad and sw, There shouldnt be a problem getting them to mplay well with each other.

You didnt mention what you do for NC machining; CAMWorks runs inside of SW as a plugin, as well as NCWorks, Both have Miull and Lathe Modules.

 

[MadMango]

I'm not sure about Access 97, but I know some versions of SWX will only work with some versions of MS Office. If you have the latest version of SWX (2001Plus) then you will probably need the latest version of Access.

Disclaimer: I know it needs to be similar versions when using Excel, but I have never used Access so I might just be blowing a bunch of smoke. X-) "Happy the Hare at morning for she is ignorant to the Hunter's waking thoughts."

 

[midrangewebmaster]

Deek05,

The answer to your question is yes and no. There wouldn't be an active link between SolidWorks and Access. You would have to write some VB code to extract or push the information. So in a round-about answer, yes you can pull data from Access and insert it into your drawings.

To get closer to an actual link, a better avenue would be to use a PDM package such as SmartTeam and let SmartTeam deal with everything. This would provide a much more flexible means of handling your data. SmartTeam can operate within SolidWorks and would provide the link you want. You would still have to program SmartTeam so it would talk to your database, but when finished, it would be much more automatic and would look, feel and act like an active direct link to your database.

Hope this helps.

Keep your powder dry.
Jim Smithie, Webmaster

http://www.midrangecad.com

Free CAD evaluation kits and comparisons

 

[SnowCrash]

Think about what you want to do with the data in your existing drawings. If it is static, could you just leave it alone and use ACAD whenever you need a printed copy? Could you redo your 4x6 cards in MS Word or an Access form then translate them to *.pdf files for distribution? There is no good reason to do text work in a CAD package.
SW is a great 3D package and it can handle .dwg files from ACAD or any other package. Remember, SW is more for parts than paperspace.
There are local consultants who can help you with the transition. Also find the local SW users group and you will find it a great resource.
It has been my usual practice to upgrade drawing files to the new system only when engineering changes are ordered. Do not go back and redo old projects just to get them into SW unless they are being redesigned and you have a lot of money in the budget.

Crashj 'the learning curve is flat' Johnson

 

[APPENG]

Deek,

Solidworks is going to change how you do business. okay you have alot of old data in ACAD format. Obviously you are going to want to convert some of it over into SW. For this, you are not going to simply convert the drawing to a new drawing... where's the value added in that? you will convert the drawings over and build Solid parts from them that you can use to build upon. Sounds like you are have a bunch of things that you have standard parts for so you can use the archived data to build up your parts library. It gives the designers a good "get their feet wet" jump into how to use the tool. After the parts are modeled, then you can create a new SW drawing that will will update right along with the new part if it were to ever change.

Now also you have some other things that you have too. 4x6 cards? Tables? All that kind of stuff can be embedded within SW. For instance one of my customers has drawing packets that have multiple sheets (as many as 200) And on some sheets are parts, assembly views, or just plain old BOM's and other written information. Because SolidWorks is a windows app, it takes full advantage of MS offices OLE capabilities. you can embed a spreadsheet, or even an image file into a drawing.

CAM packages..
GibbsCAM
CAMWorks
check them out when you have a moment

Regards,
Jon
jgbena@yahoo.com