SW NOT PROVEN AT ALL - LARGE ASSYS

[Em1]

I would have thought this information would be easy to find, but it has been quite the ordeal. It relates to the handling of large assys in SW. We have a large assembly line with roughly 100 000 parts, about 60 000 non-fasteners and roughly 30 000 unique components. We are seriously considering SW, but have seen no proof that SW can handle assemblies of this size. I understand proper assy practices need to be used and very powerful computers are required, but I have never heard of anything close to even 30 000 components.

SW has shown close to 10 000 part assemblies in demos and claim they can do more, but there is a lot of talk about headaches people are having with large assys in SW on forums such as these. So what I’m asking is this:

1) Can you refer me to any companies that are designing very large assys with SW?
2) Is the SW engine inherently limited in handling large assys by design (i.e. will the program grind to a halt at a certain point, regardless of hardware)?
3) Isn’t managing the simplified versions of parts and sub-assys difficult and doesn’t it introduce additional potential for errors?

We are considering Catia as well, but are worried it is overkill for the machine design we’re doing. I’m very interested in hearing your experiences.

Thanks,


Mark.

 

[MElam]

This company has done some pretty large assemblies and has been the presenters at SolidWorks World's "Managing Large Assemblies class. They may be able to answer many of your questions:

http://www.bwir.com/

Managing simplified configurations is only difficult if there is no planning or thought put into creating them (ie., don't suppress features needed for mating). Creating the simplified configs as you go is easier than going back and doing it after the assembly gets too large. Developing good modeling standards will be essential for assemblies of that size.

 

[CorBlimeyLimey]

Have you tried asking SW direct?


Making the best use of this Forum. faq559-716
How to get answers to your SW questions. faq559-1091
Helpful SW websites every user should be aware of. faq559-520

 

[ctopher]

Managing huge assemblies also depends on your hardware.

Chris
Sr. Mechanical Designer, CAD
SolidWorks 05 SP1.1 / PDMWorks 05
ctopher's home site

 

[CorBlimeyLimey]

The lack of definitive answers to your question should tell you that most users here simply don't know. There are probably very few SW users anywhere that deal with such large assemblies. Companies which do, are usually large & "automatically" go for the more expensive high-end packages.

If you want a definitive answer go to SolidWorks direct & don't give up till they give you one.


Making the best use of this Forum. faq559-716
How to get answers to your SW questions. faq559-1091
Helpful SW websites every user should be aware of. faq559-520

 

[MMike1]

Would they give you an honest answer?

 

[PDMAdmin]

SolidWorks can deal with large assemblies, but you'll need the appropriate hardware to handle that. It's not just a function of how many components you have, but also how complicated they are. I have seen assemblies with 10,000 simple components load fine, while assemblies with 500 complicated components crash because the computer didn't have enough RAM, swap space, etc. Even with all the latest tweaks to Win XP, I haven't been able to go higher than about 2.5 GB of combined RAM and swap file usage with SolidWorks.

 

[smcadman]

Try contacting Richard Doyle at

http://www.ctsug.org/

then go to the links page. He works for Halliburton, and their assemblies are several tens of thousands of parts.

Flores

 

[Cryo1]

Em1,

We've done complicated assemblies on the order of 5K-6K parts. You have to do 4 things to have SW work for you with 100K.

1). Structure your assemblies and sub-assemblies. Bring some order to the chaos. You'll need it when you want to change things. You have to be careful with the mate structure too. Also, don't use multiple part files with the same name.

2). Hardware. Spend the $$$ on ram, cpu, AND video card.

3). Simplify your parts. If you don't need the detail, don't put it in the model. (The catch is you never know when you need the accuracy and higher detail later.)

4). Break out views and detail views on multible sheets of a drawing are very slow. Opening drawings can take a while depending on the detail you put in them.

BL

 

[drawoh]

Em1,

I am on SW2003SP5.0. My machine is a 3GHz Pentium IV with 2GB RAM and an NVIDIA Quadro4 580XGL video card.

I am managing assemblies with up to 4000 parts. The system runs slowly, probably because it is running out of RAM. My current project has 1414 components, and everything seems to run fine.

If you are considering SolidWorks, I strongly suggest buying your computer from the CAD Vendor. You get the hardware they recommend, and you get hardware support from the guys who know how your CAD works. You did not say what you are upgrading from, but I would be surprised if your current machines could run SolidWorks.

I suspect that part of our stability problems come from badly constructed models. We started off SolidWorks on a large, complex project. Your initial trial and error process should be done on something small that you will not keep referring to, later.

As I read your message carefully, I see you refer to "a large assembly line with roughly 100,000 parts". Is this an assembly with 100K parts, or do you need a library of 100K parts, used to create smaller assemblies?

If it is the library you need, you have just hit on one of the big advantages of 3D CAD.

JHG

 

[coolcad]

We are in the same boat. We have large assys, but not as large as some of you and we are having a terrible time. Working with simplified parts is fine but you have to plan ahead and it takes extra time.

We have started to look at Solid Edge because it handles large assemblies much better.

SolidWorks needs to get on top of this and quick!!

 

[SBaugh]

I know a lot of people may not believe me on this, but I had a customer build a fully in-contexted, automated by 3 dimensions 15,000+ part Conveyor assembly system and he said it opened in just mintues. This was when he was using SW03 with a card that at the time was not approved. I can't remember the name but it was a very generic name it was one of the known video cards. He was using the full 2GB of RAM when he opened it. They upgraded him to 3GB on his Win NT machine.

He built the assembly using my knowledge of Automation and assembly practices. See FAQ or my website for information on assemblyu practices. He posted this at comp.cad.solidworks and no one believed him. I hope he is watching and will pop in here.

Listening to this story proves that you need to use a lot of foresight, proper mating, good technique, and automation (if required) is the secret to good assembly performance. Hardware plays a vital role in making and working with the assembly so be sure you are using the best... unless you can find that unknown good performance card that he had above... but that was 2-3 years ago.

Regards,

Scott Baugh, CSWP
3DVision Technologies

http://www.3dvisiontech.com

http://www.scottjbaugh.com

faq731-376
faq559-716 - SW Fora Users

 

[ctopher]

Just as I have written here before, follow the FAQ's and follow users advise ... no problems.

Chris
Sr. Mechanical Designer, CAD
SolidWorks 05 SP1.1 / PDMWorks 05
ctopher's home site

 

[jlcochran1]

You may want to seriously consider SolidEdge for assemblies of the size you are requesting. Pricing similar to SolidWorks. SE users have a separate forum here. Some of their literature discusses assemblies exceeding 100,000 parts. We have Alibre, Inventor and SolidWorks and a demo of SolidEdge. SolidWorks is more user friendly, but large assemblies seem to be one of SolidEdge's strengths. However we don't have any assemblies approachng your size. I would suggest discussing your needs with both SW and SE VAR's and requesting case histories and references for assemblies your size. Them demo both.

 

[J-C]

What does SE do to handle it better? Lightweight?

Jason Capriotti
Smith & Nephew, Inc.

 

[SBaugh]

Here is the subject I found on the Large assembly I pointed out above. The video card listed is not approved by SW and according to SW is not supported. In thread559-119375 SolidsMaster mentions this card as being "Rock solid". This and the below thread from comp.cad.solidworks has raised questions from me and I plan finding a direct answer to this, but see below on his sizes of assemblies and their speeds.

Correction: I was incorrect in saying "SW03" above he was using "SW04". Also he was running XP SP1 and not Win NT.

Dear All,

I am interested in large assembly performance and would like to know if these times are poor, fair, or good.

I'm running SW 2004 sp0

My machine is a Dell 360 w/ 2.4 GHz P4, 3.00 GB RAM, XP PRO SP1, and QUADRO NVS W/AGP8X W/64 MEG RAM


My large assemblyis:

TOTAL COMPONENTS: 15285
PARTS 12439
ASSEMBLIES 2846


It loads in the following times:

Lightweight 56 SEC
Resolving from the LW load 88 SEC
To load fully resolved 3:13 MINUTES


This seems really quick to me but this is my first venture pasted 2200 parts.

Regards,


Scott Baugh, CSWP
3DVision Technologies

http://www.3dvisiontech.com

http://www.scottjbaugh.com

faq731-376
faq559-716 - SW Fora Users

 

[J-C]

How many "Unique" parts? A 1000 part assembly with 1000 unique part files is quite different than a 1000 part assembly with only 10 unique parts instanced to equal a 1000.

Jason Capriotti
Smith & Nephew, Inc.

 

[fwc]

Em1:

You may also want to take a look at Solid Edge V17. Please check the link below;

http://www.solid-edge.com/overview/v17.main.htm

Regards
fwc

 

[smcadman]

Automation Tooling Systems: Largest assembly system was a 400,000 square-foot facility with 100,000 components. Video:

http://files.solidworks.com/Case_Studies/videos/ats.wmv

Solidworks Site:

http://www.solidworks.com/pages/successes/viewsuccess.html?record=453

Apparently very large assemblies can be made in SW. Something to consider are simplified configurations with only the minimum features needed in a particular sub-assembly. Also save sub-assemblies as part files when possible.

Flores

 

[afb66t9]

Have you looked into Pro Engineer - has come down in price in the last year or two (not much more than Solidworks now)

Not to sure if you can believe there promotional advertising

http://www.ptc.com/solutions/small_medium_business/proof.htm