Eng-Tips is the largest engineering community on the Internet

Intelligent Work Forums for Engineering Professionals

Register Log in
  • Congratulations waross on being selected by the Tek-Tips community for having the most helpful posts in the forums last week. Way to Go!

SW printing capabilities...

Status
Not open for further replies.
D3sign3r

D3sign3r

Civil/Environmental
Aug 21, 2003
84
0
0
CA
Is it just me or is the solidworks printing functionality useless?
Whenever i need to print special views out of a drawing (like quick 1:1 zoomed-in-views for the guys on the shopfloor) i need to save the sw drawing as a dwg file...open up autocad and use the printing options there, which are easy to use and work like charm. Even Autodesk's Inventor's printing options were far superior.
I've tried the 'selection' option in the print window, but the view-frame doesn't even show up now when i select the 'custom scale' option in sw.

When will sw finally improve their printing functionality??

 
Replies continue below

Recommended for you

Sort by date Sort by votes
Have you been to the SW site?

We do 2D dwgs in SW. Not good if it were exactly like ACAD.
A lot of us are getting away from prints anyway. 3D modeling allows us to send the model for manufacturing without the creation of dwgs.
If you want to be proficient in SW, I suggest thinking like SW. It's a different world from ACAD.

Chris
Systems Analyst, I.S.
SolidWorks/PDMWorks 05
AutoCAD 06
ctopher's home site (updated 06-21-05)
FAQ559-1100
FAQ559-716
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Well im all about keeping current...but there will always be the 'old school' vendors and fab shops out there that cant afford fancy equipment that accepting parasolids, nor can they afford a licence of any high-end cad software that matter :-( So i gotta deal with both ends of the spectrum.
The Design Engineering field is such a vast field...i suppose its tough for any cad company to cater everybody.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
ctopher said:
1:1 is metric, 1/1 is inches
Click to expand...
You peaked my interest because I was under the impression that 1:1 was metric, and 1=1 was imperial.

Searched online for ANSI standards , and found "Engineering Drawing Practices Aerospace and Ground Support Equipment" from the John F. Kennedy Space Center.
(not sure if that document is supposed to be public because I can't access the top-level website).

Page 46 of this pdf, section 2.4.2 "Indication of Scale",
"The scale shall be indicated as a decimal or common fraction". I just used the SW default scale notation and never thought twice about it.

Flores
SW06 SP3.0
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
smcadman,
Thanks. I did find the difference between the two in a ASME or ANSI standard. But, I don't have them right now to look up. I'll keep searching.

Chris
Systems Analyst, I.S.
SolidWorks/PDMWorks 05
AutoCAD 06
ctopher's home site (updated 06-21-05)
FAQ559-1100
FAQ559-716
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
D3sign3r said:
I agree Heckdogg, zooming out does fix the problem with that window not showing up. The only issue now is that if you print it out 1:1 and measure it with a ruler, it's hit and miss weather its accurte or not.
Alot of guys on the floor like to place certain parts on a 1:1 plot for quick reference of size and accuracy (sort of like a paper version of a shadow-board).
Click to expand...

ctopher said:
Anyhoo ... printing at 1/1 most likely will not get you an accurate print. It's in the printers/plotters, not the CAD software. Most printers/plotters will get you very close.
Click to expand...

I would have to agree with ctopher, at least with the 3 or 4 different plotters and printers we have in our building here, when we print 1:1, we could get 3 or 4 different "scales" of the part.

This has happened everywhere that I have ever worked at, weather it was using SolidWorks or AutoCAD. I have always been told it is just a combination of the resolution of the printer/plotter, and the orientaion (portrait or landscape) you are printing to.

SolidWorks 2006 SP3.1
Intel Xeon 2.8GHz 2GB Ram
NVIDIA Quadro FX3000
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
when printing 1/1 for scaling off dwgs, I always include a not that the dwg will tolerance +/- .10. I actually talked to someone at a plotter company, and they told me that no matter what anyone says, the best tolerance a plotter pin will hold will be .1...

this is the reason why one should never scale off a plotted dwg... if you want to do this, take the time to draw a part with pencil.




Wes C.
------------------------------
When they broke open molecules, they found they were only stuffed with atoms. But when they broke open atoms, they found them stuffed with explosions...
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
I've just made some tabloid size test prints to a HP Deskjet 1000C, and a Toshiba ES230, and a letter size test to a HP LaserJet 2550L. All of them are accurate to within .005" over 12" (using a steel rule & eyepiece). Maybe I've just been very lucky, but I've never had a problem.

[cheers]
Helpful SW websites FAQ559-520
How to get answers to your SW questions FAQ559-1091
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Im guessing .1 tolerance was based on the old ribbon dot matrix printers back in the day. I belive laser printers are pretty reliable.
When i used to work with autocad 14 a few years ago, and print drawings 1:1 on the old hp laser printers, the results were pretty accurate. If I wanted extreme accuracy, i'd bring my drawings to a aircraft facility and print off their ploters that are calibrated frequently ;)
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
I'm CBL and Chris, the last two years I printed hundreds of drawings for a steel cutting table (with an optical contour tracer), they were all within 2mm on a meter (in the paper feed direction) and spot on perpendicular to the feed direction. These drawings were between 200mm and 8 meters in length, generally around 3/4th square meters.
The drawings were printed on the following printers:
HP Designjet 430 (an oldie, most drawings were printed on this one)
HP Desingjet 130nr
HP Desingjet 500
Canon W6400Pg
We actually checked the drawings often, just as a precaution (before wasting a couple 40mm steel plates).

Stefan Hamminga
EngIT Solutions
CSWP/Mechanical designer/AI student
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Sorry guys...

.01" (inches)... my goof... I feel like an A$$

Wes C.
------------------------------
When they broke open molecules, they found they were only stuffed with atoms. But when they broke open atoms, they found them stuffed with explosions...
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Well I submitted several enhancement requests to solidworks, one regarding Printer options. It would be nice to have some more plotting control in later revisions. [2thumbsup]
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Status
Not open for further replies.

Similar threads

CAD2015
  • Locked
  • Question
SW dwg radius/diameter dimensions...... 1
Replies
11
Views
25
CAD2015
CAD2015
33MRM33
  • Locked
  • Question
SW Macro to list hole wizard features and measures the diamter of modeled hole
Replies
4
Views
26
Gupta65
Gupta65
joshF
  • Question
Improve my macro for sorting a SW Bill of material so Sub-assemblies come first.
Replies
1
Views
36
ROHITKN
ROHITKN
CAD2015
  • Locked
  • Question
"Normal To" option on the SW screen...... 1
Replies
12
Views
52
CAD2015
CAD2015
Nobert_47
  • Locked
  • Question
SW is autogenerating templates 1
Replies
11
Views
40
SBaugh
SBaugh
Back
Top