SW to AutoCAD 3D for customer

[alphad]

I have a customer working with an architectural firm requiring AutoCAD 3D models for each product to be installed. The firm is making 3D layout for the specific portion of the building. The products we offer are designed in SolidWorks. The deliverables must be in AutoCAD DWG file format. I have AutoCAD R.14 on my computer just to maintain old legacy data a few times per year. The process I see is that Step1. Save as IGES (*.igs extension) Step2. Use plug-in or importer of IGES within AutoCAD R.14 Step3. Save as DWG. My company has several copies of AutoCAD 2009, but, those are for customer support group of people, not for Design Engineering. I have no reason to upgrade unless this project force me to do so. I’m having hard time finding a tool to import IGES into AutoCAD R.14. Or is there a way to simply save as “DWG” 3D format within SolidWoks? Thanks.

 

[DAVID8252]

Try saving your Solidworks model as an ACIS (.SAT) file. I have had success opening 3d models in Autocad by this procedure.
When you go to save your file be sure to go under the options tab in your save dialog box and set the saveas options for the version of cad you are running.

If you save back to version 14 you should be safe. Also pay attention to the units.
This has always worked for me but there may be better options.

 

[alphad]

Thanks David8252. Your recommendation is working fine so far. Now I remember this method too... getting old.

 

[alphad]

Well... now I have a problem. I have an assy model not that big in SW standard, but, save as *.SAT won't work due to the file size. At least that's what I think. Since the assy has (3) main sub-assys, I tried one by one. First two small(?) assys took about 5 minutes each and generated 20mb each SAT file. The largest assy is still running after (1) hour. Yes, I suppressed some non essential features in an attempt to speed up the process, closed open windows,etc.
I'm on SW2007, Dell Precision M70 laptop, 2GB RAM. Any suggestions?