Text taking unbearable amount of time to extrude or cut.

[nate44]

I am using a Dell Precision 530 with dual 2.20 ghz processors. I have a 64 meg video card and 1 gig of RAM.
Some text seems to cut or extrude fine, but sometimes it takes forever (like 1/2 hour or more). I want to have about 50 words of text on my part, but this seems impossible. I have looked into the program text effects, but that seems to be more for positioning text. Does anybody have any tips or ideas for improving the performance of my text?

 

[MadMango]

Please clarify if this text is to be molded or machined into the final product, or if you are trying to simulate a label or decal. The reason I ask, is that both have different processes to achieve the desired end result.

Also, please let us know what version of SW and OS you are using. "The attempt and not the deed confounds us."

 

[nate44]

I am using SW 2003 and windows 2000.

I am trying to simulate labels and printing on parts. (such as shipping cartons, etc...)

 

[DennisD]

If you are just simulating labels you can leave the text in the sketch and not extrude it into a feature. This is our routine and it works great. We do raise text on molded parts, such as part and patent numbers, if they will actually have depth.

- - -DennisD

 

[MadMango]

For shipping labels, we created SW drawings using embedded Word documents. For the parts and assemblies that used these lables, we only sketched a rectangle on the shipping box to indicate where the labels where to be placed.

If you have access to PhotoWorks, you can look into using decals.

As far as extruded text on parts, this was only used for molded parts and consisted of our 5 digit part number and rev code. I've never tried to extrude anything near 50 characters of text... "The attempt and not the deed confounds us."

 

[nate44]

Leaving them a sketch is a good idea, and I have found that if I make a config with the features suppressed and only show the sketches it works great for the drawing. However, I prefer to make the feature in the part, because if you only make a sketch in sheet metal and then fold/unfold the part, the sketch stays where it was placed, and does not move with the part. Which is a problem. Thanks.

 

[RawheadRex]

You just touched on a piece of significant information that might have quite a bit to do with your performance problem when you mentioning "sheet metal." Are you attempting to create a blind cut/extrude feature before or after the sheet metal feature in the model tree? I'm not sure if this was addressed in the new release but in the past any kind of feature that interfered with the thickness of a sheet metal part (e.g. a blind cut) returned an error on the sheet metal feature. Like I said I don't know if this was corrected but I theorize that perhaps slowdown in performance that you're experiencing has to do with the error that I've mentioned above.

The only way I've found that a blind cut/extrude feature works within a sheet metal part is when it appears after the sheet metal feature. And in that case, you wouldn't see the text feature in the flat pattern because of its position in the model tree.

Getting back to your original intent with simulating a label I've seen an example where someone modelled an inkjet printer cartridge as was able to do something with jpeg files on the faces of the part to achieve a similar result via the "Inser Picture" command. My opinion of it at the time was that it was kind of neat but I remember asking myself, "what's the point?" The answer is I guess this is a situation where something like that would make a lot of sense. It should go easier on the model performance than a feature I would imagine as well. Good luck.

Chris Gervais
Mechanical Designer
American Superconductor