usable drawings from solidworks 1

[duk748]

hello - my company has had sw for 2 1/2 years now & we just do not seem to be able to get good anufacturing drawings out of sw -
they have scheduled some more training in just drawings a month from now & our manufacturing relies on drawings only for making parts for our machines - i am able to make really good drawings in 2d acad that are just like the drawings i used to make on the board but what i have seen from sw this has not been the case - most of our users seem to just throw dims on a sheet & call it a drawing - weird sections & x-hatch all the same, etc. -will the advanced training cure some of the problems or should we invest our money in a good voctional drafting class instead?? - thank you

 

[KENAT]

Peer review is only as good as the peer.

If the peer is as good or better than you then they'll likely catch things.

If they aren't as good, then chances are they'll only catch really glaring errors, which hopefully even self check the next day would catch anyway.

Posting guidelines faq731-376

http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm?

(probably not aimed specifically at you)
What is Engineering anyway: faq1088-1484​

 

[fcsuper]

SolidWorks and other 3D CAD applications make it very easy for lazy drafters to make drawings that are wrong. That is not to say the software is to blame. The 3D CAD applications also make it very easy to make drawings correctly (in most cases). It is a matter of lazy and ignorant drafters.

Start with a reminder that the drawing is a contract between you and any vendor that accepts the PO to create the product. Contracts have to be in very precise yet well understood language to hold water legally. The only way to do that is to use and apply the standands (or to create your own standards that are published to your vendor). Otherwise, no symbol on the drawing means anything at all, legally speaking.

Matt Lorono, CSWP
Lorono's SolidWorks Resources & SolidWorks Legion
Follow me on Twitter

 

[ShaggyPE]

As others have pointed out, SolidWorks and any other 3D CAD application allow the user to quickly generate drawing views from the 3D model. The insertion of less than adequate dimensioning schemes can be just as fast. Possibly the reason the older drawings (I am assuming AutoCAD) were better was because the user was forced to draw each line of the view and add each dimension one at a time. This essentially forced the user to put a little more thought into the drawing. The creation of a good drawing in SolidWorks is not automatic. The users need to understand that. If the users are stating that "SolidWorks can't do that" when you ask them to conform to your vision of a good drawing. They are typically mistaken and need training. I have found there are very few things that SolidWorks can't do. It should be stated that there are power users that are not able to generate drawings in SolidWorks that are acceptable to their end customer... though this appears to be when the end customer is the government with stringent requirements on fonts, hatch spacing etc. These actual limitations have been discussed here:

https://forum.solidworks.com/thread/41825?start=0&tstart=0

https://forum.solidworks.com/thread/42685?start=0&tstart=0

https://forum.solidworks.com/thread/16380?start=0&tstart=0

-Dustin
Professional Engineer
Pretty good with SolidWorks

 

[ptruitt]

I miss my old eraser template and pencil selection, the smell of vellum... I think I lost a few brain cells next to the blueprint machine though. But that was offset by the mental muscles generated needed to 'see' 3D whilst viewing 2D... Many of my coworkers are part of the 9% unemployment, now, because they couldn't transition to CAD. Many folks are being left behind. I do like my CAD, though. And the CAD fonts are great for clarity but lack the 'human' element that is missing in so many ways, these days. Society sees fewer and fewer simple answers, now. All we need are robots to consume the products that their co-robots produce. We reap what we sow.

Peter Truitt
Minnesota