Solidworks 2009

[dreny...]

Yeah i went to UniSA. I finished in 06 and i believe the golf cart you are talking about is mine. Are you currently at UniSA. What year?. Say hello to Sandy Walker and Peter Shumacher. There champs. Oh and Pete and Gavin from the model shop.

[dreny...]

Pro-E is not a bad program its just not very intuitive (if your using WF3). I find solidworks gives you more freedom for conceptual ideation where Pro-E is very structured (making the program more robust). There are a few features in Pro-E WF3 that really get on my nerve such as not being able to extrude & draft (at the same time) over 40 degrees. The interface is not really to my liking as well (stupid drop down menu's)!!

[PuGZoR]

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Good set of tutorials I've been working through. Highly recommend anyone looking to get into SW2k9 gives these a go. Design everything from a picture holder (where I got inspiration for my business card holder) to jack stands, even a bearing puller.

[Medwin_3sGTE_AE86]

I use WF4 at home but work is only on WF2 at the moment, going to 4 in the next few months we're being told. I think we use Pro/E because its the program used through the rest of the corporation (Caterpillar Inc.) all over the world, and I'd say if it (Pro/E) has a more robust operation, thats also a plus. I work on machine assemblies with over 5,000 components and for top down design its quite good, yeah it'll crash every now and again but we do demand a fair amount of the program and pc, and I doubt any program could be any more stable! Yeah the interface can be a pain, but like I said i havent used solidworks so to me i dont really have all that much to compare it to, reckon pro/e is a pain, try civil-cad... on par with turbo-cad for interface standards

[Hen may possibly be a nut]

I use Solidworks alot at work. I haven't had too much experience with other programs, but from what I have seen and heard from others I like Solidworks. Fairly intuitive and easy to edit things along the way.

Although I have issues with 2009 crashing/freezing when dealing with large assemblies. Colleagues here who've used older versions feel 2009 is a step backward. Hopefully they'll fix things rather than add more features (used by 0.001% of users) in future versions.

Hen

And shot of the gear I work on:

[Kid Karola]

I used Autodesk Inventor at work for last few years which has been very good package and has been improved in recent years. We used it to make file sharing between depts easier with their Vault capabity. I'm pretty familiar with Solidworks and ProE as I had to worked with some contractors that used them. I got brought up on UniGraphicsNX while at uni (and used Catia while on work experience many years ago at Mitsubishi) so I've sampled a few that are out there. It's much of a muchness these days when it comes to CAD packages (many common features and user interface are quite similar) and usually comes down to your or your companies budget when selecting a package as the software licences are not cheap! but if you check the websites or local distributers they often have trial licences or demo versions you can use.

[PuGZoR]

What is that thing Hen? Obviously it's a trailer, but what's that thing on the back?

I have been off work sick over the last few days before the weekend, so was messing around with CAD a bit more. Took me ages between sneezing, wiping my nose, etc, lol, but was relaxing. Through tutorials I made a candle holder from sheet metal, a tic tac toe game (naughts and crosses), as well as a bearing puller. Actually going to give making a jack stand today too.

What I found was really freaking cool with Solidworks is that it does material analysis. In the case of my bearing puller, you can actually test it to see how much load it will take, and it can automatically optomise the design to trim the fat. Very cool. The one I've designed below has been tested on the bridge and the legs to withstand 6000N of force, being around 600kg. It makes stress and displacement videos and diagrams too.

[Slimer86]

I started to self teach myself solidworks 2005 then 2007.
I found it a relatively user friendly program to use.
2007 seemed a little backwards to 2005, but I got used to it, haven't drawn on it for about 12 or so months, but I picked it up pretty quickly using tutorials from the net, and the solidworks bible (2007), inside solidworks 2005 and part of the training manual, Parts and assemblies.

Pretty good program to me with zero cad experience, just hand drawn engineering drawing experience.

[Joel-AE86]

+1 for SolidWorks.

I used Unigraphics/NX from version 16 and know it very well. Have used SolidWorks however for the last 2 years and really like it. I have also used SolidEdge, Inventor, ANSYS and Pro/E. I hate Pro/E as it has a very very different way of working compared to other CAD software I've used, and has a shit interface with mixed menus and illogical places to find commands!

CAD is all about horses for courses. i.e. what you inted to use it for!

Speaking for Mechanical CAD packages:

Cheaper packages like SolidWorks, Inventor are great for general CAD modelling, assemblies, drafting, renderings animations (General Industrial Design and basic Engineering work)

Higher-end packages like Catia, NX, Pro/E can do what the cheap ones do, but have a lot more capabilites for surface modelling, simulation, CAM integration, large assemblies and mutli-user functioning (For detailed Engineering work)

Then you can get more specific simulation/Engineering CAD programs such as ANSYS, that have specific functions for areas such as: Thermodynamics, fluid mechanics (CFD), dynamic structural, vibrations, electrical, electro-magnetics etc.

I went recently to the launch of the new ANSYS V12 (WB2) and the shit is so insane. You can practically simulate anything!

[Joel-AE86]

As far as car related stuff, I've designed RCA's, Brake adapters, Engine mount brakets and a few other things.

Great tool to have when modifying a car!