Started on SW98+ after several years of drawing board then AutoCAD 12/14. I pestered management for ages to get hold of SW and they finally caved in after receiving a quote for Pro/E. Have mostly used SW since then with short periods of Pro/E, Inventor, Fusion, NX and Rhino, working initially as an ...

Another vote for Bambu - I have a P1S from work (I work remotely) that I am allowed to print home stuff on as long as I stay on Bambu filaments. It's quick, easy to use, not too noisy and the parts come out at a reasonable quality (though I think the early firmware was better for this). Bambu filame...

Technically speaking, F360 cost more over time than Power Surfacing's one time fee...... ;) Yes but I do use F360 for other stuff, though I won't be renewing my license later this year. After that... There ia also another option to get Sub-D surfaces for $48 bucks a year, take this at a grain of sa...

-- @Cadmonkeychris: You might want to take a look at Power Surfacing for Solidworks. Really great at SubD modeling inside of Solidworks and works with mesh data very well. I tried Power Surfacing early on but couldn't quite get my head around it back then. I have been on Fusion360 for a long time, ...

If I do the ID then I go straight into Solidworks after sketching/Illustrator, the output of which might be used as backdrops to model over. Occasionally I have to use Fusion 360's sculpting mode, exporting the geometry as STEP to Solidworks. I receive external data as scanned sketches, Illustrator,...

Has anyone else checked this out yet: https://help.solidworks.com/2024/English/WhatsNew/c_wn2024_welcome.htm?id=66b874aa16d84c46b8bd06dddbe569f3#Pg0 ? I just started glancing at it, and it looks like there's some good stuff in it, including something I never thought they would do: https://help.soli...

I have a P1S for use on a project. I was having issues getting jobs to print through the cloud so ended up sending to the SD card. I did wonder if the lost jobs would reappear unwanted at some point. Fortunately I disconnect mine from the mains when not in use!

Nice printer, otherwise.

This behaviour has been around sporadically since 2004. There are a few bugs that make random appearances over time which are nearly impossible to get to repeat and capture. My favourite is the secret deconstruction macro which unmodels your part in reverse (like pressing ctrl-z repeatedly). It's a ...

Fusion360 is very good IMO but cloud storage is a big No! for various clients.

No recent experience of low cost, non-subscription CAD but you could look at Alibre Atom (available from Mintronics in the UK). Another thought is Punch! ViaCAD Pro which has IIRC a lot in common with Ashlar's CAD (Argon, Xenon, Cobalt). Then there are the various flavours of IntelliCAD, useful if y...

Watching this with interest. I have been running a couple of tests with SW harness / routing (will be routing pipes as well at some point) but waiting to see how well this plays with our electronics engineers, who are keen to try Altium's (new?) harness module. This is 2D, I believe.

Nothing instills confidence in a product like desperate looking moves like this, a thorough push behind another product in their stable and obvious executive hatred of the old product.

I failed to renew subs last October. Since then I have a brief email exchange with the VAR who tried the old "development penalty" tactic to get me back on board (didn't work) but otherwise nothing. I have had my own license since 2006, on subs since 2008, upgraded to premium and I am quit...

Freelancer. I have mostly run Dell Precision laptops for the last 16 years, normally upgrading every 3.5 or so. Currently waiting for a visit from a Dell tech and that average may take a small hit...

2021 was a dog (still use it for two clients) but 2022 takes the biscuit. On top of poor performance, drawings hanging and general stability issues, Visualize 2022 is almost unusable. SP0 wouldn't load SW files at all (various vintages) and SP2 randomly crashes after slowly bogging down on the loade...

I don't work with splines much, but can you put horizontal construction lines in the model sketch and make them tangent to the spline, show the sketch in the drawing view, dimension to it, then hide the sketch? (When you do that the dimensions may disappear; right-click on the sketch in the tree an...

As was said above...if you are exporting from solidworks to solidworks, you should always use parasolid (X_T). Parasolid is the native kernel for Solidworks and there is actually no translation happening. It is just saving out the geometry. I do export as parasolid if going to other SW users but do...

Quite likely but have lacked time and enthusiasm to solve. Given the frequency with which SW fouls up importing its own step exports, I tend to just shrug my shoulders and use a different format.

I have found that SW has a habit of messing up step files exported from Fusion 360. ACIS (.sat) seems to be far more reliable.

No real problems importing step files from SW into F360.

Ooh that's nice. I presume it requires others have to purchase the same software if they need to edit after I have released files (or if we are working together)?

I might get a copy of that if we don't move to another package.

Thanks.

Thank you to all that have replied. I can't tell you precisely what we will be working on due to commercial sensitivity and I have been wracking my brain to find something similar. I appreciate the comments about retraining existing users, finding talent (and paying for it...) I meet few designers t...

Wait you are saying that you think just 'cause a complex surface works in one build, it should also work in future builds? >>> LOLOL - thanks for the feedback Chris - good to know and definitely something to look out for! Yep, surely not too much to ask..? Surface trims flipping - wrong set of surf...

2018, followed by 2011. Having some surfacing weirdness in 2021 - boundary surfaces failing that shouldn't, surface trims flipping, shells failing etc.

Fill can be a pain when shelling downstream. I spent several hours yesterday trying to shell out a plastic moulding that had a perfectly reasonable-looking and generous filled surface fail to offset under anything other than tiny wall thicknesses. SW would either kick up a fuss over failing faces OR...

I wish I could sit with you and have a talk about your knowledge, you seem pretty balanced both in terms of softwares and sharing opinions. Back to the subject at hand, it all depends on what you are drawing too. If it's complex, then of course you won't draw it on a sheet of paper with a pen, but ...

SPerman wrote: ↑Thu Mar 17, 2022 8:23 am I have experience with Ideas (RIP), NX and SW. Of those 3, I would chose NX every time, if cost were not a factor. I doubt there is a challenge you will encounter that NX can't solve.

I keep hearing this. Currently advised that cost isn't an issue...

Thanks for replying. we're not keen on keeping everything on "the cloud" though it has obvious advantages. I have freelanced for years and find this aspect of F360 very useful, if just as a means of allowing clients to spin around and modify SW designed files (interactive mark-up). The lea...

Hello All, I am about to join a fledgling startup where I will be wearing a few hats, including engineer and designer. One of my early tasks is to choose and implement a CAD system. A clean sheet of paper! I can’t divulge details of what we are working on but we will require a system that can handle...

I was wondering where the familiar names of CAD past had disappeared to following the demise of the SW boards (enough has been written about that).

22 years of SWx including 16 as a freelancer, now considering something new (to be posted in the Agnostic board)