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General reliability

mhejjas

New member
First of all, I really don't want to offend anybody or anything, just want to know.
I have some experience with Proe back from '05, and as I remember I was OK with it.
I've a degree in electric engineering, and worked in IT/Telecom for the last 15 years. I usually understand new things fast, and have a natural sense for mechanical engineering. I'm racing with radio controlled cars for 12 years now, and designed a couple of racing option parts for them.
I had no further CAD experience until a couple of month ago I started to use Solidworks 2013.
I've learned a lot and created quite complex structures, but the most of the time I was struggling with SW to make it work, or trying to understand why it didn't do what I expected.
Now I know, that a lot of things simply don't work in SW. (e.g. solid sweep on a 3d path, creating complex sketches is a nightmare, etc.)
What I don't understand, that it should be a professional system, yet I haven't found anything yet remotely as unreliable and nondeterministic and counterproductive like SW (except maybe Mac OS X, but that's another story)
It's possible that the problem is with me, since I've read a lot positive opinions about SW, but my problems are real.

The question is whether all complex CAD systems behave like SW, or there are a bit more exact ones out there?

Thanks for reading,


in addition: 95% of the time I create relatively complex, machined alloy parts (no plastic mold, no metal sheet)
 
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Maybe not enough experience yet.

Of course I mean no insult either. Mentioning complex structures does not give us enough information to see and try out our own potential solutions to the issues you face and are having difficulties with. If I may, I would suggest placing this question on the SolidWorks forums, many experienced users would be glad to help you overcome them. You can find the forums here: https://forum.solidworks.com/community/solidworks?view=overview They're free to join too. A big advantage is that you can post your files to have others work out solutions or alternatives from experience they have developed over the years. On the left you will see forum subjects grouped by areas. Good luck!

First of all, I really don't want to offend anybody or anything, just want to know.
I have some experience with Proe back from '05, and as I remember I was OK with it.
I've a degree in electric engineering, and worked in IT/Telecom for the last 15 years. I usually understand new things fast, and have a natural sense for mechanical engineering. I'm racing with radio controlled cars for 12 years now, and designed a couple of racing option parts for them.
I had no further CAD experience until a couple of month ago I started to use Solidworks 2013.
I've learned a lot and created quite complex structures, but the most of the time I was struggling with SW to make it work, or trying to understand why it didn't do what I expected.
Now I know, that a lot of things simply don't work in SW. (e.g. solid sweep on a 3d path, creating complex sketches is a nightmare, etc.)
What I don't understand, that it should be a professional system, yet I haven't found anything yet remotely as unreliable and nondeterministic and counterproductive like SW (except maybe Mac OS X, but that's another story)
It's possible that the problem is with me, since I've read a lot positive opinions about SW, but my problems are real.

The question is whether all complex CAD systems behave like SW, or there are a bit more exact ones out there?

Thanks for reading,


in addition: 95% of the time I create relatively complex, machined alloy parts (no plastic mold, no metal sheet)
 
I disagree with most of what you are saying and I believe it is down to your use of the software, just giving an honest opinion. I've used SW since 99 and it is reliable and I've always been able to do what I need to do from molded parts to sheet metal parts to machined parts.

As bdzin said, what do you mean by complex structures as our definitions of complex could be very different.

As for your comment about solid sweeps not working on a 3D path, well, they do work, it depends on how you set it up, trying to simply sweep a profile along a single trajectory and the end result will look like it has a mind of its own. Extra guides need to be put in place to help it along the way.

I'm sorry about this and also mean no offence but the more I read your post, the more I believe you are trying to run before you can even crawl. You say you starting using SW a coouple of months ago so there is no way you know the ins and outs of the software.

Dont try and make single sketches too complex, for example, if you have a surface with multiple machines holes running right through, sketch the main shape in one feature and then put the holes or cutouts in as other features.
 

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