SolidWorks Electrical

A couple of weeks ago, myself and a couple other members of our tech team made a visit to Waltham, Massachusetts and attended a special invite only training course on SolidWorks’ newest product offering, SolidWorks Electrical.  SolidWorks Electrical is a 2D dynamic electrical schematic creation software that can be sold as just that or bundled with SolidWorks Electrical 3D to allow for parametric updates between the schematic and the 3D model routes.  These two products together are sold as SolidWorks Electrical Professional.  We were given a crash course on how this 2D product fits into the market as well as getting hands on experience with the overall product solution.  Having a background with machine design for the plastics industry, I was very eager to see all of this work in action.  I was very surprised to see how many tools and symbols ship with this product, and the fact that this is all SQL database driven just strengthens the stability of this product.  We started off with some basic “how to” scenarios of adding in schematic symbols for a simple wiring diagram and then slowly built this design into a more complex schematic by adding PLC components.  Once we had the layout complete, we then brought all of this to the 3D cabinet and quickly placed all motor starters, PLC components and even some industry favorite WAGO terminal strip components!  To have the software walk you through the model insertion process as well auto-route all wiring was extremely easy and even a little fun.  The integrated library consists of over 500,000 standard electrical parts; you can create single-line and multi-line schematics and even offers direct import of existing DWG and DXF symbols with existing attributes and connections!  The symbol library has over 4,000 symbols and allows you to create custom 2D symbols as well.  I think the real power is that both the 2D schematic and the 3D routed models are Bi-Directionally linked in real time updates.  Make a change to the schematic, and the model will update!  This product will be offered for purchase very soon and you can learn more about this offering at www.solidworks.com/electrical or contact your CATI representative.

Thank you,

Brian Reel
CATI 

 

Using the Costing Tool in SolidWorks

The SolidWorks Costing tool helps you calculate how much it costs to manufacture sheet metal and machined parts by automating the cost estimation and quotation process.

The tool helps designers make design decisions based on the cost to manufacture, and helps manufacturers create quotes for customers. Whenever you change a design, you can see the new, updated cost immediately, along with a detailed cost breakdown. Additionally, you can generate automatic cost reports. To use this tool, you can go to Tools, SolidWorks Costing and select Sheet Metal or Machining Costing.

The Costing tool is driven by manufacturing and material information in templates that determine the manufacturing cost. In the templates you can specify the material used to create the part, the manufacturing processes (such as laser cutting, bending, or milling), and the associated costs of these materials and manufacturing operations. The templates also let you create custom operations such as packaging, ERP entry, painting, or cleaning.

The Costing tool is divided into two functional capabilities:

Sheet Metal Costing

Use the Sheet Metal Costing  tool for parts that are manufactured from sheet metal. To use this tool, the part must contain sheet metal features such as flanges, bends, and forming tools. Features such as holes and cuts are recognized as manufacturing cut paths for operations such as laser, water jet, and plasma cutting.

Machining Costing

Use the Machining Costing  tool for parts that are machined from solid block and plate stock material. Parts machined from blocks use manufacturing techniques such as milling and drilling. Parts made from plate use manufacturing techniques such as laser, water jet, and plasma cutting, in addition to milling and drilling

The costs calculated by the Costing tool are as accurate as the data in your templates. Although SolidWorks provides pre-populated templates, it is best to create custom templates based on your manufacturer's costs. It is recommended that you work with your in-house manufacturing departments and external manufacturing vendors to create custom templates that reflect actual costs.

A great way to get familiar with this tool is to go through the tutorials.  Go to Help, SolidWorks Tutorials, Productivity Enhancements, SolidWorks Costing.

Phil Whitaker

Technical Analyst

Maximizing SolidWorks Performance (MSWP-12-#15)

Optimal Configuration & Conclusion

In looking back at the past 14 articles we have posted about Maximizing SolidWorks Performance one of the items we promised in our first article was to give you the two optimal configurations that gave us the best overall performance.

Before we get to the results lets recap what we tested in our previous articles:

• Windows Visual and User Settings


• SolidWorks Options Set to Optimal


• Graphics Cards


• Turn Off SolidWorks Add-Ins


• Processor Clock Speed


• Reducing Top Level Mates and Solving Subassemblies as Rigid


• Number of Cores and SolidWorks


• SolidWorks Graphic Settings (Image Quality and RealView Graphics)


• Network Storage and Anti-virus


• Level of Detail


• RAM and SWAP File


• Hard Drives


• Lightweight & Large Assembly Mode

In the list above you want to take note that of the 13 items we tested 8 of them are FREE.

The first optimal scenario that we tested included all of the performance improvements explained above except Large Assembly Mode and Lightweight options.  The environment looked like this:

Hardware

• 12 cores @ 4.29Ghtz


• 24GB RAM - SWAP 48GB


• OS RAID 0 SSDs from Intel


• Storage OCZ Technology Revo Drive


• Nvidia Quadro 500 Graphics Card

Configuration

• SolidWorks Options Optimized


• Assembly stored local


• Addins off


• OS visuals set to best performance

Modeling methods

• Level of detail reduced


• Image quality reduced


• Realview Graphics off


• Top level mates reduced

The combination of the enhancements to our SolidWorks environment yielded some impressive performance results and we are able to appreciate the significance of utilizing a properly configured workstation with quality modeling methodologies.  Overall a performance improvement of almost 82% was realized. Our benchmark of just over 5 hours was reduced to just over 55 minutes. Adding Lightweight and Large Assembly Mode increased our performance an additional 11%, dropping the run time down to 22 minutes.

Conclusion

What we have found in our efforts conducting these tests is that improvement of a modeling environment must be approached at a system level rather than a specific component level.  All of the hardware, configuration, and modeling methodology options work in concert to establish the performance capabilities of a workstation whether it's good or bad.  Adding more processor power to a workstation that is short on RAM will help.  But the improvement that the stronger processor yields will be much greater if RAM is added as well.

Understanding these several aspects of a SolidWorks modeling environment and how they work together can make all the difference in ensuring that you get the full value from your hardware and software purchase.

Adrian and I plan on continuing our testing for the next SolidWorks World in 2013 so please keep checking back for updates. We are planning on creating some new tests and new ways to display the results. If you have any suggestions please add a comment to this or any of our other articles.

Please check back to the CATI blog as we will continue posting our series of articles that goes further into the details of each of our tests. All of these articles will be stored in the category of Maximizing SolidWorks Performance and links to each with their release date are listed below:

• Maximize SolidWorks Performance White Paper (7/2/12)


• MSWP-12-#1 Introduction (7/9/12)


• MSWP-12-#2 Windows Visual and User Settings (7/12/12)


• MSWP-12-#3 SolidWorks Options Set to Optimal (7/17/12)


• MSWP-12-#4 Graphics Cards (7/19/12)


• MSWP-12-#5 Turn Off SolidWorks Add-Ins (7/24/12)


• MSWP-12-#6 Processor Clock Speed (7/26/12)


• MSWP-12-#7 Reducing SolidWorks Mates and Rigid Subassemblies (7/31/12)


• MSWP-12-#8 Number of Processor Cores (8/2/12)


• MSWP-12-#9 SolidWorks Graphic Settings (8/7/12)


• MSWP-12-#10 Network Storage and Anti-Virus (8/9/12)


• MSWP-12-#11 Level of Detail (8/14/12)


• MSWP-12-#12 RAM and SWAP File (8/16/12)


• MSWP-12-#13 Hard Drives (8/21/12


• MSWP-12-#14 Lightweight and Large Assembly Mode (8/23/12)


• MSWP-12-#15 Optimal Configuration and Conclusion (8/28/12)

Thanks,

Josh Altergott, CATI Support Manager

Adrian Fanjoy, CATI Technical Services Director

Windows 8 & Solidworks 2012 Test Drive

 

   I just had to. With the Release to Manufacturing of Windows 8 already here I had to take it for a test drive. It is available as an evaluation copy from the MS website. It was a 2.5gb downloaded .iso file which when put onto a bootable USB stick, (because really who uses a DVD player anymore?) installed with out any issues on an older Dell M6300 in less than 10 minutes.

The thing that is striking about the interface is the massive overhaul by Microsoft. It is definetely a bold move and in my opininon a good one. You can definetely tell that it is aimed at a multi-platform arena. Tablets, touchcreens, phones, and desktops will all get a taste of it. All of the usual driver issues that have usually have plageued MS for quite some time seem to be absent. The OS was actually pretty lightweight and nimble. The one thing that will get everybody upset is the new "Metro" style interface.

I have been a Xbox live subscriber for quite some time because I have teenagers that like to game. The interface has actually been on the Xbox for quite some time, so it really wasnt a shock and I was already used to it. SolidWorks ran very well with no crashes in my testing and I did no tweaking whatsoever. I couldnt even tell you what video driver was running. With the majority of businesses all converted over to Windows 7 now and the official retirement of XP immenent, Windows 8 will be quite a large task to sell the corporations on as far as an upgrade is considered.

The price point is going to be a reported $40 for the upgrade to Windows 8. That is now sounding like Microsft is really starting to listen to there customer base. Now give me a Microsoft Surface tablet to run the full-blown Windows 8 and SolidWorks and we will be talking game changer. Gauranteed.

 

 

Todd Werginz

CATI

Maximizing SolidWorks Performance (MSWP-12-#14)

Lightweight & LAM

The use of Lightweight and Large assembly mode made a tremendous impact in our testing.  These tools allow a user to open an extremely large assembly without bringing in all of the computational data that defines it.  The user gets the visual of the model without the over head of the math behind it.  The user will then resolve the portions of the assembly that they would like to work on.  The data for just that portion of the assembly is loaded into RAM and the user has the best of both worlds; the ability to work on a part or sub-assembly within the context of the greater assembly while dealing only with the overhead of the portion they are specifically working on.  The testing we did involved very large assemblies where Lightweight mode can have its most pronounced effect on performance.

 

 

If you remember from our first article; our test baseline had a runtime of 5:01:35 and we measured time for the areas of Opens, Rotations, Modeling, Rebuilds, Switching Sheets, Saves and Closes.

After we changed our SolidWorks settings for Light Weight and Large Assembly Mode our macro ran in 0:34:18, this had a noticeable effect in all the areas we measured.

This change gained us a savings of 4:27:17 or 88.6%.

Please check back to the CATI blog as we will continue posting our series of articles that goes further into the details of each of our tests. All of these articles will be stored in the category of Maximizing SolidWorks Performance and links to each with their release date are listed below:

• Maximize SolidWorks Performance White Paper (7/2/12)


• MSWP-12-#1 Introduction (7/9/12)


• MSWP-12-#2 Windows Visual and User Settings (7/12/12)


• MSWP-12-#3 SolidWorks Options Set to Optimal (7/17/12)


• MSWP-12-#4 Graphics Cards (7/19/12)


• MSWP-12-#5 Turn Off SolidWorks Add-Ins (7/24/12)


• MSWP-12-#6 Processor Clock Speed (7/26/12)


• MSWP-12-#7 Reducing SolidWorks Mates and Rigid Subassemblies (7/31/12)


• MSWP-12-#8 Number of Processor Cores (8/2/12)


• MSWP-12-#9 SolidWorks Graphic Settings (8/7/12)


• MSWP-12-#10 Network Storage and Anti-Virus (8/9/12)


• MSWP-12-#11 Level of Detail (8/14/12)


• MSWP-12-#12 RAM and SWAP File (8/16/12)


• MSWP-12-#13 Hard Drives (8/21/12


• MSWP-12-#14 Lightweight and Large Assembly Mode (8/23/12)


• MSWP-12-#15 Optimal Configuration and Conclusion (8/28/12)

Thanks,

Josh Altergott, CATI Support Manager

Adrian Fanjoy, CATI Technical Services Director

Northern Illinois SolidWorks Users Groups to Host SolidWorks CEO Bertrand Sicot

The Chicago SolidWorks User Group (CSUG), the Chicago West SolidWorks User Group (CWSUG) and the Rockford Area SolidWorks User Group (RASUG) are holding a joint meeting Wednesday, August 29, 2012 from 5:00pm to 9pm at GAME PAZZO in Downers Grove, IL.

The featured speaker will be Bertrand Sicot, CEO of SolidWorks. Bertrand is visiting as part of a national tour of SolidWorks Users groups. This is a good opportunity to hear Bertrand's vision for SolidWorks.

Richard Doyle, SolidWorks Community Manager and Ed Eaton from the Dimonte Group will also present.

AGENDA:
5:00-5:30PM Sign-in and networking.
        Food served. Pizza & soft drinks courtesy of ESPO Corporation
5:30-9:00PM Bertrand Sicot - SolidWorks CEO
        Richard Doyle - SolidWorks User Community Manager
        Ed Eaton - Chicagoland SolidWorks Expert

Denny Bahl, CSUG President has requested everyone RSVP to csug.info@gmail.com before 08/27/2012. 

GAME PAZZO is located in the Meadowbrook Shopping Center at 2011 63rd Street, Downers Grove, Illinois 60516. Game Pazzo will also be providing free video game play after the presentations.

Maximizing SolidWorks Performance (MSWP-12-#13)

Hard Drives

When choosing hard drives our choices are almost unlimited and we need to keep in mind that hard drive speed affects every area of SolidWorks modeling particularly when a single hard drive is being used for file storage, OS operation, and SWAP.  For our tests we had 3 different hard drive types; standard 7200 rpm, solid state, and a PCI express Revo card.  We also had 4 different test configurations; single drive, separate drives, RAID1 (2 drives mirrored) and RAID0 (2 drives striped).

We had a lot of options as to how to run our tests and in our tests we have found that the most pronounced performance improvement is experienced when switching from standard hard drives to solid state hard drives.  This is mainly due to the heavy use of SWAP in our baseline test.  This underscores the need to view performance for SolidWorks from a system perspective rather than from a component level.

Switching to the Solid state hard drive improved our benchmark performance by a little more than 47% of total run time.  Further improvement of another 16% was realized by storing our working files separate from our OS and SWAP file on a Revo solid state PCI-e card.

If you remember from our first article; our test baseline had a runtime of 5:01:35 and we measured time for the areas of Opens, Rotations, Modeling, Rebuilds, Switching Sheets, Saves and Closes.

Even though a single solid state drive was the bulk of our change and probably the most cost effective; we ran our optimal set up for this test and our macro ran in 2:13:23, this had a noticeable effect in all the areas we measured.

This change gained us a savings of 2:48:12 or 55.8%.

Please check back to the CATI blog as we will continue posting our series of articles that goes further into the details of each of our tests. All of these articles will be stored in the category of Maximizing SolidWorks Performance and links to each with their release date are listed below:

• Maximize SolidWorks Performance White Paper (7/2/12)


• MSWP-12-#1 Introduction (7/9/12)


• MSWP-12-#2 Windows Visual and User Settings (7/12/12)


• MSWP-12-#3 SolidWorks Options Set to Optimal (7/17/12)


• MSWP-12-#4 Graphics Cards (7/19/12)


• MSWP-12-#5 Turn Off SolidWorks Add-Ins (7/24/12)


• MSWP-12-#6 Processor Clock Speed (7/26/12)


• MSWP-12-#7 Reducing SolidWorks Mates and Rigid Subassemblies (7/31/12)


• MSWP-12-#8 Number of Processor Cores (8/2/12)


• MSWP-12-#9 SolidWorks Graphic Settings (8/7/12)


• MSWP-12-#10 Network Storage and Anti-Virus (8/9/12)


• MSWP-12-#11 Level of Detail (8/14/12)


• MSWP-12-#12 RAM and SWAP File (8/16/12)


• MSWP-12-#13 Hard Drives (8/21/12)


• MSWP-12-#14 Lightweight and Large Assembly Mode (8/23/12)


• MSWP-12-#15 Optimal Configuration and Conclusion (8/28/12)

Thanks,

Josh Altergott, CATI Support Manager

Adrian Fanjoy, CATI Technical Services Director