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  3. which 3d cae program should I choose?

which 3d cae program should I choose?

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  • J Joan M

    Hello, in our enterprise we are about to change our working method and go from the 2D design (autocad) to the 3D design system. see our web page at www.tamelectromecanica.com[^] (there you'll be able to see our machines and get an idea about what we do). we are interested in a cheap and powerful solution... Do you know of any page where I could find comparatives? NOTES: we've thought on three solutions: - autodesk inventor (the cheapest one) - DST Solid Works - ProEngineer WildFire (the more expensive one) Which one do you think would be the better solution: We want to get: - simplicity on the use. - speed at design - calculus programs that allow us to get information about optimizations of the pieces and of the full machine once the machine is moving. - cheap as far as it can be... - we expect to move moreorless 6000 pieces at the same time. THANK YOU in advance.

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    Joel Holdsworth
    wrote on last edited by
    #3

    I use solidworks - and it is very very nice to use. Drawing is quick and easy, and you get the shapes you need fast. Solidworks can simulate a mechanism very well, and finite element analysis is also nice feature. 6000 components - not so sure - I've never tried it with that many. I'm so happy that your company is abandoning AutoCad - i found that when I started using solidworks my productivity was doubled almost instantly. Joel Holdsworth

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    • J Joel Holdsworth

      I use solidworks - and it is very very nice to use. Drawing is quick and easy, and you get the shapes you need fast. Solidworks can simulate a mechanism very well, and finite element analysis is also nice feature. 6000 components - not so sure - I've never tried it with that many. I'm so happy that your company is abandoning AutoCad - i found that when I started using solidworks my productivity was doubled almost instantly. Joel Holdsworth

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      Norman Fung
      wrote on last edited by
      #4

      In the distant past I used Unigraphics for a lot of freeform modeling and CNC machining. I also used AutoCad and 3D Studio max - I think I like Unigraphics most for modeling. As for pretty rendering and stuff, of course it's 3D Max. Norman Fung

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      • J Joan M

        Hello, in our enterprise we are about to change our working method and go from the 2D design (autocad) to the 3D design system. see our web page at www.tamelectromecanica.com[^] (there you'll be able to see our machines and get an idea about what we do). we are interested in a cheap and powerful solution... Do you know of any page where I could find comparatives? NOTES: we've thought on three solutions: - autodesk inventor (the cheapest one) - DST Solid Works - ProEngineer WildFire (the more expensive one) Which one do you think would be the better solution: We want to get: - simplicity on the use. - speed at design - calculus programs that allow us to get information about optimizations of the pieces and of the full machine once the machine is moving. - cheap as far as it can be... - we expect to move moreorless 6000 pieces at the same time. THANK YOU in advance.

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        Sam Woodward
        wrote on last edited by
        #5

        We use SolidWorks, and it's fantastic. Its totally changed the way we design and prototype products. It seems to be as much of an "industry standard" as AutoCad is/was for 2D. There's a very good user interface, and lots wonderous features such as snap-together of parts, auto assembling of nuts and bolts etc. I'm still amazed that computers can do that kind of thing!!! :-D Sam W

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        • J Joan M

          Hello, in our enterprise we are about to change our working method and go from the 2D design (autocad) to the 3D design system. see our web page at www.tamelectromecanica.com[^] (there you'll be able to see our machines and get an idea about what we do). we are interested in a cheap and powerful solution... Do you know of any page where I could find comparatives? NOTES: we've thought on three solutions: - autodesk inventor (the cheapest one) - DST Solid Works - ProEngineer WildFire (the more expensive one) Which one do you think would be the better solution: We want to get: - simplicity on the use. - speed at design - calculus programs that allow us to get information about optimizations of the pieces and of the full machine once the machine is moving. - cheap as far as it can be... - we expect to move moreorless 6000 pieces at the same time. THANK YOU in advance.

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          L Offline
          Lost User
          wrote on last edited by
          #6

          Our mechanical engineers are currently using Autodesk Inventor and it is VERY buggy. Updates come out very frequently, fixing some bugs and adding more. It still needs a lot of work. :| "Looking at cleavage is like looking at the sun. You don't stare at it. It's too risky. You get a sense of it and then you look away." Jerry Seinfeld

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          • D Daniel Turini

            Joan Murt wrote: we are interested in a cheap and powerful solution... Hehehe... Everyone is, but not everyone is able to find it... :-D Perl combines all the worst aspects of C and Lisp: a billion different sublanguages in one monolithic executable. It combines the power of C with the readability of PostScript. -- Jamie Zawinski

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            Joan M
            wrote on last edited by
            #7

            I think so... as a software developer I don't know a lot of designing machinery and neither about 2D or 3D design programs, so I thought that here it could be possible to find advice from the people on CP... :-O I've been talking to representatives of all those 3 programs and it has been a mess all of them say the same: MY APPLICATION IS THE BEST... X| of course I've noticed some pro's and cons, but I'm not sure of what to do... :sigh:

            https://www.robotecnik.com freelance robots, PLC and CNC programmer.

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            • J Joan M

              Hello, in our enterprise we are about to change our working method and go from the 2D design (autocad) to the 3D design system. see our web page at www.tamelectromecanica.com[^] (there you'll be able to see our machines and get an idea about what we do). we are interested in a cheap and powerful solution... Do you know of any page where I could find comparatives? NOTES: we've thought on three solutions: - autodesk inventor (the cheapest one) - DST Solid Works - ProEngineer WildFire (the more expensive one) Which one do you think would be the better solution: We want to get: - simplicity on the use. - speed at design - calculus programs that allow us to get information about optimizations of the pieces and of the full machine once the machine is moving. - cheap as far as it can be... - we expect to move moreorless 6000 pieces at the same time. THANK YOU in advance.

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              wrykyn
              wrote on last edited by
              #8

              I once worked for about three months at a tractor making factory (massey ferguson for the brits out there). we used autocad for 2-d drawings and then translated it into "ProEngineer" for 3-d. It worked quite well for us at that time for designs of gears, etc , Not sure if this will help you. But people were very happy with it back then (about 3 years back). Maybe its worth checking out. Good Luck Ramanan Sivan "Fortunately I had given him a false name" said Ukridge "Why ?" I cried amazed "Just an ordinary business precaution" he replied

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              • J Joan M

                Hello, in our enterprise we are about to change our working method and go from the 2D design (autocad) to the 3D design system. see our web page at www.tamelectromecanica.com[^] (there you'll be able to see our machines and get an idea about what we do). we are interested in a cheap and powerful solution... Do you know of any page where I could find comparatives? NOTES: we've thought on three solutions: - autodesk inventor (the cheapest one) - DST Solid Works - ProEngineer WildFire (the more expensive one) Which one do you think would be the better solution: We want to get: - simplicity on the use. - speed at design - calculus programs that allow us to get information about optimizations of the pieces and of the full machine once the machine is moving. - cheap as far as it can be... - we expect to move moreorless 6000 pieces at the same time. THANK YOU in advance.

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                Francois Gasnier
                wrote on last edited by
                #9

                I know that : - Solidworks is fine and selling very well, - Autodesk inventor is said to be buggy, - ProEngineer (i.e. Parametric Technology) is slowly losing market shares and never suceeded to get major customers because they either had some annoying bugs or refused to go for benchmarks. You could ask all three vendors to perform a small exercice (design a small part you do very often) in a limited amount of time and film to see how they suceeded or failed with certain subtask... All have a presale department used to doing such benchmarks. Also there used to be comparatives of solidworks and mechanical desktop on solidworks web site. They even pointed out that autodesk's software would crash when arriving to a certain step.

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                • J Joel Holdsworth

                  I use solidworks - and it is very very nice to use. Drawing is quick and easy, and you get the shapes you need fast. Solidworks can simulate a mechanism very well, and finite element analysis is also nice feature. 6000 components - not so sure - I've never tried it with that many. I'm so happy that your company is abandoning AutoCad - i found that when I started using solidworks my productivity was doubled almost instantly. Joel Holdsworth

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                  Joan M
                  wrote on last edited by
                  #10

                  I hope to help our company to improve a lot in this field... allowing us to be faster and to be able to calculate some things that nowadays are almost impossible for our mechanical engineers... Thank you for your reply... ;)

                  https://www.robotecnik.com freelance robots, PLC and CNC programmer.

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                  • S Sam Woodward

                    We use SolidWorks, and it's fantastic. Its totally changed the way we design and prototype products. It seems to be as much of an "industry standard" as AutoCad is/was for 2D. There's a very good user interface, and lots wonderous features such as snap-together of parts, auto assembling of nuts and bolts etc. I'm still amazed that computers can do that kind of thing!!! :-D Sam W

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                    Joan M
                    wrote on last edited by
                    #11

                    Thank you for your reply. I hope to feel the same after choosing...

                    https://www.robotecnik.com freelance robots, PLC and CNC programmer.

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                    • L Lost User

                      Our mechanical engineers are currently using Autodesk Inventor and it is VERY buggy. Updates come out very frequently, fixing some bugs and adding more. It still needs a lot of work. :| "Looking at cleavage is like looking at the sun. You don't stare at it. It's too risky. You get a sense of it and then you look away." Jerry Seinfeld

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                      J Offline
                      Joan M
                      wrote on last edited by
                      #12

                      wow... I couldn't have expected that... well, something in the presentation crashed and the sales man told me that it was because they where running the program from a laptop... :suss: what a mess...

                      https://www.robotecnik.com freelance robots, PLC and CNC programmer.

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                      • J Joan M

                        Hello, in our enterprise we are about to change our working method and go from the 2D design (autocad) to the 3D design system. see our web page at www.tamelectromecanica.com[^] (there you'll be able to see our machines and get an idea about what we do). we are interested in a cheap and powerful solution... Do you know of any page where I could find comparatives? NOTES: we've thought on three solutions: - autodesk inventor (the cheapest one) - DST Solid Works - ProEngineer WildFire (the more expensive one) Which one do you think would be the better solution: We want to get: - simplicity on the use. - speed at design - calculus programs that allow us to get information about optimizations of the pieces and of the full machine once the machine is moving. - cheap as far as it can be... - we expect to move moreorless 6000 pieces at the same time. THANK YOU in advance.

                        J Offline
                        J Offline
                        JWood
                        wrote on last edited by
                        #13

                        Hire a programmer to create a custom solution that is actually cheaper. The the preprepared large corps will sell you a product and then lead you down the golden path of mo' money.


                        Every nation ridicules other nations, and all are right. - Schopenhauer

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                        • J JWood

                          Hire a programmer to create a custom solution that is actually cheaper. The the preprepared large corps will sell you a product and then lead you down the golden path of mo' money.


                          Every nation ridicules other nations, and all are right. - Schopenhauer

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                          Joan M
                          wrote on last edited by
                          #14

                          Of course! and I'll be able to load different kind of files from other compatible programs (catia, unigrafx, inventor, solidworks, solidedge, proengineer...) and also calculate precisely a lot of things like forces, tensions, heats... predict when a piece will be broken if I do some movements or forces over it... :rolleyes: I think that this can be a good solution but in other fields: there are "small" programs that can be done by independent/freelance programmers, but as far as I know (I'm a programmer that work with Visual C++) there's A LOT of work implementing this kind of solution. :sigh: Moreover I need to get results in a short time space... X| Well, thank you for your suggestion, but this is not the kind of suggestion that I expected... Thank you after all!

                          https://www.robotecnik.com freelance robots, PLC and CNC programmer.

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