CAD Forum

Brian-M

I have to add that Autodesk Navisworks is amazing for viewing large assemblies. Coming from edrawings and Solidworks there are some thing to learn. There is a free viewer (Navisworks Freedom), but someone needs the paid Nasvisworks Manage license (a couple thousand a year), to make the files for vie...

Brian-M

I find it safest to run FVUT mainly on sldprt. This last round, that's the only thing I did, and it's where you get most of the benefits of the tool. ...if you have subassemblies that you use in multiple places, then those would also be good candidates. https://www.mlc-cad.com/solidworks-help-center...

Brian-M

krisreddy "a good design change cycle management tool would help us better understand the evolution of the design." Not sure I understand the request and what you have now, but I'll take a stab at it. I agree that an EC should have the What and Why of a change. Sounds like you probably ha...

Brian-M

Thanks for that explanation Diaval. I still have the question about why on-premise user to PDM server is so much faster, or over VPN is so much slower. It has to do all the same work either way, but on-prem it can transfer over 50 MB/sec (I mean effective transfer speeds from the user perspective, l...

Brian-M

Solidworks PDM hits no where near the upload/download speeds that business internet service is capable of. It's a curious thing that it is so stubbornly slow when we can transfer packets to the server much faster when it doesn't involve PDM. In my experience the slow transfer speeds do matter. 1 MB/...

Brian-M

That's an excellent question to bring up dave.laban - I don't really have an answer, it's something I've also wondered about, and of course the solution varies per company. This is one reason some companies bump revision levels on higher assemblies when - by the book - they don't need to. I think th...

Brian-M

Ah, I get it now bnemec, sorry I didn't get what you meant by boiler plate user.

Brian-M

The boilerplate PDM user would never release an upper-level file that has a component in WIP, and would never revise a component without revising the assemblies above it. A user 'would never revise a component without revising the assemblies above it' - Big woah on that idea! The whole point of Rev...

Brian-M

When we asked VAR about the "Mass Where Used Replace/Update" function we got a blank stare. Solid Edge has a tool called Revision Manager where users could manage file references and custom properties all in one shot. It could do a where used search (brute force or indexed when BiDM came ...

Brian-M

The original post has some good ideas - it would be cool if PDM had an option to warn us that a changing component has uses - it automatically pulls up a Where Used view. Might also be a bit annoying, depending on how it worked. On the other hand - this also seems pretty fundamental to the engineeri...

Brian-M

You really don't get it, do you? a) That's harsh Matt. b) Why would I know everything about CAD kernels? I asked a question. (How much does Siemens charge to license parasolid anyway?) c) Still sounds like speculation, probably based on some real negatives of what 3DS has done in other situations.

Brian-M

@mp3-250 Is the idea it's a priority to ditch parasolid based on anything? Siemens licenses that to a lot of companies, and it sounds like speculation that Solidworks would depart from that long held standard.

Brian-M

Lol Zhen-Wei. You have some good points, but you're trying too hard to hate 3DX with your final point about the unimportant role codes (which may be French based?). 3DX is usable as a basic PDM system. Honestly, even today with some known problems, I'd recommend 3DExperience over Solidworks PDM (Sta...

Brian-M

Roles are packages of apps/widgets/tools on the platform - which unlock various powers. These are the 3 fundamental ones for a Solidworks user: CSV: Collaborative Industry Innovator – connects your traditional SolidWorks desktop to the 3DExperience Platform IFW: Collaborative Business Innovator – al...

Brian-M

Per S You probably want to collaborate on CAD files with someone at another company or location. 3DExpereince Solidworks Connected could work for this, but it's weird - and not totally proven (but it's getting better). You can test it out for very little money (~$10/month) with the Maker version (b...

Brian-M

Not free in time or money, but PDM Standard to Pro is a well supported migration path. Vault setup: Keep it simple. e.g. Edit--> Review --> Approved --> Obsolete. You can add more workflow states later. Turn on prevent duplicate filenames early. https://help.solidworks.com/2020/english/EnterprisePDM...

Brian-M

Let's be real though, Solidworks is big in the CAD industry, they've done some shitty things, and made some significant mistakes, but they will remain a big name in CAD for the foreseeable future. This two year subscription thing upsets me less that some of the other things they've done in recent ye...

Brian-M

Some alternatives were suggested here

Brian-M

I tested Bild. It seems promising. It is young and clearly missing some things, but lots of improvements planned for 2023. It reads properties from Solidworks very efficiently. Generally fast both directions - around 9MB/s (not perfect, but better than other PDM systems on cloud or VPN). It has a de...

Brian-M

This is interesting.
https://www.getbild.com/
Looks like they are on the right track for small teams using Solidworks.
Started in 2021.

Brian-M

Very interesting Jason. Thanks for doing all that! Good to know about the cloud hosted server speeds (about 3 MB/s), about double the home VPN connection. 3 is slow, but still significantly faster (twice as fast) than any VPN we know of. Azure connection isn't with VPN, so I'm IT ignorant and don't ...

Brian-M

Jason, yes server is in the office. Server is located with a couple desktop computers used for remote desktop. Yours is replicated or something? I think you said PDM server isn't cloud hosted, but it's at another location? ...Are you actually using "Zscaler VPN" even at the office to conne...

Brian-M

@Frederick_Law What are you getting at?
I've done some tests, are you saying they are flawed?
Do you have any info from your tests?
Thanks!

Brian-M

Data set: Assembly drawing and references, 236 files, 1.3gb total. Office - 1gb ethernet: Get (Show dialogue)- 3 seconds Get (Operation) - 410 seconds Home - 1gb fiber - VPN: Get (Show dialogue)- 3 seconds Get (Operation) - 858 seconds Thanks Jason! So 1300MB/858 = 1.5 MB/s on VPN. Similar to our 1...

Brian-M

IMHO the ideal scenario would be (if possible) to connect to a local machine in the company via a remote desktop application Good point, and we do sometimes do this. This post is partly to determine if your system is healthy, and the speeds we see are just normal slow. In the future we may put more...

Brian-M

Frederick_Law Fair enough. I'm also interested in actual check-in times. But it's more messy, more variables. I picked a modest assembly. 9500 KB sldasm with 3 parts (11068, 6966, 5023 KB). I used Copy Tree so they were fresh. Took 95 seconds. 9.5+11+7+5 = 32.5MB. --> 0.34 MB/sec. Then I checked-ou...

Brian-M

Thanks bnemec, can you post a simple speed measurement here, next time you get a chance to test PDM on VPN? **For all involved - note the difference between little b and big B. I measured 1 MegaByte a second (=8Mbps). Internet speeds are often hyped as Mbps, Megabits per second. Use either unit, but...

Brian-M

Sorry, I registered the "Not PDM" part of the comment too late. Measuring speed just by using the progress window. I find a 40-100MB file, un-cache it, then Get latest and use a stopwatch. Not fancy, but actual Get speed is what I'm interested in. Or for upload speed I add a new file. The ...

Brian-M

Please do let me know when you test it. I don't know what is possible with a VPN-PDM setup. We tried WireGuard VPN, which uses a supposedly superior connection tech compared to Foritclient, but didn't see any change in PDM (tho it does seem smoother for remote desktop work). How much in my casual 30...

Brian-M

For our remote users on Forticlient VPN: We get about 1 MB/second when Getting files from PDM Professional. (Ping to server is 88ms) Internet speed at either end is definitely not the limiting factor. Doesn't matter if both ends are on gigabit internet (nominally 125 MB/s), that's still about the fa...

Brian-M

Oh yeah, you are at a size where it doesn't make sense, and you can support more of an IT team, etc. We are smaller. I like to be able to do as much as possible without IT involvement, so that is one appeal of Upchain. Team users are about $900/year. Participant is $360. I think they still have free...

Brian-M

I'm looking into Upchain. We have PDM Professional, but it doesn't seem like it's ever going to be as good as I want it to for remote workers on VPN. There is more content available about Upchain these days. I really like it when help files are freely available: https://help.autodesk.com/view/UPCHN/...

Brian-M

Most of the revisions we perform do not propagate all the way up the where used tree/shrub. Before PDM the parent files would just be opened and updated. . . No need to update the print because the change was not significant at that level or above. Now in PDM most of those parent files are released...

Brian-M

Okay I get it now. Thanks and good luck.

Brian-M

Sounds like a challenge. I didn't see virtual docs saving you much time or complexity. It'd be nice if it was all in PDM, but CAD guys can look at the ERP BOM too. I've worked places where the CAD BOM was different than the Mfg-BOM in ERP, and it's hard to keep them fully in sync. We would create so...

Brian-M

Yeah, Toolbox is a pain, but I thought you'd get a little more feedback. We are using PDM and Toolbox, I didn't set it up, but I'll try to give you a little info and maybe someone else will chime in. We use Create Parts, and drop them in one specific PDM folder. In PDM we have a Group for people tha...

Brian-M

bnemec It looks like you've explored some creative ideas but have you considered a simple vanilla SolidWorks approach? Make it all in SolidWorks, it's a known method, and the structure is transparent. If you don't need anything in some .sldprt then make an empty part that just has metadata. If the ...

Brian-M

Does anyone use Overwrite Latest Version for certain transitions in their workflows? It's a checkbox on transitions "Overwrite Latest Version (Files only)". I'm just catching up my thinking on this, not something I've really used, but I guess there are cases where it is safe and saves on n...

Brian-M

<t>What method are you using for the Where Used search? <br/> With OneDrive I imagine PDM is not being used at all? <br/> If you have OneDrive syncing files locally, then it's basically just another folder, with no special behaviors for SolidWorks. Is there a OneDrive setting where you don't really ...

Brian-M

Screenshot 2022-01-05 095132.png On group Warnings tab "The file is open in another application." is one of the few I have set to red - block the entire operation. This would prevent one of the possible causes brought up in the original post. We get this occasionally but not consistently....

Brian-M

Engineering Documentation Control Handbook , Frank Watts: ------------ Rule: The revision level of parts should not appear in support documents. Parts Catalogs, Maintenance Manuals, etc., should not refer to the revision level of the document depicting the item. [Don't have a BOM column for compone...

Brian-M

Apparently it's been around since at least 2010. https://help.solidworks.com/2010/English/EnterprisePDM/Admin/AllContent/EntPDM/Admin/Variables/t_default_value_part_number.html FYI For some reason the exclude asterisk didn't work for drawings - for a test SN generator there, so each sheet added woul...

Brian-M

I have some good news for you guys! I was considering a variety of complex workarounds, or an add-in, and then one of my coworkers pointed out you can right click on the data card SN field, and select Generate next serial number to make a new one. File must be checked-out. The trick to make this rea...

Brian-M

Data card only. Editing properties from the custom property tab in SolidWorks is not allowed here. I cannot imagine how that would ever work if you have PDM variables mapped to those custom properties. It can work fine to edit Custom Properties in SWx if you have users that understand the system (a...

Brian-M

Also Hawkridge has a "Configuration Exploder": https://hawkwareapps.com/hawkwaretools.html

Brian-M

Thanks for the notes on practical experience bnemec. Good reminder on the Move Tree tip, I saw that mentioned somewhere. I think my next tactic will be to push for dash numbers on configs. One PDM serial number per file, and manual addition of dash numbers when needed. I imagine you use only SN for ...

Brian-M

Thanks for mentioning that approach, made me reconsider some things. This is a an existing PDM setup, wherein they made some weird decisions, and now I'm the new admin trying to figure out improvements. The current filenames are often just descriptions (hoping to change this). They don't use the @ t...

Brian-M

Hey, we may get some use from the Exclude Configurations idea! https://help.solidworks.com/2021/english/EnterprisePDM/admin/idd_editboxprop.htm?verRedirect=1 We could start adding a standard string to config names to prevent it from generating serial numbers. {non} or mono or something. Better than ...

Brian-M

Aw dang. Thanks very much Jason, but I was hoping you wouldn't say that. I was hoping for way to only put it on the @ tab. If I use updates-all, then it'd be difficult to use the occasional multiple PN file. ...I may try something like an add-on part number tool https://equivaq.com/product/serial-nu...

Brian-M

I'm talking about the PDM-P serial number generator. It adds a PN (part number aka Serial Number) to every existing configuration. And then if you add a configuration - it adds another PN! In most cases we'd prefer one PN per file.
Thanks!

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