Weld callout display.

[mike miller]

Someone over at the 3Dswamp was asking about weld callouts on drawings and what the best way is to handle them. (I don't want to support that train wreck so I'm posting the answer here and posting a link over there. )

I have tried Weld Bead features from an assembly or part context and always ended up deleting them and using weld callouts on the drawing. The actual weld features are finicky to apply, especially around corners and gaps, and have a bad habit of appearing again in assemblies and drawings, even if annotation view is toggled off. In addition, there is no easy way to show only some in a drawing view - it's all or none. This makes it effectively useless.

In contrast; callouts can be copied and pasted, saved as favorites, easily edited, and they don't show in assemblies. Unless "seeing" an actual weld bead is important to you, simply using a callout works better IME.

Thoughts?

[Glenn Schroeder]

Someone over at the 3Dswamp was asking about weld callouts on drawings and what the best way is to handle them. (I don't want to support that train wreck so I'm posting the answer here and posting a link over there. )

I have tried Weld Bead features from an assembly or part context and always ended up deleting them and using weld callouts on the drawing. The actual weld features are finicky to apply, especially around corners and gaps, and have a bad habit of appearing again in assemblies and drawings, even if annotation view is toggled off. In addition, there is no easy way to show only some in a drawing view - it's all or none. This makes it effectively useless.

In contrast; callouts can be copied and pasted, saved as favorites, easily edited, and they don't show in assemblies. Unless "seeing" an actual weld bead is important to you, simply using a callout works better IME.

Thoughts?

Same here. I don't add welds to my models at all, but call out the welds in the Drawing. Some years ago I had a client ask me to add the welds in the model so they could get a total weld length. I was happy to do that, then somewhat frustrated when I realized that while that value was generated in the model, there was no way to reference it in a Drawing (or at least I couldn't find a way).

Getting back the pros and cons of adding welds in the model, to me it just clutters up the drawing views, adding in extra lines that can easily confuse the person down the line using the drawing. I guess there might be some advantage if there's one person doing the model, and some high school kid or other person with little experience creating the drawing.

[AlexLachance]

We use weld beads sometimes for small assemblies, but larger assemblies, drawings all the way!

[David Matula]

The weld bead? Depending on how big and how accurate you need the weight of the model to be I never worry about showing the welds. Just but the metal up together and have the appropriate weld symbol. On some of the vessels that I would do we just took the total weight and add about 10% to it to account for extra material added by welding.

[JSculley]

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I was happy to do that, then somewhat frustrated when I realized that while that value was generated in the model, there was no way to reference it in a Drawing (or at least I couldn't find a way).
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To see the length in a drawing, you can use a weld table:

[Lapuo]

I like to model welds because sometimes i am too lazy to add symbol in drawing and write all numbers.
Than SW proves me than its better not to be lazy , because i always end up deleting weld beads and use callouts anyway

[Frank_Oostendorp]

In our assemblies, all welds are present as separate generated parts. For me, this is important to have SolidWorks files usable over a period of 20 years now. Using weld features offered by SolidWorks has caused huge trouble in the past during updating to newer versions.
Also it is very good to check with interference detection if all fits together in the assembly. It looks like a lot of work, but now it is a challenge to create a weld part for two strange formed objects.