2D drawings in Solidworks?

hello,
my work is requiring me to draw some of our products in the form of 2D
engineering drawings (the 3D models would be far too time consuming
and difficult). i'd like to know if solidworks has some sort of a
"sketch mode" where i can generate 2D engineering drawings WITHOUT
first constructing the accompanying 3D solid model. i'm just learning
the software and was wondering if i should just use autocad for this,
although i'd much rather not.
thanks for any info!

 

You can use all sketch tools to create a drawing without 3D-model..Are you
really sure that 3D model would be that difficult..? If I have to draw a
simple box, I would create 3D model and drawing out of that..why? Because
then what I have is parametric model and when dimensions ar changing it's
faster to update the drawing (vs A*toC*D). And when model gets more
complicated it's even faster.

That's the right spirit ;-)

 

Jeff,

The more difficult the geometry, the more reason to to model it in 3D. The
drawings are practically free. In my many years of building things based on
2D drawings, I have NEVER seen any design of any complexity that wasn't just
full of errors. Parts had to be remade, extra holes all over the place, just
a mess. Your not saving any time, your just moving it downstream. This
rarely (if ever) happens when using solids.

SW is not designed as, or intended to be used as a free standing 2D system.
It doesn't work well that way. To much sketch geometry bogs it down. If you
really "want" to (or are more comfortable) doing your work in 2D, use ACAD.

What I really think you should do is get some training.

Regards

Mark