I'm learning about on line libraries..etc.

.... briefly some cad vendors hire pure software guys to wade though
100 million plus items on the web and
attempt to stack a workable library together... that approach has
serious issues...no way too know what to pick in any given category...
none of us could do that beyone one or two of our own narrow
specialties.


the guys in the trades or ME's etc can tell them, but even most ME's
lack the hands on pipe fitting experience to make sensible
choices... ..those are not in the cad developer offices to any great
degree at all...


some companies do better or worse than others, and it seems that
most salesmen...well... they do what salesmen do...if their top end
sales management is short clues and some valuable personal
characteristics... not realizing the liabilities to the buyers at
all. ..those can ruin the companies market share stat.

CAD in the solids range is not like buying a car. its more like
hiring someone who drinks, won't show up to work, eye balls your gold
fish when he is a work .. or whatever and wants to be paid 2x
premium.....

..it can be a problem. These are not engineers as a rule or even in
that business as designers.



SE is pretty hot for what I do at least...ymmv with other functions...
the tactic I see mentioned on the NG would be the smartest move.. get
a live demo doing some difficult thing your own software has issues
with... that carrys some water.... the slick staged demo's? the
NG's views on that, and all the rasberrys turned out to be spot on.


Synch is hot as far as its developed.. it should pay off for me....
depends on how many files it can translate to and be workable on der
other end. I'll be working on the for the next few days.


What I will do re SE Sycnh.. is make my own limited range of valves in
synch, and since I dont use that many different ones, that will only
take me a day or two.... and in synch I can change their dimensions to
suit ANSI standards all from the original drawing, and I can make
those explodable, sectionalbe, or see through, that will look pretty
good... and I cant do that with most library parts I find (any
comments on that issue would be appreciated).... I have to find out
if they will stay that way when I import them into say TurboCAD for
instance. if they will, that will quite nice... if not...well its
still not so bad. If they get all hinkey on me when I move em that
wont be so hot.

btw. I got Carbonite.com back up..it takes 24 hours to back up 2 or
3 gigs, for me that would be 2 months of constant run...so Im having
it back up my CAD output, and some typed documents and pics
only...loosing the ability to back load it if my computer is stolen or
hard drive crashes. Id have to reload my CAD software and a few
others.. at least Id have my hard won libraries and can afford to
store to them in 5 or 6 different formats downloadable to whatever
later. Anyone have any ideas on how buggy that can get?






and I can afford to store them on my hard drive also since its only a
few valves...and as a rule not more than 8 or 10 per drawing, and I
only need 1 or two sectionable with parts inside per drawing....

..I can turn some of those into shells only to save file space.


Not such a bad deal with the SE synch approach for valves. no
library would do that for me regardless, not even IV's absolutely
workd class one...those are all solid no parts inside as far as I
could tell, to make the library size controllable no doubt.


To get their pipe route to work you have to buy their library such as
it is......thats giving me some heattburn.. it would have been nice if
der salesman had mentioned that earlier. its a catch 22.. (I will
keep my mouth shut on der library issues and that strategy, give them
a year, then I might whine.)



Im going to try saving these as assy's and some as just parts and
see how they copy into TurboCAD... if that works, im in pertty good
shape... SE says you can put these into their parts library so their
pipe routing will route them...

looking that over was scary. .. but it would be a sweet set up.


Does anyone have links to JUST an industrial valve library... the kind
you see all over like paint in
a petrro chem, water treatment, or food processing plant? I will
try ACME valve company, and some
others...Id bet those do.






Phil scott

 

Check with the major vendors of fittings & etc.
Many may be able to supply you with libraries of their parts. Check
their Web sites. Supply houses too.
Don't know how this would work with your program & add-ons though.

 

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&...valves+"solid+edge"&btnG=Search&aq=f&oq=&aqi=

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&...alve+library&btnG=Google+Search&aq=f&oq=&aqi=

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&...ping+library&btnG=Google+Search&aq=f&oq=&aqi=

Etc.

 

Tried for a removable hard drive (or other memory)?

 

Get another hard drive exactly the same as yours & make
a mirror copy of yours.

 

thanks Cliff for the superb advice... Im in the middle of trying to
sort out a bunch of thiese
programs, and business strategy... while Im still in the beginiing
stages of doing solids modeling.
..... the blind leading the blond so to speak.

Cloing the hard drive has to be the smartest move...will that allow
all the vendor protected software
to boot back up if I stwitch th the back up hard dirve?...
regardless... that approach for a mega gigs
would work... carbonite wouldnt. I will use carbonite to back up
important files and libraries,
but not my hard drive for that reason,



Phil scott

 

some have ability to download files to various cad systems... incl
SE... not so bad.
most offer just catalogs, no solids.


I will call em on the phone though..Id bet more than a few have a CD
they
send out.


Phil scott

 

I don't suppose BS banquer was of any help.

Should, AFAIK. Might have to mess with the licenses I suppose
but the vendors can help you there, if needed. Some may key to
the unique diskid from the maker but, IIRC, most look at the
unique id of the network card/interface. Best to make a note
of that too I suppose.

Hard drive to hard drive copy can be pretty fast too,
depending on how things are hooked up between them
& controller cards.
And you can store the backup drive offsite or in a safety
deposit box, etc.

If needed to swap later might have to change a drive letter or
somethng but no biggie AFAIK.

 

Even if they just have (accurate) wireframe or IGES you'd be
ahead I suspect.
Unless some standards really are well-suited for parametrics
in which case still better, probably.

Some can make a bit of pocket change by building libraries for
some vendors ....

 

thanks again...

re JB, .... help desk is not his strong point... he is a world class
hoser of those morons with the bogus tutorials and
sucky manuals and buggy / arcane and screwed up software. ..., my kind
of guy...may he keep shining like
the moon over New Orleans during Mardi gras.



Phil scott

 

Nope. It's not as if he has any clues at all.

Actually, most of it works just fine.
But untrained new users .... OR depending
on videos ....

He's been mooning locals again?

There are banquers in the NO area.

 

Your problem Cliff is that you do not understand *true genius... You
know Einstein didnt even
wear socks and couldnt even tie his shoes.. beyond a certain point,
those leave the rest of us
in the dust in complete non comprehension...

err. I gots one hugely expensive program dat can'tsdo a simple
hexagon without having to
draw that baby from scratch. How do I know? I tried, then called
em... er dang.. 'maybe in
the next release'. I could do hexagons in etch a sketch 5 back in
der 80's.

I wouldnt know, those should feel gifted in that case however.

I wouldnt know I was only there a couple of times, eating da gumbo
and hanging out on Bourbon street, and noticing the dead armadillo's
beside the road.


Phil scott

 

Being able to grasp the basics would be a huge start for him.

 

Did you go to www.siemensplmcommunity.com
and search for polygon?
Also here: http://www.geocities.com/segurucool/tiptrick.htm
(may differ; I don't know).

Or "The polygon tool available in the custome folder is now integrated to the
interface " (IF that applies)?

BTW, Looks like SE may have a "Solid Edge Machinery Library" too.

 

I wont say which cad package has this issue..it could be any of 5 im
looking over at this point..
but no... those particular guru's can find it either. maybe in an
update...v97 or something.

it does... I havent been able to fathom those yet... it appears some
idiot
may have mixed ansi and DIN stsandards here and there... it may need
some
debug or maybe not...I are a eginere..... and a cad idiot.



Generally speakiking, I think all vendors make a big mistake not
having specialty libraries
quite complete, but none ONLY fo rthis or that particular
disciipline.

..for instance 6' long x 3" in diameter bridge piling
anchor bolts in the electroninc fittings library...right now most mix
all that up... if its a bolt you
get a huge batch... often missing the ones you need... aame with other
standard parts..

In looking over the issue, its this there are millions of items in the
world, no single library
can have them all, and if they did you couldnt search it, or update as
new items come out etc.

The attempt to provide one large library is not the hot solution, nor
is relying on web site libraries
for the same reason. Say its a gear motor you need. There are
hundreds of thousands of those to
wad through, with only one or two mfgrs making the ONE you need.

none of that works.

what would work is a library for 'Gearmotors used in commerical
conveyor systems'..that would be maybe 50 gear
motors... and way more than slightly useful to a conveyor engineer..
thats all he needs. you could sell that for
50 or 100 bucks.. he'd love that..and you'd gain a much larger user
base for yer software that way, and make
more money becaise he would also buy the 'small to medium size ANSI
NC bolt and nut library, 1/4" to 7/8" for 20 to 50 bucks
and be happy as hell not to have to wade through the usual general
library mess.

In my business Ie buy maybe 5 or 10 specialty libraries for 300 to
500 dollars total... (you hire private guys in that
trade to give you a list of what they use... you dont pick random crap
from some on line library.




the library designer folks are not in that
trade in most cases apparently...so its like yer girlfriend picking
out yer machine tools for you.

doesnt woik.