Solidworks Maker - Any questions?

[BaitMaster]

@PeterT wanted a discussion geared towards Solidworks Maker, which I've been using for 1.3 years now, with good success.....

If anyone has any questions about specific features, or does/doesn't I can try to answer.

Overall impression: Better then fusion (free version) for what I do with it.

Fire away below.

 

[PeterT]

- do you have prior SW experience to reference distinction between Maker & a conventional SW seat?

- I've heard that certain file formats are turned off by design, specifically the standard formats where you could export parts for say CNC machining. What about 3D-printer formats? Or a 2D outline from a 3D part (for laser/waterjet cutting).

- what does the obligatory watermark on drawings look like?

- are there any other limitations to drawing capabilities that you encountered or came up in the fine print?

- I heard all the executables are installed local on your PC. And so are (part/assembly) files. But I thought I read somewhere that 'saving' files actually does a handshake with the Mothership & that is there way of validating the Maker version under your name. This may be discombobulated because its usually where 'cloud' & 'collaboration' buzzwords come from. I just want to understand if you are just doing your own thing, is it a local save (only) from what you can tell?

- maybe related to above, what happens if you don't renew your subscription for whatever reason, are your files locked? Permanently or accessible again if you pay again?

- are there any part count/size / assembly limitations imposed by being Maker vs regular seat? (I'm not taking hardware limitations, just the app itself)

- any other limitations or water down vs regular SW (configurations, design tables, equation driven dimensions...)

- if you click F1 help on a menu or command item or whatever, does it launch to SW space for documentation?

- does it install to the current year version, or is it more like MS-Office-365 perpetually updating behind the scenes?

 

[Doggggboy]

Tough crowd

 

[BaitMaster]

- do you have prior SW experience to reference distinction between Maker & a conventional SW seat?

- I've heard that certain file formats are turned off by design, specifically the standard formats where you could export parts for say CNC machining. What about 3D-printer formats? Or a 2D outline from a 3D part (for laser/waterjet cutting).

- what does the obligatory watermark on drawings look like?

- are there any other limitations to drawing capabilities that you encountered or came up in the fine print?

- I heard all the executables are installed local on your PC. And so are (part/assembly) files. But I thought I read somewhere that 'saving' files actually does a handshake with the Mothership & that is there way of validating the Maker version under your name. This may be discombobulated because its usually where 'cloud' & 'collaboration' buzzwords come from. I just want to understand if you are just doing your own thing, is it a local save (only) from what you can tell?

- maybe related to above, what happens if you don't renew your subscription for whatever reason, are your files locked? Permanently or accessible again if you pay again?

- are there any part count/size / assembly limitations imposed by being Maker vs regular seat? (I'm not taking hardware limitations, just the app itself)

- any other limitations or water down vs regular SW (configurations, design tables, equation driven dimensions...)

- if you click F1 help on a menu or command item or whatever, does it launch to SW space for documentation?

- does it install to the current year version, or is it more like MS-Office-365 perpetually updating behind the scenes?

I’ll do my best.

-no prior sw experience. No frame of reference other then fusion, onshape, freecad, qcad and electrical specific drawing software ie. Electra, Skycad, Kicad.

- I’ve had 0 problems exporting STL, STEP, and DXF. No limitations with other programs noticed.

- I’ve never produced 2d drawings for printing. I’ve also never noticed a watermark.

- No limitations noticed, for what I do, which is not full wizard level by any stretch. Definitely less limited then fusion.

- you can choose a local save only, a cloud save only, or both. There are hard copies of the files on my computer, when I choose to have them there. Every once in awhile you have to log back in, and I think it does handshake with the mothership.

- I haven’t not renewed my subscription yet so I don’t know. The STEP and STL and DXF files I have exported are accessible to any other program so I imagine that I could edit them with different software. I think the SLDPRT and Assembly files would be accessible again if you renewed.

- I haven’t run into any part count or size limitations, but the biggest assembly I’ve done has been about 20 parts.

- I don’t know. Describe to me how to test those specific features like you are explaining it to a redneck and I’ll try to figure it out and test it for you when I have a sec.

- I’ll try the F1 thing tomorrow. I don’t know. I’ve just figured out what I know about it by trial and error and perseverance and have managed to do everything I’ve needed to. A help trick would be sweet haha.

- it tells you when there’s updates and some you can skip and choose not to install, and some it makes you install. So a mix between the two.


Hope all that helps. I’m definitely not P. Eng. level CAD user here. But I try my best.

 

[PeterT]

Awesome, thanks so much for your replies. This certainly makes things looks better than I was lead to believe. Or maybe they have been listening & altering since rollout, not sure. I think part of the issue stems from people who were new to CAD and/or new to SW and even to some degree, SW themselves kind of flashing certain things leaving other issues unaddressed.

Well if you have any questions about SW I'm happy to help with whatever I might know, so feel free. One good thing about SW is its been around for quite a well, reasonably stable & lots of learning resources. I've heard rumblings that Maker will sooner or later replace all the prior discount versions - Educational, Military, EAA... Now whether it stays at this price or other conditions change who knows. I hope not. What I am chafed about is Maker comes with 3D Sculptor and a regular seat does not. WTF.

 

[Upnorth]

Awesome, thanks so much for your replies. This certainly makes things looks better than I was lead to believe. Or maybe they have been listening & altering since rollout, not sure. I think part of the issue stems from people who were new to CAD and/or new to SW and even to some degree, SW themselves kind of flashing certain things leaving other issues unaddressed.

Well if you have any questions about SW I'm happy to help with whatever I might know, so feel free. One good thing about SW is its been around for quite a well, reasonably stable & lots of learning resources. I've heard rumblings that Maker will sooner or later replace all the prior discount versions - Educational, Military, EAA... Now whether it stays at this price or other conditions change who knows. I hope not. What I am chafed about is Maker comes with 3D Sculptor and a regular seat does not. WTF.

I have a question about solidworks. What is the cost of a seat with a CAM module in Canada? Is there a yearly maintenance fee. Is it standalone software or does it need an internet connection to function like Fusion does?

 

[BaitMaster]

@PeterT Explain to me the configurations, design tables, and equation driven dimensions you were speaking of. I’ll see if they work in maker.

 

[DmechDesign]

I have a question about solidworks. What is the cost of a seat with a CAM module in Canada? Is there a yearly maintenance fee. Is it standalone software or does it need an internet connection to function like Fusion does?

Around $7000 for solidworks professional (there is standard, professorial, and premium options available).
Last year maintenance was around $2000.
If you do not pay maintenance fees each year then your pro or premium gets bumped down to standard the next year.

Professional came with basic cam, but its not the most intuitive, I have not really given it much time though.
It can run offline, saving to a local drive

 

[Upnorth]

Around $7000 for solidworks professional (there is standard, professorial, and premium options available).
Last year maintenance was around $2000.
If you do not pay maintenance fees each year then your pro or premium gets bumped down to standard the next year.

Professional came with basic cam, but its not the most intuitive, I have not really given it much time though.
It can run offline, saving to a local drive

I'm actually a bit surprised it is that cheap. For some reason I was expecting it to be double that. Some times I think it would be good to have stand alone software.

 

[PeterT]

Explain to me the configurations, design tables, and equation driven dimensions you were speaking of. I’ll see if they work in maker.

I'll try to find some meaningful YouTube resources that will do a better job of explaining, but but here is a real basic intro:

Configurations are combinations of features that you can add, subtract, turn on/off or modify permutations of features, dimensions, material type, color.... pretty much anything to existing parts & assemblies. Here I have my basic default configuration toggled on (green check). Then I made a new configuration called 'fillet major' where I added dimensioned fillets. If I revert back to Default, you can see the fillet feature becomes suppressed in the tree because it only belongs to config fillet major. This can go on & on, deeper & deeper. Maybe another configuration only a left hole, maybe the vertical ears are longer, maybe different fillet radii, maybe steel not aluminum.... And they can be hierarchical, maybe 3 sub-configurations occur under the fillet version & 4 sub-configurations under a different level. Configurations can be thought of as different or unique parts but related to their cousins. The power is you can choose or specify them independently anywhere downstream, standalone parts, within assemblies, drawings... etc.



Design Tables are basically like a matrix that allows you to specify parameters. So say you had a box with 3 dimensions. You could use that as a basis to drive 10 different sized boxes with different LxWxH dimensions. Its kind of related to configurations but the difference is you are specifying parameters & then SW builds configured models according to those parameters. Here I downloaded a bolt, used the design table wizard, figured out where the length dimension was & made myself a suite of graduated fasteners by copying the rows & entering length from bolt catalog. The wizard fires up Excel (must be installed) populates the columns with dimension names. You can omit any columns that remain the same for clarity.


Equation driven dimensions I'll have to find something but here is simple descriptive example for now. Using the box analogy, say my first design iteration is LxWxH = 2x4x7. It makes a nice box. But my requirement is H must always be 3.5 x L. So rather than specify H=7 s a number, I write an equation within the H dimension box (=3.5*L). This can get as complex as you like using constants, allowance, interdependencies of other variables, most math/trig functions... There is a good YouTube video where a gear is fully defined with equation driven dimensions by ony specifying a handful of required parameters.

 

[BaitMaster]

Ok thank you sir.

So pressing F1 Takes me to this help page online. I didn't know about this but it looks super duper handy. Thanks.

So theres the unanswered question #1.


There's the tab showing configuration management. I don't know how to use it yet but I clicked around and everything is clickable and workable and doesn't seem to be limited in any sort of functionality compared to your above writing.

Hopefully question 2 answered.



Here we have the item showing the equations tab.... with the equation manager open.

Again, I don't know how to properly use this thing but does appear to exist and work.


Hopefully that helps haha. I will have to learn how to use these new features you have made me aware of now.

I will try to test more if you want to know more.

 

[PeterT]

Not sure if your local library supports it but ours in Calgary allows access to LinkedIn Learning (formerly Lynda.com). There is a whack of e-courses there but they have a pretty good selection of SW (and F360 for that matter). You go through the library portal but bottom line is unlimited access to what is probably 400$/y subscription. Good deal for a $10 lifetime library card or whatever it was back in the day. There are some decent YouTube channels too, but maybe a bit less structured in terms of know this before you advance to that. You can for sure pick up tricks & techniques watching someone building a model, but it can also be a longer A-Z path than learning concepts in a more graduated building block manner. Looks like you are pretty familiar with the landscape so use whatever works.

 

[PeterT]

I think I somehow neglected to bring up one of the most important topics that slipped my mind. What are the common/best file 3D export formats for importing into 3D printer apps - and does SW Maker support that? @BaitMaster mentioned STEP & STL are exportable, but are they acceptable to 3DP, or are there other more preferred formats? If I understand the workflow, dedicated 3DP app imports the 'part' file in a preferred format, then takes over with settings & slicer stuff which then feeds the printer? Something like that?

 

[Johnwa]

Now, I’m on year 2 of Solidworks Maker with no regrets.

My quick read of the SWmaker restrictions is that any files created could only be opened in SWmaker and would not work with regular SW. I didn’t see whether SWmaker would opened an SW file or not. Have you tried opening an SW file?

 

[Johnwa]

I think I somehow neglected to bring up one of the most important topics that slipped my mind. What are the common/best file 3D export formats for importing into 3D printer apps -

I think the most common one is stl. There are a couple of other types obj and amf. I’ve only used stl, I don’t know if the other formats have any advantages or not.

 

[PeterT]

If someone wants to send me a part file created in SWM (maker), I will test if I can open in regular SW. And test the reverse for that matter.
My question is why is this of interest? If the consensus that SWM can export to a suitable format for 3D printing (STL?) then why the SW workaround?
I thought I read somewhere SWM & SW basically don't talk to one another & that kind of makes some sense if they are trying to limit SWM to home/non-commercial use. But I cant think of anything more 'home' based than 3D printing.

 

[Johnwa]

@PeterT stl files are an approximation of a solid body using lots and lots of triangles. They aren’t really editable if you want changes. If you are working with someone else’s model it’s far easier if you have the original CAD. I’ve seen SW models shared, that’s what prompted my post.

 

[Janger]

Tough crowd

We all want better products for free.

 

[Janger]

I buy fusion annually ($700ish) and it goes up every year. It’s the cheapest CAM solution I’m aware of. The free version does do cam with some restrictions. No rapid moves and no tool changer support. That separates the hobbyist from the professional. I’m a hobbyist playing in pro space. So does SWmaker have CAM?

 

[PeterT]

@PeterT stl files are an approximation of a solid body using lots and lots of triangles. They aren’t really editable if you want changes. If you are working with someone else’s model it’s far easier if you have the original CAD. I’ve seen SW models shared, that’s what prompted my post.

I think I see where you are going now. Yes best is having the the original CAD file from which you can import & create your own mesh format for 3DP because (my understanding) you can then control resolution & other factors. So if SWM can import SW part you are home free with SWM. They make such a big deal out of collaboration, I'd be surprised if you couldn't share between SWM to SWM if that's how it was created.

Next best is importing the mesh file into SW for editing & manipulation, still not a problem for SW & thus I suspect also SWM. I don't do a lot of this but have tested & I know the mesh file I used came from a completely different 3D CAD program. Basically SW turns them into mini faceted surfaces but SW has rich & powerful surfacing commands to either utilize, modify or recreate what you've imported. I wouldn't call this straightforward, but it is do-able. Actually, SWM might have a leg up because it includes 3D Sculptor which is more like a free form surfacing manipulator.

Depending on complexity, it might be one of those workflows whereby your imported mesh just acts as a guide for you to create your own (kind of like a background jpeg is a guide to create a 3D part as a background image with scale reference). IOW, you may easily recognize that this mesh surface is a rectangle, so just recreate a rectangle. A few coordinates inside CAD fully define it as such, you don't need 1200 interconnected facets which chews up memory & is arguably less accurate. But when you are doing what I loosely call 'creature modelling', that's when recreating 'original art' becomes complex & troublesome depending on what you are doing. Shelling a mesh solid yo make it hollow, or lopping off a section, or re-scaling... no problem. But tugging & squeezing detailed features equals more effort. But that's a general CAD concept, not a limitation to any particular CAD modeler.