Hi all,
I’m the SolidWorks Administrator (and Design Engineer) for a fairly large design office, we design large industrial machines and use a wide variety of pneumatic and hydraulic fittings in our designs.
I’m currently trying to compile our SolidWorks routing library but it seems like an overly labour intensive task.
If we take pneumatic fittings as an example:
We use a wide range of standard push in fittings (tee fittings, Y fittings, elbows, crosses etc) for a range of pipe sizes and for a range of threaded port sizes.
Why is it that I cannot download an entire library of such models (suitably configured for various pipe/thread sizes) from a big name manufacturer/supplier that are ready to go with routing points?
It seems bizarre to me that I have to down load individual models of fittings and then convert them into routing parts. If one manufacturer was willing to put in the time and effort to create an all singing all dancing library of routing parts then I’d be much more inclined to use their fittings over another manufacturer’s ( I do appreciate there would still be a certain amount of alterations to the parts required-addition of design company specific part numbers for example).
I have received CD’s from suppliers that contain a library of their components, but there’s still a lot of work involved in extracting all of the fittings and adding routing points. And there are no configurations to speak of!!
Maybe I’ve just not looking hard enough and there are such “ready to go” libraries, or maybe the SolidWorks user community isn’t making enough noise about the quality of supplier models.
Am alone in thinking that suppliers should be providing a better modelling service? Or am I just being lazy?
Adrian
That's how it is.
I too looked into getting parts from suppliers only to come to the realisation that in general they all suffer from :
- no configs
- no CP or RP ponits
- details that are needed/valid are not incorporated or are not correctly detailed. Eg.: no or incorrect inner Ø
- details that are solely cosmetic and doesn't do anything for function are incorporated resulting in models that are way to big for what they should depict. E.g.: Every bump en groove, embedded print etc
- models aren't native SW but instead have to be imported and converted and therefor are utter useless in 99%
- if models are native to SW they are build in such a manner that you end up scratching your head and ask: "WHY?" You know; someone starting with a two by four and then extrude cutting it down, in several steps, just to model a rod of 1"½ diameter
In short... if you want something done just as you want it then you'll have to do it yourself. Once in a while you might find a kind soul that offers some of the library they have made by the sweat of their brow but considering that there are so many standards, materials as well as possible suppliers and that routing is only an "add-on" I wouldn't hold my breath to run across something that you can just put into your library.
The good news however is that it isn't that difficult to make your own. Most of the time needed is for figuring out a system, a company standard if you will, to which you want your design table to adhere to.