SE (CE) - Any Manuals Available, Please?

Dave -

Thank you the explanation but I am afraid your assumption is wrong. (You're not the first in that respect.)

I had never heard of the 'Cloud' in Internet terms until I looked at Fusion 360, which waffles excitedly about it. I had to ask someone else what it meant; and gained as the only explanation, remote WWW servers.

The IT manager at work laughed at the very idea of our company even considering such external storage.

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Out of curiosity, how might a maximum of 10 files open affect CAD in model-engineering terms? I can envisage maybe a general-arrangement and perhaps two or three sub-assembly drawings open when working on some additional detail part or a modification to to one of the latter; but that's only four or five files, isn't it? Could you bypass the problem by copying the relevant material to the field around the GA, temporarily, so you have their separate existences but reduce the load to just two open files?

(Some of my drawings are like my workshop - and home: an untidy sprawl of sub-assemblies, parts and odd constructions around the main subject. It would probably offend the TurboCAD Users' Forum experts, but that and the "unofficial" ways I need use to copy an assembly or part to a new drawing, or to a paper print, are the ways I know! )

The 10 files isn't a huge problem if you manage them properly. And you can reassign at any time which of your files are the 10 you can edit. Completed jobs can still be viewed even if they're not one of the 10.

The chassis I showed earlier is just one file, with each of the parts within it a separate component. Not doing this would be like storing the manuscript for a book as a separate file for each paragraph.

Cloud or local storage for my own stuff is unimportant. That would change for business use, as some form of local and secured storage would be necessary.

So far, I haven't needed to stump up the cash for a Fusion subscription, but will do so if it becomes useful. I think it's a terrible way to buy anything, and would much prefer a one-off, own it forever deal. And any software that is free to download and is likely to end up costing you at some point.

Edited By Nicholas Wheeler 1 on 22/08/2022 18:56:03

I am not sure I would trust a subscription to any software, suspecting it could be horribly easy to become too expensive, and horribly difficult to end.

I see your point about the files. Storing book paragraphs as their own files would be indeed by silly and wrong, but individual chapter files, appropriate. (A book I co-authored, but typed all myself, was made like that.) Similarly with CAD but depending on the nature of the project, especially if it holds many parts common to other projects.

It would not worry me unduly using the 'Cloud' for storing my drawings. It was more the principle of the thing I objected to, rather than the amusing idea of some rogue state's security services trying to decipher my attempts at a Compound Steam Engine's cylinders. The more serious point might be their existence for criminal hackers trying "jigsaw indentifying" .

Agreed, but you do have to manage them. I'd rather get on with design than worry about opening and closing files to stay within a limit. It happened the project I was doing when the limit dropped was an assembly with 12 open parts, so I felt immediate pain.

Although it's possible in Fusion to put more than one part in a file it goes against the grain. The objection might just me having trouble unlearning rather than logical...

Don't get me wrong I like Fusion very much. It's just SE fits my needs better. Just like Nigel's IT Manager friend, I'm not keen on the cloud. Might be because the Cloud makes IT Managers redundant!

Dave

Redundancy up in the cumulus was not my fellow-employee's worry!

The company could not put anything on t'Net for protection, but even if it had, the IT department would still have been very busy.

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I have just paused to have a look at the down-loaded SE manual.

The first page is a bit daunting but the step-by-step instructions and their diagrams are very clear; making me feel a bit happier about it!

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A curious optical effect:

I don't know if it's because I am used to having the grid on all the time in TurboCAD (it is optional) but starting a drawing apparently floating in space feels slightly unintuitive and uncomfortable.

Yet a manual drawing on plain paper also starts in a white "space". What's the difference? There, I would start with a base-line or the centre-lines to belay the thing to something apparently tangible (like the grid on the screen). Further though, although flat with no depth even in isometric projection, the "thing" is lying on a very tangible hard surface I can feel through the pencil. In CAD, when you order a line 100mm long, you are not making the line. You are telling an intermediary, the computer, to make it.

It's probably the illusion of limitless depth, the isometric angles and the non-tactile nature of screen-based image-making that create this disjointed feeling.

I do not notice it with photographs though, such as in the advertisements to the side of this, even of the Eccentric Engineering tools shown without backgrounds.

I like grids when starting sketches off, but they soon get in the way when the sketch is drawn on a face rather than a plane. Drawing in 2D, one is always in one plane (XY), and the drawing is manipulated to create projections which, by convention, represent planes.

In 3D-CAD, sketches can start in any or all of the planes XY, XZ or YZ and the 3D objects they represent are created by extruding XY in Z, XZ in Y, and YZ in X. In addition, sketches can be drawn on faces that aren't normal to any of the 3 ordinary planes, so 3D-CAD supports an infinite number of planes all at the same time. SE has a 3D sketch tool that allows lines to be drawn in all 3 dimensions at once, not on a plane or face at all. (Other 3D-CAD have similar tools.) In 3D grids can be confusing! I agree at first their absence and lack of pencil feedback creates a disjointed feeling.

Dave

I learned how to extrude basic shapes in 3D modeling, but then I got stuck trying ot figure out how to extrude something that was not on the standard front, top, side planes.

It took me a while to figure out how to insert a plane in the correct place, and then how to rotate it to where I needed it.

That was a quantum leap in ability once I figured out the plane thing.

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" I have just paused to have a look at the down-loaded SE manual.

The first page is a bit daunting but the step-by-step instructions and their diagrams are very clear; making me feel a bit happier about it! "

Congratulations Nigel,

Your Solid Edge Manual 'Quest' seems to have finally succeded!

Keep on questing and I'm sure you will have further sucesses!

Regards,

IanT

Thank you!

Yes, found it! Not ever so easy to find because the web-site was rather blinding me with science.

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I spent a while today making a printed version of the manual's Contents list to use alongside the full document on the screen.

I could probably have just printed the pages directly, but instead compressed a copy by 'Word' and 'Excel' to a two-page spreadsheet document, without all those long lines of dots.

I had done similarly with TurboCAD but going much further, creating a true alphabetical index, using the MoD-style 'noun-adjective-adjective' convention. SE's Contents page is a lot simpler and more obvious to follow; and in my copy I highlighted the "chapter" headings to aid searching.

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Then tried the initial exercise, sketching a T-shaped two-dimensional plate with a hole in it. It suggests not saving it afterwards but I did, having added a second hole for luck; so I can play around with it further if I want.

As I did but not saving the changes; rather vaguely extruding it and trying to dimension that - with odd results. I had found the dimensions are active and associative but also that unless you handle them correctly they act on each other in unexpected ways. I've not reached as far as using them correctly! I think it's something to do with which datum line or face they count.

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One thing I did too, was browse through the further sections to see if I could twig this "synchronous / ordered' thing; since we are told to use the former, default, mode without explanation right from the start.

Syn chronos means "[at the] same time", moving or timing "together" .

Hence my original thought of facilitating networking and simultaneous file up-dating. SolidEdge might have such features, but under other names.

Then perhaps a drawing tool that allows entities related numerically to be modified or moved together with just one of them. E.g. change a regular polygon's size and its inscribing or circumscribing circle automatically follows; and vice-versa. Or when designing gear-trains, changing the pitch-circle automatically changes the accompanying circles to match. Even more versatile if you could also enter the linking information to suit specific tasks. (Does SE have a polygon tool other than squares?)

No....

Something to do with drawing solids. And I was none the wiser.

This is not something dragged over from TurboCAD because that does not use them. Rather, it's the way Siemens has used the word that is confusing because it seems to bear no relation to its real, "same time" meaning.

Typing "solid edge synchronous mode" into a search engine brought this up as the top result - " Solid Edge synchronous technology allows you to rapidly create new concept designs, easily respond to change requests, and make simultaneous updates to multiple parts within an assembly. "

So I guess they are using it to mean simultaneously.

Rob

Your enthusiasm in persevering with Solid Edge gave me the incentive to try it again. It isn't an easy programme to get to grips with, especially after using a simple CAD programme like Designspark. But after about 15 minutes I had drawn half a model engine conrod, added draft to relevent edges and fillets to others. I then went a step further and hollowed it out, a resin 3D print can consume a lot of resin. There are parts of the programme I find awkward, but that is more likely to be me. I exported an STL of the conrod and it loaded fine in my slicer software.

Is the link for the text files in this posting? I might start spending more time with the programme.

Hi Lee,

I think Nigel is referring to this set of Siemens self-paced learning courses - which covers a lot of useful ground.

Solid Edge - Self Paced Learning

If you select a course, you will find that for most of them, Siemens has provided a PDF of the course material, as well as Powerpoint slides and 'Activity' data. The production quality is excellent. However, the 'content' PDF is effectively a pretty good manual on that topic in it's own right (and is indexed) - so has dual use in my view.

Have a look at the 'Sketching' course content PDF to begin with...

Regards,

IanT

Grindstone -

Aha! The problem is that when you start trying to learn SolidEdge it says only you "need" use Synchronous mode without explaining it or why, then later ties it and 'Ordered' in with modelling solid objects.

No mention of multiple files though I noticed the templates menu defines many as "part" files. It's curious that you discovered that facility only by an individual search external to SE's own site.

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Lee, IanT -

Yes, I have now found Siemens' introductory, pdf, based manual; thankyou. It is not immediately obvious because the web-site tends to deter you with jargon making you think it's only for people with considerable CAD experience, perhaps moving to Solid-x from another make.

The manual is well over 1000 pages long, including exercises and much white space; but its Contents list is concise and explanatory enough for navigation.

My 'Excel' edition of the 'Contents' takes just 2 A4 sides, and I don't need prepare an alphabetical-index version as I did with TurboCAD's far more tortuous guide. It creates a print as simply a read-access physical aid not strictly necessary, to searching the digital manual itself.

TC's on-line guide is not an introductory manual but a full commands glossary; and I needed re-write its original, long, tangled 'Contents' list for clarity.

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Polygons....

I'd wondered "aloud" in my previous post about a polygon tool.

I recalled later that SE has a command-search tool, and that obligingly produced a very neat polygon-creator indeed. I tried it, and I like it offering size by mid-point (across-flats radius) or vertex; and angular alignment. That radius option immediately facilitates for example linking a polygon to its related circle, like a square or hexagonal section on a shaft of close across-corners diameter.

(I know the workshop formula for relating a square section of side S to round: Diameter = (sq.rt 2)S. I'd have to look up that for a hexagon.)

Thanks IanT and Nigel, I will check out the link later. I have two 3D printed sprues to sand smooth!

Lee

Don't get hung up on Ordered versus Synchronous. With few exceptions it's more convenient to work synchronous mode, with Ordered in reserve if necessary. So ignore Ordered for time being.

Here's an example to show the difference. The example is a cube with a hole in it, where I decide later to move the hole and alter its diameter.

FreeCAD and most other 3D-CAD packages are Ordered.

Step one is to 2D Sketch and dimension a square with a circle representing the hole.

The sketch is then extrude by 20mm to create the holed cube:

I realise the hole is too small and should be off-centre. In Ordered (aka History), this is done by editing the original sketch:

The extrude is automatically re-applied when the sketch is saved:

So in Ordered Mode, models are a stack of sketches each building on previous work. All the sketches are retained within the time-line and can be edited to alter the model, in my example by moving the hole. Below the cubeModel model consists, in order, of a Body, which has an origin, containing a Pad (Extrude), which depends on a Sketch

Solid Edge has a Synchronous Mode as well. In synchronous mode, sketches are used to start the model, but thereafter the model is modified directly, and the sketches become redundant.

Step one is identical to Ordered Mode. A sketch is drawn and dimensioned:

And the sketch is extruded in exactly the same way:

The difference between ordered and synchronous appears when a synchronous cube is changed. The hole is changed directly on the model, not by editing the sketch. Pointing and clicking on the hole activates a wheel tool that can reposition the hole:

The hole can be dragged and rotated, here dragged:

Note that in synchronous mode, the part breakdown (list left) is a Protrusion (the holed cube) that doesn't depend on a sketch, and there's a container of Used Sketches. Changing the model in 3D invalidated the 2D sketch, so SE archived it. It soon becomes impossible in Synchronous mode to change the model by altering sketches. Synchronous models don't have a sketch history, so the model is changed by moving forward rather than going back to an earlier state.

In practice changing the model directly rather than editing sketches works well, but there are times when Ordered mode does a better job. Solid Edge models can be Ordered, Synchronous or a mix of both. Everything I've needed to do so far has been achieved comfortably in Synchronous mode - it works.

In short, ordered mode depends on 2D sketches, which remain important throughout, whilst synchronous mode only uses 2D sketches to start the ball rolling and then drops them.

Dave

Edited By SillyOldDuffer on 24/08/2022 16:47:48

Ah, I see!

Thank you Dave!

The manual does not explain it as clearly as you have, though perhaps following their instructions reveals the secret eventually. They do say you can mix the two modes in one drawing but I feel that at a beginner's stage it's probably safest to use only the default synchronous mode used by the exercises.

If you wanted to produce similar objects later, using all-synchronous mode, could you save the starting 2D sketches as drawings in their own right, in their own files, and open them to "Save As" then modify as needed for the later drawings ? (With meaningful file-names to help retrieving them. A large sketch library might need a 'Word' or 'Excel' index in the same folder.)

I was surprised to find that extruding the 2D sketch works (to use your example) both the square and the circle together to make a cube with a hole through it. I met that yesterday, experimenting as the instructions suggest with the first exercise's sketch, and working a little further ahead.

I assume it's because the system extrudes the area between closed boundaries, rather than extending separate boundaries individually. Reading about extrusions further, and looking at the '+/-' sign on the tool's menu, I see you cut out material by extruding the removed shape back into the surroundings from the surface, so a the subtraction is semi-automatic. So presumably the Hole tool is a dedicated version of that routine, to facilitate one of the most common moves.

. . .

Alibre thinks I'm still here. I received out of the blue today, an e-mail promotion from it!

I didn't like synchronous mode when I first tried Solid Edge. But now I've heard it described in that way I realise that it's very close to the way Designspark works. I think in other systems it might be called direct modelling. Now that I have used Dspark for so long I might actually get along with synchronous mode in Solid Edge!

"If you wanted to produce similar objects later, using all-synchronous mode, could you save the starting 2D sketches as drawings in their own right, in their own files, and open them to "Save As" then modify as needed for the later drawings ? (With meaningful file-names to help retrieving them. A large sketch library might need a 'Word' or 'Excel' index in the same folder.)"

Or just regularly 'save as' your part/assembly (with a simple version no.) to keep track of progress. I don't do this so often now but it was very useful at first when my confidence was low. It's very quick/simple to do...

Regards,

IanT

Good point Ian - it's normal anyway of course to keep files saved every so often, but I'd in mind a store of starting-points for other work of basically similar type.

Similar for later is best done with 3D models rather than saving sketches, which is just as well because I don't know of a way of saving them meaningfully! Instead libraries of 3d parts can be created, and a number of hardware vendors allow parts to be downloaded in CAD form from their online catalogues - there's no need to design your own standard parts like hinges or nuts and bolts. See this example. With luck, a CAD assembly consists of existing parts more like Meccano than 2D drawing and metalwork.

Yes, extruding +/- from closed boundaries, which SE identifes by shading them. The wheel tool works on faces too, allowing objects to be stretched or squeezed, at an angle if necessary. I find SE's automatic extrude/cut unreliable - might be doing it wrong.

Holes made by a sketch can be any shape, such as a hexagon. The hole tool does round holes only, but can add counter-sinks, threads, and the angled bottoms left by a twist drill etc. I usually make holes by sketching but the Hole tool is very useful for countersunk or counterbored holes.

Dave