Does anybody have experience with "CircuitWorks" for SolidWorks

I have got an email from my boss telling me to look at this
CircuitWorks. But does anybody have experience with CircuitWorks for
SolidWorks? It seems "nice" but is it worth using any time on. We are
designing machines which contains (home designed) PCBA's all around
inside, but also in special electronic boxes only containing PCBA's.
We are currently running at SW2007, and are in progress to go into PDM
WE - so is that a problem? (I mean upgradings etc. it seems to be a
"Gold partner product"!?)

MGR

 

We use it here. I don't do the translation, but I can tell you where
it helps:
No measuring boards, mounting hole locations, or height of components
is great for designing.

The file comes in as an assembly, I would suggest saving/converting it
to a part file. especially if you have a PDM system. That way you
don't have to check in hudreds, if not thousands, of PDB components
into your vault.

Look into it. It could be well worth it on time savings.

 

I found that saving the PCA assembly as a part didn't work out very well. I
thought that it would speed up the final assembly to have just one PCA part
to handle instead of a thousand individual parts in the subassembly. It
actually made it considerably slower. Plus I lost over an hour each time I
converted the assembly into a part. It's no big deal to have the added parts
in the PDM system, so I went back to that method.

We use Altium instead of CircuitWorks, but the issue was the way SolidWorks
handled the parts, so it shouldn't make any difference which link you use.

Jerry Steiger

 

on inventor you can save the file, then reboot the computer, then
acciess the component ..it comes in a much smaller file than if you
use it directly for some reason.
you may be having that sort of issue....

you could also possibly copy it as a 'derived' part (inventor term)
means copying over just the aspects you need, not all the details of
every sketch and route map etc... cuts file size by 80% or more... SW
probably has a similar feature..


you can use all derived parts or assy's for a large project..just the
outer shells are calculated.. then in the details use the original
part or assy that you can section etc ..separate sheet. fewer parts
so its not a problem.


Im still looking for reviews on the relative ease and speed of SW vs
inventor pro 2008.




Phil Scott

 

Have a look at Protel. I worked for a company for 3 years, where this
was used. The electrical engineers liked it. It plugs into
solidworks and PDMworks. We used it for design, and also for control
of manufacturing BOM's. Did lots of work with different configs, and
new revision roll-outs. From memory, the check-in procedure was a bit
klunky for Protel native files, but this might be fixed up a bit now.

Dom.

 

I use PCAD for pcb design. and then use "CircuitWorks"
to create a 3D model of the PCB from PCAD.
Works great for me. I have an older version of
"CircuitWorks" and it works OK with the latest version
of Solidworks. But I do need to get the Boss to approve
an upgrade of "CircuitWorks".
If you have any specific questions, let me know.
Cheers
Frank

 

Altium is the new name for Protel.

Jerry Steiger