Tastes Great! Less Filling!

Remember those “Tastes Great! Less Filling!” commercials from the 80’s? (Okay, you don’t have to remember, I just gave you a link.)

One of those arguments seem to come out every time I talk with people about the two toolbox options:

They both have their advantages…but which one should you choose?

Today, after talking with several SOLIDWORKS Toolbox specialists (who wouldn’t officially vote one way or the other) I am going out on a limb and recommend “Create Configurations” to all SOLIDWORKS Enterprise users. Yup. I’ve said it. Let the debate cease. Stick a fork in it, it is done.

Though let me add one twist to this method. Create all the configurations you need now rather than having the users create the configs one at a time as needed. If you create them one at a time:

• You’ll end up with many versions of the part in the vault that really have no value
• As these configurations are added, the system has to check out and back in the file -checking in/out a file with thousands of configurations is rather painful.

(click on the thumbnail to see a nifty little trick to quickly create all of the configurations.)

The toolbox gurus do state that an assembly with 1000 fastener files will get the same performance as an assembly with one fastener file that contains a 1000 configurations.

Certainly you only want to create all of these configurations of the fasteners that you typically use. I wouldn’t create the configurations of the strange ones that no one has ever heard of.

I guess the nice thing about this debate is that since so many people like one way or another, you really cannot go wrong with either method.

Remember December is National Engineering Data Specialists month. Do something nice for the Engineering Data Specialists you love.

Standard disclaimer: The views expressed in this blog are those of the author alone and should not be misconstrued as an endorsement of neither 3DVision Technologies nor SolidWorks. The advertisers within this blog entry are strictly that of their own and should not be considered an endorsement of their product’s usage. Standard messaging rates shall apply.