using solidworks

iwaxmyjimmy

iwaxmyjimmy

College Web Wheeler
Joined
Mar 10, 2007
Location
Greenville NC
How many, besides the big name shops use solidworks to design their at home parts for their own rigs? Ive got access to a CNC plasma and press brake through school, and I've thought about drawing up some stuff in solidworks for it. But is there a dedicated site to frame dimension or whatnot? Id love to start making a model of my jeeps frame and "building" the suspension off that just to mess with it.
 
I do. Well, I use it at work often and it bleeds over into things like car parts, house numbers, mailbox mounts, railings, wooden shower floor grates. I don't have a project vehicle at the moment to build stuff for, until our garage is built.

Google "Jeep JK frame dimensions" see what you find (I just tried that). Apparently they're (mostly) in the factory service manual. You'll really only find pickup points and subframe points, and exterior rail dimensions, and will be missing a lot of things like bend radius for the rails. Most of the published stuff is for frame repair and alignment, so it's missing stuff you would need to replicate the frame completely.
 
I've drawn a ton of personal projects up in Solidworks through the years. Using Siemens NX at work now, but only for work purposes of course. I'm not sure where the 90% accurate Siemens NX model of my shop came from, or all the rough size and shape models of my tools and equipment that could be used for laying out said shop.
 
I've been using it to design the Jeep Rod I'm building.
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I used Solidworks in the late 90's. We use Pro-E at my work. I have designed many personal projects using the software. Things from winch mount brackets for my Samurai to my kids swing set addition, LOL.
 
I use Solidworks at work, and outside of work for personal projects on the plasma table and such.
 
I'm looking into a new product on the market. Onshape is a cloud-based CAD software package. It's getting good reviews. It's free for limited use, and only $1200/year for the pro package. What's SW up to now? Anyway, this looks promising for the small-timer who needs something more powerful than Sketchup, but can't justify the expense of SW.
 
catfishblues said:
I'm looking into a new product on the market. Onshape is a cloud-based CAD software package. It's getting good reviews. It's free for limited use, and only $1200/year for the pro package. What's SW up to now? Anyway, this looks promising for the small-timer who needs something more powerful than Sketchup, but can't justify the expense of SW.
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Wait, people actually pay for CAD software...? :D Part of the perks of my job.

SolidWorks is still $4k for a commercial license I think, the yearly maintenance package is only $1300/year I believe.
 
Fabrik8 said:
Wait, people actually pay for CAD software...? :D Part of the perks of my job.

SolidWorks is still $4k for a commercial license I think, the yearly maintenance package is only $1300/year I believe.
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Seems like I had seen purchase prices well into the five-digit range, depending on the package. Maybe that was inventor. I don't know, all of them are out of my budget! We've used Bob-cad in the past, and it works pretty well for a whole lot less, but this Onshape looks very interesting. No initial buy-in, just the $100/mo maintenance. If it's as good as reviews are saying, it could give SW a little competition.
 
Yeah I haven't found jack crap, hell been looking for a SD 60 one so I can come up with my own truss and stuff. But I did get some measurements and I'll be probably redoing my frame from the engine mounts forward. Looking at drawing it up as .120 sheet metal. But I'll have to come up with a jig to weld it all together without warping and what not. I know poison spyder did similar with their crispy build.


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catfishblues said:
I'm looking into a new product on the market. Onshape is a cloud-based CAD software package. It's getting good reviews. It's free for limited use, and only $1200/year for the pro package. What's SW up to now? Anyway, this looks promising for the small-timer who needs something more powerful than Sketchup, but can't justify the expense of SW.
Click to expand...

I use solidworks daily. I have tried onshape and like it, but the sheet metal functions are no where near solidworks. For the guy at home for occasional use it's hard to beat though.
 
Now at what point does it become an issue if you might have borrowed some design ideas from someone here or there?

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Drew up some slider boxes for my k5, now if I can get the dimensions right for the front shackle mount I can locate it off of the rivet holes and cab mount that's right there.
 
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