Experienced with Creo Parametric, new to Schematics

[ptc-4326108]

Hi all. I have finally gotten my reseller to get me a trial of Creo Schematics. I am a one man operation and need to make mechanical designs as well as schematics on occasion. I THOUGHT that having years of Creo / ProE experience, I would find my way around Schematics quite easily and things would be intuitive. BOY WAS I WRONG!

The "tutorials" that PTC offers are pretty much useless. I cant even figure out how to set my working directory let alone figure out how to start a schematic. I also figured that my current drawing formats from parametric could be easily imported in for use in Schematics.... Again not as obvious as I would expect. I am looking for some guidance here as I have only 28 days left to make my decision. I am very close to abandoning PTC all together and moving to Autodesk Inventor. I was able to download and install a trial of Inventor in about an hour and within 15 minutes had an acceptable looking schematic. I have now wasted 2 days with Creo and I am getting nowhere.

[JimBarrettSmith]

Chris

Have you gone through the tutorial on the Creo Schematics Get Started Tab?

If you have then I am concerned that you are still struggling with the basics as:

On Page 8 there are instructions on how to create a new design

On Page 9 there are instructions on how to instance symbols from the library

On Page 10 there are instructions on how to connect the symbols with wires

On Page 12 there are instructions on how to connect the symbols with cables

On Page 15 there are instructions on how to create a report

On Page 23 there are instructions on how to use the design to create a harness in cabling design

On Page 29 there are instructions on how to configure your working directories

On Page 35 there are instructions on how to import template / formats

On Page 41 there are instructions on how to create your own symbols

Please confirm whether you have gone through the tutorial and if you are still struggling then please explain what you are trying to do

thanks, Jim

[ptc-4326108]

Jim,

Thank you for your reply. I have gone through the tutorial. The tutorial is not very helpful to understand PTC's thinking on how work is supposed to flow in the program. Schematics seems so much different from Creo Parametric that I am having much difficulty with simple tasks.

In Parametric, one of the first things you do to start a new design is to select a working directory. This is important for me as I can organize my files on a customer by customer basis. Schematics wants to throw all of the "projects" into the same base directory, unless I am missing something here....

So far, PTC is losing the battle against Autodesk.... I have spent hours now with schematics and still feel less confident with it than I did after 15 minutes in Inventor's schematics module.

[Gaby_K]

Hi Chris,

Creo Schematics has different approach then Creo Parametric; In Creo Parametric you set Working directory and assume that all the files you need are located on this directory, in Creo Schematics you can define for each type of file where will be the default folder for it, for example you can define that your design templates will be located on 'D:\Creo Schematics\templates', designs will be saved by default on 'D:\Customers Data' and reports formats will be 'D:\Reports'.

Assuming you are using Creo Schematics 3.0, in order to set default directories click on File application menu->Options->Directories

In order to manage/organize you designs on customer by customer basis- you can simply change the default Saving design location -> any new created design will use this location.

In addition to above there is new functionality in Creo Schematics 3.0 that allow to save a copy of your design to any location you like.

Regards,

Gaby

[ptc-4326108]

Gaby,

Thank you so much for the response. That reallly clears up the workflow issue. I am using 3.0 and would like to try and give this a test drive before my last 10 days of the trial are up.

Thanks

Chris

[JimBarrettSmith]

Chris

If you are using Creo Schematics 3.0 then the tutorial information I provided is incorrect as it was for Creo Schematics 2.0.

For Creo Schematics 3.0 the information should be as follows.

On Page 8 there are instructions on how to create a new design

On Page 10 there are instructions on how to instance symbols from the library

On Page 11 there are instructions on how to connect the symbols with wires

On Page 12 there are instructions on how to connect the symbols with cables

On Page 15 there are instructions on how to create a report

On Page 19 there are instructions on how to use the design to create a harness in cabling design

There are not instructions on how to configure your working directories - We will add this back in for Creo 4.0

There are not instructions on how to import template / formats - We will add this back in for Creo 4.0

On Page 26 to 37 there are instructions on how to create your own symbols

I am disappointed to hear that you feel the tutorial is not very helpful. It is only with customer feedback can we make improvements to the free training materia. If you would be as kind to provide me with suggestions on how to improve the tutorial then i would really appreciate it.

Thanks, Jim.

[ptc-4326108]

Jim,

Basically as I said my biggest gripe with this is that Schematics work flow is just so much different from Creo. The tutorials are helpful in the sense that they show how to accomplish a simple schematic, place items, etc. This is good probably for a user new to Creo products in general but for me with over 13 years experience with Creo / proE it was difficult to grasp.

I was always under the impression that Schematics was part of the Creo package and could be accessed from inside the main Creo program. Having it a separate stand alone program makes it that much more difficult to grasp.

One other thing that would be nice in a tutorial would be to have one that shows current PTC product users how to interact with designs / drawing formats they have already created in Creo. I dont see why it is necessary to create entirely new formats just for use inside Schematics.

Just for Comparison, Autodesk's Schematics module is accessed right from inside the main Inventor platform. Just as you would access Simulate from Creo. This makes it very easy to jump back and forth between mechanical design and schematic theory very efficiently.

I know PTC has always marketed itself to larger companies where there are dedicated people that may work only with certain modules everyday. This mindset however alienates almost all of the small business designers as we have to have the ability to do everything from inside one software seat without the need to relearn the software in general. I know I am not the only one with this opinion as I have talked to many small scale designers that have left PTC for the same reason. The way PTC handles reselling the separate modules also creates the same problem. PTC really should look into putting better packages together aimed toward smaller guys in the future or they risk losing even more business as well as existing LONG term customers. I have always pulled for ProE and said it was that much better than the competition but it seems in recent years everyone else has closed the gap.

Sorry for the rant and thanks for the info and concern,

Chris

[mescalante]

I too am having problems in understanding how to make a drawing template with our company logo but the tutorial is missing the instructions as mentioned in the earlier thread on page 35.  How can I get the earlier tutorial?