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RobertH15-Moonstone
15-Moonstone
June 4, 2020
Question

Is there any company in the world that uses the welding module?

  • June 4, 2020
  • 2 replies
  • 5077 views

As the weld module is terrible programmed by PTC (it is slightly improved in Creo 4.0) we have several problems with this module. As it seems that PTC has no priority in improving this module I am interested in if there actually are companies using it. Maybe we can share some findings and give feedback together to PTC hoping it makes more impact.

2 replies

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DavidBigelow17-Peridot
17-Peridot
June 4, 2020

Yes - I know quite a few companies that use this... have not really heard ANY complaints about the module.

 

We also rely on it for cost estimation for manufacturing costs (computing labor and material costs for assemblies) - we Nitro-CELL to extract much of the data needed automatically and merge that with company cost tables in Excel.

 

The Welding Module is pretty slick once you get things figured out.  But throw your ideas in the ideas section and you might get some traction.

 

Dave

 

 

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RobertH15-MoonstoneAuthor
15-Moonstone
June 4, 2020

There are several things that make using it quite annoying. And yes I think after 12,5 years I know how it works.

Some of the things:

  1. It's not possible to flip weld annotations in 3D, only in 2D. So when using MDB it looks ugly (PTC case)
  2. The tail of the annotation stays on even if you turn off the sequence ID and the note (PTC case).
  3. Creating a sold weld is nice because you can use it in Simulate. But when you create welds in a way you also get weld annotations that can be used you ran into the problem that the welds interferere in the corners and therefore simulate can't mesh.
  4. Creating a double weld with unequal lengths gives an incorrect weld length in the annotation. Because it simply sums up the weld length and divide by 2. So a weld which has a length of 50 on one side and 40 on the other gives a weld annotation stating that the weld length is 45 on both sides.(PTC case).
  5. It's not easy to adjust the number of decimal places. Probably something you didn't notice when using ANSI or live in the US but quite annoying when there is 30.000 stated where it could be just 30 (and it also should actually be 30,000 but that's another discussion). To change this by default you have to actually change the weld annotation. And if you have ever tried that you know how hard that is (I've done it) and how much work it is. There is a config.pro opting called weld_dec_places but I cannot find what this setting does.
  6. Updating weld standards is almost impossible.
  7. Default weld settings are not stored
  8. Using a centralized place for your customized weld annotations is not possible.
  9. Adaptive weld annotations should be nice so you doesn't have a weld annotation that has a line that is WAY to long for the text that it uses.

These are some of the things but I have more of this.

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    RobertH15-MoonstoneAuthor
    15-Moonstone
    June 4, 2020

    I think this is a bit of why I asked the question. I have a suspect that the companies that are using the weld module within Creo are not using the "naked" module but using third party software to solve the shortcomings. Because I can't imagine that a big company simply accept these shortcomings in their production.

    This is a bit how PTC works I think, they are buying or creating a module, people are going to use it but shortcomings are solved by a third party. If the third party does the job right and the demand/usage of the module is high enough PTC implement it in their software. But in the mean time I as an engineer have to deal with the shortcomings or need to search for a good third party...

    Patriot_1776
    Patriot_177622-Sapphire II
    22-Sapphire II
    June 4, 2020

    I'm not an expert in it by any stretch, but I played around a little and was ok with it.  I remember having some issues with the mass of the weld not showing up correctly in exploded views, it was like impossible to turn it off so the welds hung out in space.  I even tried using a simplified rep with the weld suppressed and it didn't work.  But, as I said, I'm not an expert and only used it that one time, perhaps I missed a trick.

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    RobertH15-MoonstoneAuthor
    15-Moonstone
    June 4, 2020

    That's also an issue indeed. As far as I know the only workaround that improves it a bit is by hiding the welds...

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