SE (CE) _ Booged Down Right At Start

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

Ooops! " Bogged"  Down that should be but you can't edit the title!.

'

I've sort of blundered through a couple of Siemens' tutorial exercises, and saved them, without really knowing quite how it worked.

Re-opening one I realised I'd basically forgotten it all after a break of about 3 weeks so went back to the start, with its exercise to draw a slightly stylised micrometer. It asks you to create a rectangular plate first, then build the rest of the instrument around that.

–

I set the settings it wanted: Ordered, then New Part, ISO template.

Drew the required rectangle (the "Base Feature" ) , "By 2 Points", noting no reference to size.

Next, "Select"  it. It should change colour and show a new cursor symbol. So Sayeth The Instructions……

… No joy. Although the little tags on it were all correct, the "rectangle" was not a closed area but 4 separate lines. All attempts to draw a true (closed) rectangular area failed.

It seemed best to close the file and start again but the "Data Management" tab that hides such things was itself hidden. SO I tried brute strength – closing SE by its overall closing 'X'.

Even that failed! SE can be closed only by Task Manager, but luckily I did not want to save anything.

.

I tried again, flitting back and forth between SE itself and its manual (oh for a screen wide enough to display both, side-by-side, not swapping two layers every few seconds!)

Again, very careful stepping, choosing exactly what it told me….. Still no joy.

I think at one point it wanted a right-click move, but this did not work as expected because the image was not correct.

I gave up. Come on Task Manager, we need you again……

….

So just how are you are supposed to learn extremely complicated software when even its introductory exercises do not work to their own instructions?

Edited By Nigel Graham 2 on 12/09/2022 22:03:29

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

[Jim GuthrieParticipant @jimguthrie82658]

Are you sure the tutorial you are using stated to set the software up as "Ordered" as any tutorial information I have found for SE seems to assume that you will be working in "Synchronous"? I actually prefer to work in "Ordered" and I have found it difficult to find useful tutorials for that method so my progress has tended to be trial and error to achieve what I want. This has meant a fair bit of cursing and hair tearing and a fair bit of closing down and starting afresh when I've hit brick walls. But I don't think I've had to go to the length of closing using Task Manager.

Jim.

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

Yes – the tutorial even has a screen-image of it. I know the tool-bars are rather different between the two modes, though.

I am pretty sure of this but next time will look again to see if I've somehow switched it without realising it. It might be worth my writing down what is actually on the screen, since I can't display the drawing and the tutorial pages visibly together. They are both open but one is mainly hidden by the other at any time.

The closing problem might be something to do with some obscure computer setting, not Solid Edge. It does not happen with anything else there.

I suppose it might just be a way to ensure I have closed, if necessary saved, the drawing, but if so I wish it would say so, as most programmes do!

It is curious, but I think that the other tutorials I've seen want the Synchronous mode, so why this one is different, I can't imagine. I wonder what would happen if I try the same exercise in Synchronous? I would though expect all the figure-generating to be the same, surely. (I've still not grasped what Siemens really means by it, but I gather it's connected to how it stores or deletes the different drawing elements as it goes.)

[Jim GuthrieParticipant @jimguthrie82658]

Have you got a URL for the tutorial in question?

Jim.

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

No, I'm afraid not.

I can't find it again!

The company site's summary page includes this chain:

Learn > Help and Tutorials > Tutorials

The micrometer is not in this given set, which lives at:

https://docs.sw.siemens.com/en-US/product/246738425/doc/PL20200701135947994.user_interface/html/xid486886

So I have no idea where they'd hidden the one I was trying, nor how I'd managed to find it, not only this time but previously when I'd stumbled across it but not tried using it.

The first two at least of those exercises use synchronous mode, according to their introductory notes.

Interestingly I have just spotted the contents list on the summary page includes "Exit Solid Edge", suggesting you have to go back to that to close it.

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

Just abandoned another attempt, using one of the exercises in the more obvious tutorials. (Goodness know where I'd found that micrometer, but it was in there somewhere.)

This one is a journal: an angle bracket with a boss and bearing hole at the top, and a broad foot with bolt holes. A later exercise apparently puts two of them on a base to support a simple roller.

It's in Synchronous mode – yes – all set. (I think SE defaults to that for a new drawing.)

This also uses a very different, more comprehensive and more comprehensible tool-bar from the Ordered one mode, so there are clearly major differences between the two modes; for very advanced users. This is what happened:

1) Confusing stuff about two identical-looking plane indicators. It uses the word "co-ordinates" but with no origins or scales, so meaningless there.

2) Draw the 'Base Feature', a rectangle to a given size "By Centre". Where? It does not show its own centre, and lies randomly on the screen, not on a defined origin.

It's also meant to lie flat on the floor (XY plane). Mine was standing on edge (XZ).

3) Something called QuickPick. Oh – will that set the plane in which to draw the object, and let me turn the rectangle flat?. No – it was tricky to use and did nothing.

4) Now it says draw the rectangle. Hang on! I've already done that 'cos it said so! Still, QuickPick apparently said I have selected the correct plane, because its menu had only two entries, "Base" and a mystery symbol, and I had clicked on 'Base'. I deleted that first rectangle and drew a new one. It still stood upright. No obvious way to draw it flat, nor to turn it flat.

5) Gave up.

The XZ plane seems is the default. Whatever Quickpick is meant to do… I can't make it do it. This for just a single, flat rectangle, not the thousands of 3D objects forming each of the Siemens web–site show-offs.

At least Synchronous mode draws a rectangle as a full rectangular area, not as four disconnected lines round empty space, as Ordered mode has it.

It seems no matter how carefully I follow the instructions, nothing does as it says or leads me to expect, it will.

Do such-and-such, it tells me, then "Observe the …." . Yes – I have done such-&-such, very slowly and carefully, and am observing it but even if looks like the tutorial's screen-shot, what am I supposed to see in it?

It's all very disheartening. TurboCAD was hard enough but SE seems even worse, even allowing for they being vastly different in approach and tools. It's also more discouraging to see the pretty pictures that CAD publishers use on their own web-sites to show the software's potential.

[IanTParticipant @iant]

Hello Nigel,

Siemens do seem to have changed the opening 'Learn' link – but you will find the Micrometer here…

Solid Edge – Micrometer

Regards,

IanT

[Jim GuthrieParticipant @jimguthrie82658]

Nigel,

Now that IanT has pointed to the tutorial in question, I now remember it when I was digging around for information when I was starting to learn Solid Edge, and I think I remember that I ignored it because it didn't help me much.

I find that Seimens' own tutorial material can be a bit difficult to use, partly because they seem to have their own glossary of terms which is never laid out anywhere, so you tend to stumble along trying to make intelligent guesses as to what is meant. They also read as though they were written by the people who wrote the software.

I found I got more help from non-Seimens sources and you might want to view a tutorial on Youtube written for students.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xS3V4aVDMwY&t=10s

There is a series of these tutorials but this one is a good starter to take you round the interface and the basics of using the software. You have got the problem that you will need two screens or two computers if you want to work along with the tutorial. I have used a tablet in the past as a second screen.

 

Jim.

Edited By Jim Guthrie on 13/09/2022 20:43:22

Edited By Jim Guthrie on 13/09/2022 20:44:55

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

Thankyou Ian, Jim.

The manuals probably were written by the programmers, but not tested on non-specialists. This seems a common problem with a lot of software and web-sites, as is naming operations by shaking loose words out of a dictionary.

(MS 'Access' was particularly bad for that, making it the hardest and least intuitive software I have tried to learn – and that by an introductory course. It was at work for a laboratory-managing purpose that never actually materialised anyway.)

To be honest I don't think I have the aptitude for learning CAD, of any make, certainly not to any useful level. I seem to take two steps forwards and three back all the time.

I can't learn anything from a video anyway, and YouTube is such a shambles now that I steer clear of it. It used to be good until Google ruined it. I've never seen an instructional video that does not seem like merely an expert demonstrating the subject, instead of something that will help me understand it.

It took me a long time to reach a point with TurboCAD where I could make rather rough 2D drawings sufficient for my own workshop, but that's all. Not 3D models and certainly nothing to help me design complicated things like my steam-lorry. I don't even know how to print them properly, using the tools it intends. I don't see Solid Edge being any easier.

I've reached a point with the lorry where to make the next bits I scribble a few sketches on paper, based on measuring what I've already made… altered, scrapped, re-placed… sometimes a few years after first making them. The only information I have for it are some ancient publicity photographs and a few dimensions, all dating from 1908.

So I don't know. I might take a rest from SE for several days – or weeks – and try again.

[PatJParticipant @patj87806]

Learning 3D modeling can be described as being much like the Wright Brothers and others learning how to fly.

Lots of crashing and burning in the beginning, and for a long time.

Nobody really understood what the rules of aerodynamics were.

3-axis control was not understood.

People stood around and studied birds in flight, which is somewhat of a poor design to copy for human flight.

In the end, the Wright Brothers and later Curtis made it all look relatively simple.

The "crash and burn" period of learning 3D is definitely no fun, and I recall that period vividly when I was trying to learn 3D.

Then I got to the "lock-up" or "blow-up" phase, where the model would either explode into something that was not repairable, or lock up and stop working correctly.

I recall saving a unique file after every step, so that when things hit the wall, I could open the previous model version and try to figure out what happened.

But it is shocking how powerful 3D modeling is once you get the hang of it, just like when you master controlling an aircraft. You can go places with 3D, and the sky becomes the limit to where you can soar.

.

 

Edited By PatJ on 13/09/2022 23:46:48

[Paul RhodesParticipant @paulrhodes20292]

Well put PatJ.

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

Indeed, Paul.

Grasping the basic concepts is key, but if you find them beyond reach you go nowhere.

Siemens' own tutorials do seem, as discussed, written assuming we already know Siemens' CAD-speak. However CAD is really an industrial tool, expected to be taught formally in university or company courses. (The latter, in my case, for what I know of 'Word' and 'Excel', for example.) It's like trying to learn abstract mathematics from a standard text-book: you won't, for the book is meant to support a formal course.

We can't put all the blame on them though.

We still need our own aptitude, as with any academic, practical or even sporting skill. Without that aptitude the CAD tutorials and we are fighting a battle with both sides losing. Crash, burn, sweep up.

.

I do save successful files, and either not save further experiments on them, or use copies. So far I have about three useable exercise drawings saved; but now cannot repeat that tiny success with new ones. (Oddly, I thought the tutorials tell you not to save them!)

My approach with TurboCAD, whose publishers offer no real help, was to generate my own exercises of very simple blocks and cylinders, to see what their relevant tools do. (TC lets you create theoretically-editable solids from extrusions, line-thickness and  library  'primitives'.) Allowing for its very different way of working, I am not sure if this purely-experimental route would work in Solid Edge.

'

The "blow up" phase is very appropriate in TurboCAD! So far I see SE generates a solid in a single manner, an extrusion, with consistent properties. TC's three or four methods have their own, hidden properties and reactions to the editing tools. Use the wrong method – IMSI does not tell you which – and that nice smooth entity you try to move or alter shatters into a many individual surface facets, impossible to re-connect (A bit like SE's 'ordered' rectangles, being only 4 lines.)

.

Pat –

I don't call 3D CAD modelling "shocking" in its power, but I am impressed by what it can do and by the skill of its creators and of those able to use it.

Unfortunately its publicity images create a mystique, with levels impossible to reach for me. Siemens' examples include a turbo-compressor rotor, lots of compound curves in isometric view; and a car engine, a mass of intricate details. These are drawn by the publisher's own staff, but of course they will have been taught CAD properly from the outset, probably at university followed by specific company training, and they work with it all the time. And are able to learn it!

 

Edited By Nigel Graham 2 on 14/09/2022 10:58:41

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