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  • MACH4 2:27 am on April 7, 2010 Permalink | Log in to leave a Comment
    Tags: drawing   

    Plotting problems using SW (or acad) to HP Designjet750c+ 

    Hi all, sorry for the off topic post.

    Sure its a driver issue, yet there used to be hdi drivers around for acad, wondered if the same exists in Solidworks?

    So not a 100% sw question but their must be plenty of us using large format roll plotters. Can print all the standard paper sizes up to A0, but I now have a 3ft x 10ft plot at 1:1 scale and no obvious way to do it!

    36″ roll paper, 150ft long and I’m reduced to max plot size of A0 sections?

    Any help etc, appreciated.

    Tried Using SW2007 and 2010

     

    • CBL 6:35 am on April 7, 2010 Permalink

      This would be printer driver issue. As far as I know, SW will only use whatever printer capabilities are available.

    • Brian 8:06 am on April 7, 2010 Permalink

      You have to set up a custom sheet size in the plotter options.

      It’s been a while since I’ve messed with it and I don’t currently have access to one, so I can’t tell you exactly how to do it…sorry.

    • MACH4 12:59 pm on April 7, 2010 Permalink

      Well obviously have searched the net in vain on this. HP does several drivers and have tried them all!

      There is something out there that says system drivers will only print a max plot size of something like 48″, I’ve managed to plot an oversize A0 at about 1 meter. That seems to be the limit. To get longer plots a non system driver is needed, hence I thought that sw would have supplied some!

      In SW2010 drawing you can create a custom page but the system printer driver won’t follow suit!

      Yet any printers shop will copy some plans for you and print them off a roll on a similar machine, so there must be a solution to this somewhere.

      Just out of interest I have done a printer memory upgrade, Post script rom upgrade and it is a network printer.

    • Brian 1:47 pm on April 7, 2010 Permalink

      I have printed 15-foot long J-size prints on an old HP DesignJet 650C out of SolidWorks and Autodesk Inventor. You just have to create the sheet size in the plotter options to do it…

    • MACH4 2:35 am on April 8, 2010 Permalink

      Thanks Brian,

      Guess what? No J size available of the 750c driver. Have just contacted HP about this!

      In the meantime any other peoples experiences with this problem and how they overcame it would be interesting!

    • Brian 8:00 am on April 8, 2010 Permalink

      Yes, there is no standard J size setting; it is a roll size drawing. A J-size drawing can be any length between 55″ and 176″, in multiples of 11″…

      Again, you have to create a _custom_page_size_ in the plotter options with the sheet size you wish to print to – there is no default setting for this…

    • MACH4 2:21 pm on April 11, 2010 Permalink

      Just to let you know that I finally sorted this!

      Having searched out endless drivers, manage to find one that works ok!

  • cadgemini 2:55 pm on February 20, 2009 Permalink | Log in to leave a Comment
    Tags: drawing, virtual sharps   

    I am working in 2008 and my virtual sharps have a thick line font and seem abnormally large for the scale of the drawing. How do I control the size of these?

     

    • Chris Serran 4:18 pm on February 20, 2009 Permalink

      The thickness of the sharp seems to be based on whatever the line thickness is set to.
      Open the Line Format toolbar and change the line thickness to a different setting and then insert your sharp.
      See if that does anything.

    • cadgemini 4:24 pm on February 20, 2009 Permalink

      Line Thickness of what type of line? Most of them are set to thin.

    • MarkKaiser 5:28 am on February 23, 2009 Permalink

      You’re in tools>options>doc properties correct? Chris is talking about the line thickness set from the line format toolbar in the graphics area. Go to view>toolbars, and turn on the line format toolbar and check the thickness set there. Do you get a thick line just sketching a line in the drawing also? I think this is controlled by the line format toolbar setting also.

    • Chris Serran 8:01 am on February 23, 2009 Permalink

      I haven’t been able to find any setting in Document Properties, only through the setting in the Line Format toolbar.
      You can also right click in the Command Manager area and select “Line Format” to open the toolbar.

    • cadgemini 4:37 pm on February 23, 2009 Permalink

      Thanks guys it was the line format toolbar. I will have to update the templates to have this set properly.

  • Doug 1:21 am on February 18, 2009 Permalink | Log in to leave a Comment
    Tags: drawing, Sheet names   

    Hi all

    As you add drawings to a drawing document SW increments the sheet number by one each time. What I would like to know: is there a way to change the sheet name automatically by referencing information from that drawing sheet. Eg Prt number or something?

     

    • MarkKaiser 6:52 am on February 18, 2009 Permalink

      You might be able to do this with custom properties, then enter the code for the custom property in the sheet name. I don’t use custom props, so you’ll have to research this.

      I do link a sheet entity to the sheet name, reverse of what you’re asking. I rename the sheet to what I want the drawing name to be, then I have the drawing name text linked to this, so I don’t have to type the drawing number on both the sheet tab at the bottom of the screen and in the title block. Just type it in the sheet tab, then this populates the drawing name in the title block.

    • Alan 9:56 am on February 18, 2009 Permalink

      Mark is correct, you can set up custom properties and link them in your sheet, or you can delete the link in your sheet altogether and type in what you want it to be. SolidWorker.com has a video tutorial on sheet formatting that you may find useful

    • MarkKaiser 11:09 am on February 18, 2009 Permalink

      Doug’s trying to get to the sheet name though, sheet notes/annotations/title block are easy to link, I’ve never tried linking the sheet name.

    • Doug 1:28 pm on February 18, 2009 Permalink

      So far it seems, what I want is not yet possible. The problem I am having is when I have a number of drawing sheets representing a number of part, all I have on file is the file name of the drw file. Outside of a data base when I open the prt I don’t know where the part drawing is. I want to cross link them in a outside database but the drw sheet will ref to both the part number and prt file and drawing sheet. Boy this is impossible to explain.

    • MarkKaiser 1:45 pm on February 18, 2009 Permalink

      So your problem is having multiple parts in a drawing and not knowing what drawing cad file the part is in?

      Part of your last comment was ‘when I open the part I don’t know where the part drawing is’. If you right click on an open part (the body in the graphics area) or right click on the part icon at the top of the feature manager tree, ‘open drawing’ will be on the menu. Also, if you’re on a version of SW that includes SW Explorer, you can open the part file in SW Explorer and have it do a where used for you to find the drawings.

    • CBL 5:13 pm on February 18, 2009 Permalink

      I guess I’m not seeing the problem.

      Does your part number not match the drawing and sheet number?

      If the drawing number is 12345 and has multiple sheets, each sheet could contain part number 12345-1, 12345-2, 12345-3, etc.

    • Doug 4:28 am on February 19, 2009 Permalink

      Hold On. I am going to try to set up a sample look

  • MarkKaiser 2:04 pm on February 3, 2009 Permalink | Log in to leave a Comment
    Tags: balloon, drawing   

    I have a balloon with two leaders to two identical items. Is there any way to delete one of the leaders without deleting the entire balloon and both leaders? SW 2009.

     

    • cbergman 2:09 pm on February 3, 2009 Permalink

      I am using SW2008 and if you select the leader end point and hit the delete key it will only delete the selected leader. You have to select the leader and not the balloon.

    • Rich Hall 2:32 pm on February 3, 2009 Permalink

      Mark,
      Cbergman has it correct for all versions of SW (as far as I know)

    • MarkKaiser 2:59 pm on February 3, 2009 Permalink

      Thanks guys, I wasn’t exactly on that little endpoint of the arrow before, it’d be nice if you didn’t have to be so precise, but, just a minor annoyance.

  • RodUding 5:33 am on January 14, 2009 Permalink | Log in to leave a Comment
    Tags: , drawing, image   

    I am having issues with PNG image in my drawings. I have the company logo as a PNG image in the sheet format for all of our drawing templates. When I create a new drawing, the logo shows up. After I save the drawing and open it later, the image is not displayed. However, if I edit the sheet format, I can click the area where the image is supposed to be and I get the property manager for it and the outline shows up onscreen. Any clues as to what is going on here?

     

    • Chris Serran 7:49 am on January 14, 2009 Permalink

      I ran into this issue a while back, I’ll just post the reply from our VAR, it seemed to help:

      “I believe that sketch pictures were designed to work in sketches. Since the option is available in drawings, and I confirmed this issue with assembly drawing, I will check with SolidWorks about it.

      To insert pictures in drawings, we typically use Insert, Object – Create from File. Sometimes this option does not work correctly due to Windows OLE limitation, and in that case there is a simple workaround: a picture is inserted in a document such as Word, copied and pasted on the drawing. I have attached a drawing with the small Waterous logo inserted this way; the big logo was inserted using Insert, Object command.”

    • RodUding 8:47 am on January 14, 2009 Permalink

      Hmmm, this is interesting. Previously the image was a bitmap, a huge bitmap that made the template files 2MB in size. I replaced it the PNG to reduce the size. I inserted the new PNG file using the Insert>Picture. I wonder if there is a difference between Insert>Picture and Insert>Object?

    • Chris Serran 8:51 am on January 14, 2009 Permalink

      I’m not too sure but it’s something I’ll test out.
      My templates are around 2mb as well and it’s a PITA having such large drawing files.

  • Chris Serran 3:00 pm on January 7, 2009 Permalink | Log in to leave a Comment
    Tags: , drawing, Geometric Tolerance, Tolerance   

    Every time I try to insert a Geometric Tolerance to a drawing, SW crashes to the desktop. Has anyone seen this?
    SW09 SP01 XP64

     

    • JeffM 3:32 pm on January 7, 2009 Permalink

      Hell, just about any time I’m working in drawings I’ll CTD. I thought it was just me…

    • Chris Serran 3:49 pm on January 7, 2009 Permalink

      It works fine on our other machine, virtually same setup just different video card and less ram.

    • Chris Serran 4:34 pm on January 7, 2009 Permalink

      It instantly crashes too, almost like SW knows I’m going to hit okay and has a split second to laugh before closing.

    • g3nut 7:31 am on January 8, 2009 Permalink

      Sorry! but it all works fine for me.

      SW09 SP1.0 x64 on Vista x64 8Gb ram – Quadro FX3700

  • Pewill 6:07 am on November 27, 2008 Permalink | Log in to leave a Comment
    Tags: , black, dark, drawing   

    To prevend watching the whole day into a light (read: a white screen) I like working with a dark background.

    Is it posible to have a dark drawing background (black) with white dim’s? And when I’am printing, is it reversing the colors to normal?

    (SW 2009 sp1)

     

    • Chris Serran 6:44 am on November 27, 2008 Permalink

      You can control many appearances like that. Tools -> Options -> Display/Background (I think, don't have SW open right now). There is a list to the right with different aspects of the program that you can change the colours of.

    • Pewill 7:31 am on November 27, 2008 Permalink

      I know how to change the background color. But what about the dim's color and then the printing color. Is it automaticly reversing?

    • Rod_Uding 7:46 am on November 27, 2008 Permalink

      You can force everything to print in black and white through your printer setup. You can set the dimensions to be white by creating a layer and setting the color on it white or any other color you desire.

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