Solid Edge Community Edition

[DDF47]

I’m currently using Solid Edge Community Edition 2020 and have been asked for my comments on it.
A brief history: I was using Pro/E wildfire at work when I retired and Pro/E 2000I2 student edition at home. Home computer was a 20 year old pc running XP so I decided to move to the 21st century and found SE 2020.

I like it because it works entirely locally with no web connection required. Also no expiration date. Once you have it you have it for ever. It has two operating modes, synchronous and ordered. Synchronous is alien to me but ordered is similar to the way Pro/E operates. Initially I had to overcome Pro/E muscle memory but that’s well behind me now. Also some things like patterns and sweeps are approached from a different angle but are easy once learned. I started by remodeling some of my Pro/E projects so I was concentrating on the CAD aspects and not design issues. Now I would hate to go back. In short I like SE a lot and would recommend it to anyone looking for a free but powerful 3D CAD program.

 

[petertha]

Thanks for starting this post. SE has ben discussed a few times on our forum albeit briefly. Another member has linked this article from model engineer, forum, specifically the second post, which is a bit fuzzy on license expiry. You mentioned running 2020, have you come across anything related to changes in the community edition in your travels or exposure?

https://www.model-engineer.co.uk/forums/postings.asp?th=175562

 

[petertha]

From perusing the website, screen shots of menus, parametric tree etc., it looks more like Solidworks than other 3D modelers I've seen.. which is a good thing in my view. Seems like all the maker/discounted versions of commercial software have their pros & cons.

My Fusion buddies claim they keep moving the goal posts of what is free & what is not & tools/features have changed. I think the integrated CAM is important to them (but not to me).

Recently announced SW Maker version would require no new learning on my part but I'm still a bit suspicious of some attributes. I'm told (but don't know for sure) parts & assemblies can be saved on PC but there is this in-between cloud upload step that has nothing do with collaboration. It supposedly embeds a little morsel of detection code. Maybe that is just their way of doing what SE also mentions (cant be used in commercial version). But it could also be future control, for example the 100$ maker license just went to $400, so if you want to open those files........

Anyways, back to SE, looks like I deleted my prior notes when I was tire kicking a while back. This link shows some of the history & version chronology (but not the Community version for some strange reason).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solid_Edge

 

[petertha]

@DDF47 if convenient, can you do a screen grab of one of your drawings or upload a random PDF drawing? I'm interested in what that permanent watermark looks like. Have you experienced any issues specifically with the drawing module relative to Pro/E? Do they limit file size or number of views or truncate any features in the Community version? I would really hate to go backwards on that front. Again, purely from a few screen grabs, it looks pretty decent if it's essentially the full version software. If enough boxes get checked I may have to download on a spare PC.

 

[DDF47]

The water mark does not show on the screen, only on prints. Here a photo of a drawing with the water mark on the bottom left part of the drawing. It is very subtle and you must look carefully to see it. It does not interfere with reading a drawing.

Also Keyshot is included with SE and does a very nice job of rendering. It does require some horse power. My laptop with 8G of memory chokes on it but my work station handles it fine.

 

[DDF47]

@DDF47 if convenient, can you do a screen grab of one of your drawings or upload a random PDF drawing? I'm interested in what that permanent watermark looks like. Have you experienced any issues specifically with the drawing module relative to Pro/E? Do they limit file size or number of views or truncate any features in the Community version? I would really hate to go backwards on that front. Again, purely from a few screen grabs, it looks pretty decent if it's essentially the full version software. If enough boxes get checked I may have to download on a spare PC.

I haven’t found anything I’ve wanted to do that was grayed out and not available but I don’t do surfaces, lofting etc. as far as I know there is no limit on file size, number of views or anything like that. I think my biggest drawing so far was 22 pages (legal size paper). Of course I haven’t designed any space shuttles or lunar landers so I can’t give definitive answer.

 

[ajoeiam]

I haven’t found anything I’ve wanted to do that was grayed out and not available but I don’t do surfaces, lofting etc. as far as I know there is no limit on file size, number of views or anything like that. I think my biggest drawing so far was 22 pages (legal size paper). Of course I haven’t designed any space shuttles or lunar landers so I can’t give definitive answer.

Hmmmmm - - - that watermark would be easy to live with. Compared to some I've seen in the past.

I think my biggest problem would be that I would need to be running M$10 to run the software and I've gotten to where I don't trust ANY of the big software outfits. Maybe I'm just too paranoid!