Auto Round in Pro/ENGINEER Wildfire 4.0

TIPS: (New Feature) Auto Round in Pro/ENGINEER Wildfire 4.0

Version: ProE Wildfire4.0

The approach of this new feature is similar to the “allow_round_all” hidden config.pro for ProE 2001, Wildfire, Wildfire2.0 and Wildfire3.0

1. Open a part file which you want to remove all its sharp edge.

2. Activate the Insert > Auto Round command from the top menu.

3. The new auto round dashboard appears.

You can set different radius dimension for the convex round and concave round. The left text field is for convex round and the right for concave.
Convex: curving outward, outside curvature.
Remove material thru the rounds feature in Pro/ENGINEER.
Concave: curving inward, inside curvature.
Add material thru the round feature in Pro/ENGINEER
Other controls in Auto Round Dashboard.

4. When you are done, hit the check icon to proceed. The auto round player appears to indicate the progress of the auto round. Please note that the time needed to apply auto round will depends on the complexity of a part.

The image below shows the part with the completed auto round feature.

** Auto Round is an intelligent feature. Objects with size smaller than the round radius will be skipped in the auto round process. See image below.

Ten Reasons Why you should use CAD rather Than Manual Drafting Read more:

The full form of CAD is Computer Aided Design. There are many reasons why CAD is used rather than manual drafting; the ten most important among them are discussed below.

• Three Dimensional Modeling: Creating 3D models manually is a very difficult and tiresome job. 3D CAD packages have many more powerful features for creating the 3D models easily.
• Easy to Modify: Modifying the CAD geometry is easy; you will always have “copy”, “cut”, “paste”, “delete”, “move” or some similar editing options available with each of the packages.
• Easy to Reproduce: Draftsmen used to take days to complete a drawing by manual drafting, and reproducing the drawing meant recreating the drawing from the beginning. But, in case of the CAD, you can reproduce the drawing in no time and make as many copies as you want.
• Computer Aided Manufacturing (CAM): The 3D CAD geometry is used as input for the CAM packages for generating NC codes. The manual drawings cannot be used for CAM packages.
• Computer Aided Engineering (CAE): The 3D CAD geometry is used as input for the CAE packages. The CAE packages can simulate the loading conditions and tell whether the CAD geometry can withstand the real loading or not. The drawings created manually cannot be used for CAE.
• Simulation of the Mechanisms: The 3D CAD geometry can be used for simulating the mechanism, thus you can check the functionality of a machine without investing in prototype building. Manual drawings cannot be used for mechanism simulation.
• Database Creation: The CAD files can be used to create a PDM/PLM database. Once created, the CAD database can be accessed through a wide area network. The drawings created by manual drafting can only be stored locally.
• Logical: CAD models or geometry entities are logically connected, or in other words you cannot create a CAD model which is not possible practically. The drawings created by the manual drafting method do not have such checks, and you can create anything.
• Environment Friendly: Manual drawings are necessarily created on paper, but the CAD drawings can be stored and used electronically without using paper.
• Access Control: Some of the drawings and design documents are very crucial for a company’s business, and such drawings should not be accessible to all. Providing access controls of such drawings are easy for the CAD drawings, and the access level can be defined for each CAD drawings. Strict access control and maintaining confidentiality is difficult for the manual drawings.

Disc Coil Spring using Curve from Equation in Pro/ENGINEER

TUTORIAL: Disc Coil Spring using Curve from Equation in Pro/ENGINEER

Version: Pro/E 2001, Wildfire, Wildfire2.0, Wildfire3.0, wildfire4.0

Datum Curve from Equation tool is to be used when you want to create a disc coil spring / planar spring in Pro/ENGINEER. We are going to create a datum curve from equation as the trajectory and then apply a sweep thru the spiral curve.

1. Create a new Solid Part file. From the tools icon, click the create datum curve icon .

2. In the pops-up menu manager, choose From Equation and Done to proceed.

3. The Curve: From Equation dialog box appears and you are requested to select a coordinate system (CSYS). Select a Csys from the display.

4. You will need to define the Csys Type. For this tutorial, choose Cylindrical in the menu manager and proceed to the next step.

5. Next, a Notepad window appears for you to input the Equation. You can write any mathematical equation to model the desire curve. For a spiral curve sit on a planar, the following equation is being use

R = 50 + t * (120)
Theta = t * 360 * 5
Z = 0

6. You can substitute the values accordingly to design your own disc coil spring. The figure below may help you to understand the equation better.

7. When you are done, click OK on the Curve: From Equation dialog box to confirm. The spiral curve should appear in your display by now.

After all, you can use the sweep feature to complete the disc coil spring.

TIPS: Reduce Pro/ENGINEER File Size by using the compress_output_files config.pro option

TIPS: Reduce Pro/ENGINEER File Size by using the compress_output_files config.pro option

Version: ProE 2001, Wildfire, Wildfire 2.0, Wildfire 3.0, Wildfire 4.0

compress_output_files config.pro option allows you to compress object files via the save command. ProE object files that supported the compression are ProE Part file (.prt), ProE Assembly file (.asm) and ProE Drawing file (.drw). The extension for the compress object files will remain after compression and it is fully compatible across systems.

compress_output_files
Yes - Saves object files in compressed format.
No - Saves object files in non compressed format.

The default value for compress_output_files is no*. Setting to yes will cause longer saving and opening time. The file size that you can save is up to 50% of the original file size.
I did 2 quick tests on this configuration option and the results are shown below:
A 1938 KB ProE Part file (.prt) is saved and the compressed file size is 1781 KB. (8.1% of compression)
A 114 KB ProE Drawing file (.drw) is saved and the compressed file size is 64 KB. (43.9% of compression)
Saving and opening time for the compressed files are a bit longer compared to non compressed files. However, the delayed time is less than a second in my test.

TIPS: Where are the Files for Intralink Workspace is stored in my Local Disk?

TIPS: Where are the Files for Intralink Workspace is stored in my Local Disk?

Versions: Pro/INTRALINK 3.2, Pro/INTRALINK 3.3, Pro/INTRALINK 3.4

All the files for Intralink workspace are stored in the .proi folder in your local disk. These including the Pro/E files in Intralink workspace, configuration files, Intralink Frames file, local ddb file etc.
You can set the location of the .proi folder by adding the PDM_LDB_PATH system variable to your workstation.

1.    Open the system properties dialog box from Control Panel > System. Go to the Advanced tab and click the Environment Variables button.

2.    In the Environment Variables dialog box, click the New button under the system variables category.

3.    Next, add the system variable name and its value as shown below.
PDM_LDB_PATH          Desire folder

When you are done, hit the Ok button to accept the new setting.

* Before you add this system variable to your system, please check in all the objects in the Intralink workspace and backup the relevant files from your