EAA and Siemens?

CJones

CJones

Final Approach
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When I took my boys to KidVenture this year, Siemens had a big presence. They also had some signage around the area talking about how EAA Members have a choice to use the Siemens 3D modeling software instead of SOLIDWORKS.

Does anyone have the details on what they were talking about? Is Siemens trying to displace SOLIDWORKS at EAA or have they already? I can't find any mention of Siemens software by searching the EAA website.
 
Siemenens is NX was called Unigraphics.
 
I don't know what NX is like nowadays, but when I used Unigraphics some 20 years ago it was very high end, very expensive... way beyond Solidworks.
 
First of all, Siemans appears to be trying to take over the whole world.

NX seems to be more sophisticated than Solidworks - but I'm not a big time CAD guy - just go back and forth between the two for odd and end things at work.
 
NX is garbage.

Thank you for coming to my Ted talk.
 
I wish I had a picture of the display boards they had spread out in several spots in the Kidventure building. They had side by side comparisons of the Siemens product and Solidworks. TBH, I wasn't even aware EAA Membership provided any kind of access to modeling software, but the way they were presenting it, they were saying that EAA members could get access to the Siemens product for free rather than getting Solidworks for 50% off. I just can't figure out if what they were saying was a sales pitch of something they hoped would happen or if it was actually in place today.
 
NX as a product came about via a late-1990s merger/updating of two high-end CAD/CAM/CAE products... Unigraphics (originally a McDonnell Douglas product) and I-DEAS (Structural Dynamics Research Corp), initially under the ownership of EDS and then Siemens. The primary high-end competitor of Siemens NX is Dassault Catia, whose younger sister product is SolidWorks. IMHO, all high-quality 3D software products.
 
I saw those too. I think eaa members got solidworks for free, but that program was ending and if you wanted to stay with that ecosystem you had to pay to upgrade to the new version (3ds?). The Siemens product is now provided for free. My oldest daughter is obsessed with computers and did the drawing activity there. I was impressed with how easily they walked her through it. Somewhere around here I have the card they were handing out with the details; I'll see if I can find it.

I know next to nothing about the various programs. Everything thing I knew about CAD was 25 years ago in highschool, and was a short course at the end of our semester drafting class. I always loved technical drawing so I'd like to relearn it and get a 3d printer, but there's just to much going on right now to pick up another hobby.
 
Do a search on "Siemens EAA". Lots of press releases on it. Follow the trail and you eventually get to a Siemens page that mentions the free CAD/CAM software available to students...supposedly the same as the professional tools. The implication is that EAA members will get to download these same tools.

No direct confirmation, though.

Ron Wanttaja
 
Solidedge. Please excuse my toes, it's late. I know last year I found the link to download solidworks on the eaa site; I assume the solidedge link will be there too. I did confirm with one of the guys there it's free to eaa members.
1659759477587278317957980567272.jpg
 
Fun fact Siemens NX and Solidworks use the same kernel (the base code). I’ve used both and much prefer SW. Be interesting to see if Siemens offers EAA members a good package like Solidworks did. SW still offers the student edition for vets at $20 per year.
 
manac said:
Fun fact Siemens NX and Solidworks use the same kernel (the base code). I’ve used both and much prefer SW. Be interesting to see if Siemens offers EAA members a good package like Solidworks did. SW still offers the student edition for vets at $20 per year.
Click to expand...
I've sent my application package to SW three times, and haven't heard anything back. Has anyone successfully gotten it through the veteran program?

Ron Wanttaja
 
wanttaja said:
Do a search on "Siemens EAA". Lots of press releases on it. Follow the trail and you eventually get to a Siemens page that mentions the free CAD/CAM software available to students...supposedly the same as the professional tools. The implication is that EAA members will get to download these same tools.

No direct confirmation, though.

Ron Wanttaja
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Weird that I couldn't find anything about it on the EAA site. All the "siemens" searches returned info about how they are partnering on the youth aspect, but nothing (or maybe I just flat out missed it) about downloading their software.
 
Jim K said:
I saw those too. I think eaa members got solidworks for free, but that program was ending and if you wanted to stay with that ecosystem you had to pay to upgrade to the new version (3ds?). The Siemens product is now provided for free. My oldest daughter is obsessed with computers and did the drawing activity there. I was impressed with how easily they walked her through it. Somewhere around here I have the card they were handing out with the details; I'll see if I can find it.

I know next to nothing about the various programs. Everything thing I knew about CAD was 25 years ago in highschool, and was a short course at the end of our semester drafting class. I always loved technical drawing so I'd like to relearn it and get a 3d printer, but there's just to much going on right now to pick up another hobby.
Click to expand...

I wish we had stood in line for that one instead of the hokey Air Force flight sim. Both boys did both of the ATC booths and they both built a wing rib. We tried to figure out where the line for the 'build a radio' was, but that was a disorganized mess when we were there. As we were leaving, it looked like the Siemens booth was almost like a full design -> build life cycle overview. That would have been cool.
 
Jim K said:
Solidedge. Please excuse my toes, it's late. I know last year I found the link to download solidworks on the eaa site; I assume the solidedge link will be there too. I did confirm with one of the guys there it's free to eaa members.
View attachment 109448
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Bingo! Thanks!
 
CJones said:
I wish we had stood in line for that one instead of the hokey Air Force flight sim. Both boys did both of the ATC booths and they both built a wing rib. We tried to figure out where the line for the 'build a radio' was, but that was a disorganized mess when we were there. As we were leaving, it looked like the Siemens booth was almost like a full design -> build life cycle overview. That would have been cool.
Click to expand...
You didn't miss that much... they did have a sample of the part they had them draw, and they had 3d printers running, but not running the part they had the kids draw.

How long did the rib take? I've been wanting to do that, but my wife was afraid it would take hours.... like the propeller we did last year....
 
Jim K said:
You didn't miss that much... they did have a sample of the part they had them draw, and they had 3d printers running, but not running the part they had the kids draw.

How long did the rib take? I've been wanting to do that, but my wife was afraid it would take hours.... like the propeller we did last year....
Click to expand...

Ah. OK then. I was hoping they would get to do the whole thing based on their sign that said "plan for 60-90 minutes". Oh well...

Rib went relatively quick - maybe 20-30 minutes? We didn't do the prop - everyone that came out of there was covered in sawdust and that sounded not fun to deal with while cruising the rest of the show. ha.
 
Mtns2Skies said:
NX is garbage.

Thank you for coming to my Ted talk.
Click to expand...

Curious why you say garbage?

I've always found it to be way more powerful with a lot more options. I was always able to model correct and accurate parts way quicker in NX and then get them fabricated even faster than Solidwork/MasterCAM combo. NX has a ton more options which can be pretty intimidating when you first start with it (was for me at least) but once used to it, I didn't want to go back to Solidworks/MasterCAM. Though I did when I switched jobs.
 
bfmetcalf said:
Curious why you say garbage?

I've always found it to be way more powerful with a lot more options. I was always able to model correct and accurate parts way quicker in NX and then get them fabricated even faster than Solidwork/MasterCAM combo. NX has a ton more options which can be pretty intimidating when you first start with it (was for me at least) but once used to it, I didn't want to go back to Solidworks/MasterCAM. Though I did when I switched jobs.
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I had found that Solidworks is of course the most user friendly, and Creo is a very powerful CAD program. NX seemed to be the worst of both worlds, worse functionality/power than solidworks and worse usability than Creo.
 
Mtns2Skies said:
I had found that Solidworks is of course the most user friendly, and Creo is a very powerful CAD program. NX seemed to be the worst of both worlds, worse functionality/power than solidworks and worse usability than Creo.
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Gotcha, never had the chance to play with Creo, but loved NX when I used it designing and CAMing stuff.
 
bfmetcalf said:
Gotcha, never had the chance to play with Creo, but loved NX when I used it designing and CAMing stuff.
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Infact the entire engineering department at that company really disliked NX. When asked by management if there was anything they could do to help the engineering team, the answer was resoundingly and exceedingly "any other CAD program than NX" but of course our company had a relationship with Siemens... so that was never going to happen.
 
Mtns2Skies said:
Infact the entire engineering department at that company really disliked NX. When asked by management if there was anything they could do to help the engineering team, the answer was resoundingly and exceedingly "any other CAD program than NX" but of course our company had a relationship with Siemens... so that was never going to happen.
Click to expand...

Gotta love those "relationships" that always seem to make things less efficient.
 
Mtns2Skies said:
NX is garbage.

Thank you for coming to my Ted talk.
Click to expand...

To offer the opposite perspective after using Solidworks (at home), Rhino (at home), ProE (at work), Catia (at work), and NX (at work) I prefer NX to any of the other options. TeamCenter is another story.

That said, all will get the job done.
 
Serious question...

For someone that has done 2D layouts with AutoCAD and done some tinkering (pretty much just furniture design) with 3D designs in SketchUp and then 'moved up' to Fusion360, how much of a leap is the usability to go to something 'real' like Solid Edge or SOLIDWORKS? Not looking to design a new engine type, but wouldn't mind being able to add some load tolerances into some furniture design or tinkering with a 3D printer with the kids.
 
CJones said:
Serious question...

For someone that has done 2D layouts with AutoCAD and done some tinkering (pretty much just furniture design) with 3D designs in SketchUp and then 'moved up' to Fusion360, how much of a leap is the usability to go to something 'real' like Solid Edge or SOLIDWORKS? Not looking to design a new engine type, but wouldn't mind being able to add some load tolerances into some furniture design or tinkering with a 3D printer with the kids.
Click to expand...

I don't think it would be that bad. More of a "where is the button that does this" type of thing. Most 3d CAD tools use the same type of tools, just sometimes called something different or in a different place. I've switched from 1 3d CAD to another and it was pretty easy to get going once you found stuff.
 
Solidworks has a great set of tutorials and is very user friendly. If I want to use a obscure command the help will do a good job of explaining it.
 
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