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Anonymous
429 Vistas, 5 Respuestas

Help deciding what program i need

So I am currently working for a company that is still using autocad mechanical desktop 6 (2002) and we are about to upgrade. First we though ok keep with mechanical but that seems to be 2d and we model in 3d, so looked into inventor, would be a learning curve but maybe it might work just not really for our P&ID's. Now i'm looking at plant 3d but it doesn't look realistic... any suggestions id appreciate. What would be the closest to the 2002 version of mechanical i love that version so much. Easy to make parts, BOM is perfect. Easy to make views for the fabrication sheets we need. BTW we make water filtration units for city water, why i though plant 3d might be good but not liking it

dgorsman
en respuesta a: Anonymous

Plant3D is a step above fabrication, it's spec-based process piping design.  So while it can be suitable for skid mounted systems, if you're more on the fabrication side then it's not so good.

 

If you must do P&IDs (probably some other basic 2D work as well) then you likely won't have a single product.  You'll be using Inventor, or possibly Fusion360, for the mechanical side and AutoCAD for the rest.  Chances are one of the Collections will contain what you need (and room to expand), such as Product Design and Manufacturing. 

 

It's going to be a big step forward from what you have.  I'd recommend making a clean break if possible, rather than trying to keep everything as it was.  There's been a lot of changes in the past decade and a half. 

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If you are going to fly by the seat of your pants, expect friction burns.
"I don't know" is the beginning of knowledge, not the end.


Anonymous
en respuesta a: dgorsman

Thanks for the input, I will definitely pass it on. I just started working for the company and picking up the older version of mechanical took a second but actually its really well designed for what we do, everything we need in one program was surprised when i tried the newer release its 2d now.... Just need to take the engineers specs and get the fabrication sheets for the shop guys, we make everything custom to the job. Maybe inventor is the way to go I guess.

Tomislav.Golubovic
en respuesta a: Anonymous

In all honesty, you'd be best off going with Plant3D. It does the P&ID's, the (basic) equipment and structure, and does the Piping. Plus you click one button and you get Fabrication Iso's for the pipework.

 

If you really need Fab drawings for the piping, Plant3D is the only tool for it. Inventor *can* theoretically do it (hell, you could even say the same for Revit) but if you're in the Piping game, then Plant3D is the tool.

 

Having said that, if you're on AEC Collections, you could use Advance Steel for the steelwork too. Inventor is great for mechanical modelling, but its not a Piping package.

Anonymous
en respuesta a: Tomislav.Golubovic

Ok, I've been watching tutorials and using the trial this weekend, I do think Plant will work for us now. The one thing that I know the engineers liked was the realism in our old way of doing it, for example I have a bunch of Pratt blocks, BFV for example that look like they really do. I don't like the "symbol" that is used in the 3d piping, is there a way to use the blocks I have? For some reason they work fine in 2002 but now they don't, proxy everything so i cant really use it, its not even a solid. any idea how to import those blocks? Thanks for your time really appreciate it

Tomislav.Golubovic
en respuesta a: Anonymous

Check out my YouTube channel in the link below, I did a series of video's on how to make custom parts and bring them into Plant3D Catalogs and Specs