Re: Finally wrote-up my "How to Design Parts" section...

Metal Man Joe wrote:
Hi Gang;

For about a year I've been working off and on on a fairly major pet web
project, an e-booklet on how to design parts for easy machining. Mostly
I put this together because of so many questions from our engineer
customers, and also because we're constantly driven crazy by bad
design, poor drawings, terrible tolerances, and on and on.

Anyway, I thought I might promote it a bit. Any feedback, additions,
comments, etc., would be appreciated. The page can be accessed through
the "Resources" section of our website or directly through the links
below:

http://www.omwcorp.com/partdesign.html

http://www.omwcorp.com/links.shtml


I haven't yet had time to read the whole thing; but it looks like a VERY impressive piece of work. Is this something your customers have requested or are expecting? Is it something that's grown out of discussions that customers have welcomed, and that they want to have expanded? The reason I ask is that, in many cases, I'd expect customers to be a bit PO'd by a supplier telling them how to design parts - unless there's been some good "lead-in" of some kind.

Just to offer an analogy: If you went to a car dealer to buy a new car, and told the salesman you were looking for good gas mileage, and if the salesman started telling you that he'd seen you drive into the parking lot, and you were doing it all wrong, and here's how you really ought to be accelerating, shifting gears, and using the brakes... You'd probably turn around and leave. You've been driving for years. You know what you're doing. And what makes this salesmand think he knows more than you do about how to drive your own car?

If, on the other hand, you were ask some specific questions of someone you knew and respected, and if that someone answered your questions, and then offered to elaborate, and to give you a whole set of useful tips as part of the same conversation, you might be more than willing to learn some valuable stuff.

The difference between helpful advice and "You're an idiot - let me tell you how to do it" is often just a matter of presentation, even if the actual advice is identical.

That said, I hope your customers read and pay attention. The part of your work that I did look at seemed excellent, well written, and surely valuable in many situations.

I did see an error, though. In the first section, "DRAWINGS AND PRINTS", in the subsection titled "When possible, use solid modeling to create complex part design", the 2D drawing is wrong. If the contour is in the side of the part closest to the viewer in the "face" view, then it will appear as hidden lines at the bottom edge of the side views. As drawn, you have the contour appearing on the front of the part when looking at the face, and on the opposite side in the other views. Since the focus is on drawing good prints, I figure you'll want to fix one that's literally impossible to read.

Do you intend to publish this? Have you shown it to anyone at a trade school or an engineering college? This could be something with a LOT of potential applications, and with very wide appeal!

Good luck with it, and thanks for sharing.

KG
__
I'm sick of spam.
The 2 in my address doesn't belong there.


.

Relevant Pages

  • For Discussion:....SLAB
    ... products comprising silicon DAA for PC modems, DSL analog front end ICs, ... Silicon Laboratories markets its products ... Our major customers include 2Wire, Garmin, ... programmability provides the user with design flexibility, ...
    (misc.invest.stocks)
  • B.E Mechanical Engineer (Exposure Steam Turbines, Mechanical Desktop, AutoCAD, SolidWorks)
    ... Current Location: Bangalore ... Fabrication drawings & User Manual preparation related to Steam ... I am involved in the day to day activities of the Design Department's ...
    (sci.energy)
  • Re: Signing CAD Software: (WAS Thanks Guys, and a little more on VMS)
    ... > interested in BGS design with FWHA fonts. ... When I was experimenting with sign drawings (mostly to see what ... available) and tried to get the dimensions correct using the two-letter ... forth to be sure the rectangle corners are precisely located. ...
    (misc.transport.road)
  • Re: WHERE IN() with parameters
    ... customers because I don't know if it is or not. ... application design and therefore do not know any better. ... > server. ... >> execution is in the state I just described, ...
    (microsoft.public.dotnet.framework.adonet)
  • Re: next the good jobs will go
    ... departments think the market will want two years from now. ... customers no longer want. ... or before design and they get what they had in mind. ... The programming process we used was called the waterfall model, ...
    (soc.retirement)
Loading