I sent an email to the education department asking for a copy of the server, we’ll see what happens. They said that they would respond within 48 hours, but who knows
I too was involved in a long, and ultimately only semi-successful search for a copy of Autodesk Vault Server. (Yes, Server is what you really want to do version control. The Vault version included in the Inventor download is just a client.) You can find the thread that ultimitely resulted in a Server download here. The only problem is that Vault Server requires either a Professional or Server edition of Windows (which I don’t have).
I have had similar experiences with the terrors associated with trying to “fake” version control using Dropbox or flash drives. The basic thing I learned is that top level assemblies really aren’t that useful, except possibly for checking for interference between sub-assemblies. If you can live with the “Cross-part reference failure” in the top level assembly, you can probably survive without version control software. If one person can keep the only active copy of a sub-system on their computer, you can probably keep the model usable. Not to say I don’t recommend backing up files, just that without proper version control, two different people really can’t make edits on the same part.
A quick tip, if you aren’t doing it already, use Projects in Inventor, or the SolidWorks equivalent. It really helps with keeping cross-part references and assemblies in general working coherently.
In short, if you don’t want the problems you have been experiencing, you need proper version control. There are ways to mitigate the fact that you lack this, most importantly keeping one designer working on one system. It just gets too hard to try to collaborate without real version control.
By the way, I wouldn’t recommend switching to Inventor just because they have Vault. SolidWorks PDM really does the same thing.
Last year we used Autodesk Cloud (Now called Autodesk 360).
It mostly worked fine for us, except that if someone is downloading an assembly, they would need to have all the subfiles of that assembly as well. This meant downloading 50+ parts for a single assembly or transferring assemblies by USB.
However for modification purposes, like making lightening patterns or adding holes, it should work out fine.
Microsoft Dreamspark gives university students free server versions of Windows (with a restrictive licence).
Thanks! This will be a ton of help!
The link found in this other thread leads to the download site, but the actual download link seems to be broken. Is there another place to download it?
I am having a very difficult time finding any contact information for Autodesk beyond the web forms on their website. Does anyone have an Autodesk contact for their team?
Yes. You should be able to contact the Autodesk representative who specifically works with Inventor and FRC at phil.dollan@autodesk.com. Mr. Dollan helped 1515 acquire a vault license, and should be able to help you.
Thanks,
Just shot him an email
I received this response this morning from the form that I filled in on the autodesk education support site…
Thank you for contacting the Autodesk Education Community Support Team.
If the software you are looking for is not listed in the Download Center, it means that it is not available for download through the student site.
Autodesk offers a broad set of products on the Education Community.
Many products are also available as free 30-day trials at www.autodesk.com/freetrials.
In a few cases, products that are not on the Education Community are available for purchase from an Autodesk Academic Value Added Reseller. To locate a reseller, go to:
Should you need additional assistance, feel free to reply directly to this email.
Best Regards,
Autodesk Education Community Support
http://autodesk.com/edcommunity
I am a little disappointed
I ran into the same difficulties when trying to find ADMS earlier this year. Eventually I found that the only place I could get it from was from the Inventor Pro Suite disk set that came in the 2011 KoP. If you can find it, there’s an install CD for ADMS in the back of the set.
Can FRC Students use SolidWorks PDM?
Well, there is certainly no rule against it! SolidWorks is not an official sponsor of FRC, so FRC teams can’t technically depend on getting a sponsorship with seats of the any software. If you do manage to get a sponsorship, it depends on what software package you get. One version of the student edition of SolidWorks, called “Student Design Kit” does not include the PDM client. The other, “Student Engineering Kit,” does.
Keep in mind that SolidWorks and Inventor differ in their business models for version control software. I believe the Vault client comes more or less included in most versions of Inventor, but Vault Server costs extra. In regards to PDM, the server software is free, but each seat of the client costs extra.
I recommend PTC’s Windchill. It is ‘web-based’/‘cloud based’/easy to set up and great technical support over the past year.
I am not sure how I set the account up now, but can tell you the link:
FIRST Robotics Windchill
EDIT: The person to contact at PTC about setting up a Windchill account for your FIRST Robotics Team is Cosmin Pana - cpana@ptc.com
The best part is that it can be used by any of the most popular modeling software plateforms (Inventor, SolidWorks, Pro/E - Creo, Catia, MathCAD, etc) with free plugins directly from PTC.
Also, this can be used for more than just CAD revision control. PTC also has direct plug-ins for windows and windows office suite. Now you can upload and control documents without ever leaving Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc. There is also a plug-in for MS Project, but I haven’t used that too much; I am sure it is great though.
Part of The RoboBees have been using Windchill for a year as a test bed, but I plan to launch it team wide in a few weeks. I have been using the direct plug-in for SolidWorks for sometime now, and have had zero issues.
Feel free to contact me through a PM, or on this thread so others can learn as well.
We have had experience using Windchill, too. It has been pretty reliable over the years. I definitely reccomend it to other teams.
Does Windchill preserve the parent-child relationships in Inventor or SolidWorks the same way the “native” version control system would? As I understand it, the really powerful thing about any version control software is its ability to update dependent assemblies or drawings automatically and seamlessly. I suspect that using a third party version control system (like Windchill) for version control with, say, SolidWorks wouldn’t be much better than using a program like Dropbox.
DampRobot,
To my knowledge and understanding of your question, yes Windchill does preserve the parent-child relationship. I will give a few a few examples from SolidWorks: I am able to update the sizes of bolts on the fly through configurations and design tables (generic -->instances), update a part and the assembly changes based on those modifications, drawings remain linked to parts for autoupdating. These are also available for Windchill for Pro/E (now Creo). I use Winchill/Creo at work and Windchill/SolidWorks for robotics.
The other difference between a PDM software (like Windchill) and something like DropBox is easy revision control. With a few minutes of setup by the admin of the Windchill server, user permissions can be created such that only selected people can delete parts, roll back versions, etc. In order to make changes to a part, a user has to “checkout” the part/assembly/document from the Windchill server. This prevents other users from changing the part as someone else is. Windchill keeps track of every upload incase something is needed to be rolled back. Then the part can be “checked in” for others to use. Once a design is decided on, the part can be locked such that people can download and use the part, but not make changes to it. If the part is changed by an authorized user, it will updated in all places that it is being used.
EDIT: Take a look at this link for Windchill for SolidWorks. I have never used Windchill with any software packages other than Pro/E (Creo) and SolidWorks. I have Inventor 2012 on my computer, and I will give it a shot as well in the near future. I would assume it is very similar to the Pro/E and SolidWorks counterparts.
/EDIT
I can explain in more detail some “library” practices in further detail if needed.
Note One thing that most people view as a downfall for Windchill is the limitation of only having the same name on the server once. Meaning if you made a part called “arm.prt” in 2012, you could never name another part “arm.prt”. I would recommend adapting sometype of numbering convention that includes the year to avoid these problems.
In the SolidWorks 2012-2013 Sponsorship package this fall we will provide SolidWorks Workgroup PDM. This is an easy solution to revision control.
You can do it now in 2011-2012. We created a couple of videos to help on YouTube. Here are the instructions.
You do need one computer to act as the server.
Always try a simple solution first. Marie
I know it was only released recently but, has anyone used Google Drive? I am using Inventor.
We are trying it right now for our offseason robot. I will post whether is works or not.
If it doesn’t work, we will go back to Dropbox.
Yes, DON’T USE DROPBOX FOR CAD.
I had to redo our drive base 3 times, the ball lifter 2 times and the main assembly even more times. This was when I used Inventor with just two users.
Vault seems good for Inventor.
What’s the simplest and best syncing tool for Solidworks?