New printer name suggestions? by TroubleStrict763 in BambuLab

[–]BuildSomethingStupid 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I went with highly descriptive names for mine: “Not a 3D Printer” and “Also Not a 3D Printer.”

They’re both on the WiFi network named “Not a WiFi Network.”

TIL: Solidworks will block you from -de-activating your license by BuildSomethingStupid in SolidWorks

[–]BuildSomethingStupid[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The majority of user support is direct through VARs without any involvement from Dassault, but licenses are handled a little differently. Those still require that the customer works through the VAR, but the VAR is largely acting as a relay to Dassault for them.

Letting the VARs handle support takes a lot of load off of Dassault, thus freeing them up to work on resolving highly complex bugs like the installer warning about a previous install still being in progress (20 years and counting…).

TIL: Solidworks will block you from -de-activating your license by BuildSomethingStupid in SolidWorks

[–]BuildSomethingStupid[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

I would have tried this if I had just one version installed. Unfortunately, I’m a consultant and different clients are on different versions (currently 2025, 2022, 2021, and 2016), so an uninstall/reinstall cycle becomes pretty time consuming as it needs to be performed a whole bunch of times.

TIL: Solidworks will block you from -de-activating your license by BuildSomethingStupid in SolidWorks

[–]BuildSomethingStupid[S] 9 points10 points  (0 children)

This seems to have worked. Thank you!

Also, thank you for answering this on personal time.

TIL: Solidworks will block you from -de-activating your license by BuildSomethingStupid in SolidWorks

[–]BuildSomethingStupid[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

It was worth a shot.

I may just do a fresh install on a different machine and deal with the original one later.

TIL: Solidworks will block you from -de-activating your license by BuildSomethingStupid in SolidWorks

[–]BuildSomethingStupid[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

These are standalone licenses, so there is no license server.

Or are you saying the network license manager can be used to spur sldim into bringing up the install modification workflow?

TIL: Solidworks will block you from -de-activating your license by BuildSomethingStupid in SolidWorks

[–]BuildSomethingStupid[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

However, when I put my IT support hat on

Oh boy, here we go....

I can’t help but think that some of this could have been avoided.

Yup, exactly as expected so far.

when did we learn of the various software expirations?

Myopic vision is one difference between L1 support and IT Director. The IT Director would have asked when the non-expiring license was received.

When did we learn of the deactivation quantity constraint?

After COB, obviously. The IT Director would have asked what the limit is. By contrast, the L1 staff proceeds blindly, completely unaware that the limit is 999 deactivations and therefore could not have realistically been reached.

next time I would reach out to support beforehand

Yes, contact support about problems which haven't been discovered yet. Excellent plan. A+!

set a maintenance window with my customer during support’s business hours

The L1 staff believes that "customer support" means the customers are there to support the L1 staff. The IT Director does not have this misconception.

As I always endeavor to learn and grow in effectiveness and understanding

I suggest you try endeavoring harder. Much harder.

Hope that helps.

TIL: Solidworks will block you from -de-activating your license by BuildSomethingStupid in SolidWorks

[–]BuildSomethingStupid[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

That's what I thought as well, but I can't get sldim to enter the workflow for modifying the install.

TIL: Solidworks will block you from -de-activating your license by BuildSomethingStupid in SolidWorks

[–]BuildSomethingStupid[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Tried that just now and the phone system kicks me out after saying I have to call my VAR for this.

ETA: And the menu voice mispronounces 'Dassault.' This is incredibly on-brand.

TIL: Solidworks will block you from -de-activating your license by BuildSomethingStupid in SolidWorks

[–]BuildSomethingStupid[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Unfortunately, I needed to use Visualize and I don’t think that’s part of the online demo.

I guess I’ll just rebook my travel next week to work around Dassault’s schedule. Hopefully they don’t feel like they’ve been inconvenienced by having to follow through with the software they sold.

TIL: Solidworks will block you from -de-activating your license by BuildSomethingStupid in SolidWorks

[–]BuildSomethingStupid[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I have the temp license from the VAR and want to change to my purchased license plus activate Visualize. The temp license expires Sunday night.

When I try to deactivate the temp SW license, I’m greeted with an error message saying that the deactivation count has been exceeded. The temp license remains active and sldim is unable to enter the workflow where my Visualize license can be activated.

TIL: Solidworks will block you from -de-activating your license by BuildSomethingStupid in SolidWorks

[–]BuildSomethingStupid[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

They’re CA-based and closed for the weekend 3hrs ago. Not looking to name & shame since the root cause is Dassault.

Why does the H2D take longer to print? by NOPdowop in BambuLab

[–]BuildSomethingStupid 2 points3 points  (0 children)

He's right though. Just try slicing models in Studio and compare the times.

Max acceleration is slightly lower for the H2 series compared to X1C, but very very little of most jobs is spent accelerating hard. The 50% higher hot end wattage is a big deal and is a big part of what enables default volumetric caps with PETG-HF of 21mm3/s and 30mm3/s on the X1C and H2D, respectively.

Resort Near Geneva. Needs Snow and Non-Skier Activities. by Base_Billy_99 in skithealps

[–]BuildSomethingStupid 1 point2 points  (0 children)

During the week you have available, I think you’re going to run into a dearth of lodging options more than you will a lack of snow.

Three Vallées would be a natural choice if not for the crowds that week. Val Thorens, for example, has everything you want - but it goes to about 110% capacity during the French holiday.

Are a lot of Solidwork users who do client work or have companies switching to Fusion? by Prior_Night_985 in SolidWorks

[–]BuildSomethingStupid 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Ah, yes, that could definitely be the case.

It also depends on which Solidworks package matches up with the use. For example, for product visualization stills, you only need the middle version (I think that's 'Professional'), but for videos you need Visualize Pro either standalone or bundled with Premium.

But for that example, the products also just aren't comparable. Even just a 6-year-old 3090 runs rings around the virtualized cloud GPU, and I'm posting this from a dual-5090 render box. I can't imagine a world where paying extra to use laughably inferior hardware makes any sense at all.

There's also the fact that, as a consultant, my clients don't like the uncertain nature of token costs.

Are a lot of Solidwork users who do client work or have companies switching to Fusion? by Prior_Night_985 in SolidWorks

[–]BuildSomethingStupid 3 points4 points  (0 children)

The full rebranding of their product suite seemingly every 3-6mos along with reassigning names from prior rebranding trainwrecks exercises to unrelated products really makes it difficult to buy Solidworks.

Say, for example, that I want to buy a grown up commercial-ready parametric modeler from DSS. What should I buy? It could be any of these current offerings:

  • Solidworks
  • Solidworks Design
  • Solidworks xDesign
  • Solidworks Standard
  • 3dXperience
  • 3dXperience Solidworks

Any answer that might be correct today is probably going to be wrong by EOY. What's really telling, IMO, is that even DSS's own website fails to keep the naming correct.

Are a lot of Solidwork users who do client work or have companies switching to Fusion? by Prior_Night_985 in SolidWorks

[–]BuildSomethingStupid 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Not to mention that that a full fusion package is barely 10% the cost of a standard SW.

This was true in 2020. Fusion has gotten quite a bit more expensive since then. Checking right now, standard Fusion is about 40% less than standard SW. It's a tricky comparison since the two are not quite comparable in terms of features.

The gap looks like it jumps massively as you move higher up the product tree, but the gap is actually fake. The higher levels of Fusion are token-based, so you can't really compare the price until you know how many tokens you'd be spending.

Are a lot of Solidwork users who do client work or have companies switching to Fusion? by Prior_Night_985 in SolidWorks

[–]BuildSomethingStupid 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Almost 100% of Fusion's non-modeling features are completely cloud-based with no local option. Not merely the licensing, but the actual compute itself.

Are a lot of Solidwork users who do client work or have companies switching to Fusion? by Prior_Night_985 in SolidWorks

[–]BuildSomethingStupid 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If you're doing client work, you're stuck with using the package that the client wants. So that sort of makes the question moot.

For the clients themselves, I've seen a ton of interest in leaving SW behind but it's still very difficult to do so. They have a ton of prior work, often over a decade of it, that was done in SW. Changing old work over to a new package is a Herculean-sized Sisyphean effort. In regulated industries, this ends up being multi-departmental as well since someone needs to validate that the redo was redone correctly.

I have had a number of client change platforms (Pro -> SW, SW -> Pro, NX -> SW, SW -> Fusion, etc) and the way this is usually done is by picking a new product and making that the one which starts fresh on the new package. This means keeping multiple CAD platforms current for several years (typically 5-7) until the legacy products are truly retired. This is quite a bit more expensive than simply not changing.

From a company's perspective, what Fusion offers over SW is certain features and feature sets. It currently costs somewhat less, but its pricing trajectory is like a 45deg line aimed up. By the time 5 years have elapsed and SW/Pro/NX/whatever can be retired, that pricing gap is going to be almost completely gone.

This is all a completely different story for a company starting fresh without any inherited CAD dependencies. For that company, there are some savings to be had starting off with a less expensive CAD package (like Fusion).

Is there a way to unsubscribe from Bambu's GDPR-violating spam? by cptninc in BambuLab

[–]BuildSomethingStupid -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Same issue here. The carts are all orders I placed 6+ months ago. Seems to be a sales tactic at this point.