Exporting an assembly as Solidworks assembly crashes Alibre

[JJHawg]

I have a medium complexity assembly that was made from a lot of STEP imports (but saved as Alibre parts) and when I try to export as a Solidworks assembly, it hangs for a while, then dies...

Alibre Translate shows up checked in my Add-on Manager...

Do I need to first export each part as a Solidworks part, or some other trick?

 

[Lew_Merrick]

I have a medium complexity assembly that was made from a lot of STEP imports (but saved as Alibre parts) and when I try to export as a Solidworks assembly, it hangs for a while, then dies...

Alibre Translate shows up checked in my Add-on Manager...

Do I need to first export each part as a Solidworks part, or some other trick?

JJ -- Not knowing what your situation or background is, my first caution is that STEP files are, by definition, Dumb Solids because way too many of the people creating the definitions for ISO-10303 (the formal definition of STEP) are opposed to having a functional Neutral Data Format actually work across the board! Thee are "traps" that can leap out and bite one system that function properly in others. This is a problem that leaps out and bites me several times a year. After importing STEP daya, it is a good idea to perform an immediate Save As to your final format and verify that it is coming across properly.

Also, depending upon the setting in the system receiving SolidWorks Assembly files, the "missing Constraints" can add "fun" to the process.

 

[JJHawg]

Thanks for the quick reply, Lew.

I tried saving one the most complex individual parts as Solidworks part and it crashed Alibre. I opened the assembly again and suppressed this troublesome part, and the entire assembly, as well as the individual files, was exported without crashing. I have yet to try and open them with Solidworks, but I my immediate problem is correctable...

 

[DavidJ]

Which version of AD are you running, have you updated to v2018?

 

[bigseb]

I haven't really tested imports/exports with 2018 yet. I hope this is a quick fix as I import a lot, particularly catia files (and the usual step and iges)