Hello I'm turning to you after having scoured many sites on the subject. The question is in the title: How to organize chain quotes in a Solidworks drawing? (I'm on the 2025 SP3 version) it happens that I often come across cases like this one where the dimensions stack up and are unreadable. The only way is to put them back by hand, but when there are a hundred per shot and the manipulation has to be redone almost every time you record or update it, the mission quickly becomes hell.
Thank you in advance if you take the time to think about this problem.
Personally I use this one rather than chain quotation (because it is indeed undrinkable ): It's simpler for the person who measures (you hang the m and unwind) no calculation, so less error and much cleaner and more readable on the MEP!
If it were up to me, I would also put another type of dimensioning but we make boxes independent of each other so in the workshop they prefer chain dimensions
Tell them that on the BE side they prefer not to be chained to chain odds. And if it unleashes them, you follow up by telling them that it can be solved with chains on the hills
This is already what I was advised to do above but it is not suitable for the workshop. To read small games or just independent widths of boxes that are linked together, the chain quotes are more readable for them.
@Bob_2000 that's kind of what I advised above as well! But this does not please his studio, obviously. After @cfao_4 I advise you to make the same plan with the 2 styles of dimensioning and to show the 2 in the workshop, for me the ordinal dimensions are much easier to read for them and never intermingle so the readability is much greater. Hopefully, they'll change their minds (of course, take a blatant example to accentuate your chances!)
I've seen with them before and they're not very flexible. They have quite strict standards because as soon as they are changed a little, the heads of departments are lost and the installers pose worse than badly under the pretext that the plan is illegible... To give you a very quick idea of the situation: Ordinal version: Chain version: It is clear that the size of the panel on the façade is clear. The games at the top and bottom are obvious. Whereas with the ordinal odds to have the façade you have to subtract the front odds and the same for the high game. This is only a very simple example, but it illustrates the point.
Unfortunately for the chain climbs, there is no solution to reorganize properly. So either you do the job, or the workshop adapts but no intermediate solutions unfortunately for you. And for the easier reading I don't agree on your plan we are entitled to wonder the 2mm dimension if it is included or not in the 547mm, while with the ordinal dimension no doubt, so to avoid a calculation I regret but this mode seems much easier to everyone, Even if I suspect it's not you who you have to convince! Edit: same pb with us with a chain quotation that needs to be reorganized:
Thank you in any case for trying to solve my problem. I suspected that there was not much hope but nothing ventured, nothing gained! I'll leave the subject a little unresolved if anyone passes by and is inspired
At some point, if they don't want to make the " effort " to subtract 2 whole numbers from a readable plan, I don't see why you would make the effort to make a plan readable that can't be...
Since they prefer chain quotes to readable quotes, give them what they want and let them ruin their eyes on it. They won't have to calculate how much 600-560 is, they'll be happy.
At some point you have to be aware that SW is not screwed up to put dimensions cleanly regardless of the way to set them and the type of rating (chain, ordinal...). This detail was surely done by hand on the example of @sbadenis :
A trick that could work: put everything down and then right-click on all the selected dimensions to use 'tools/Align/ and one of the options' (NB: in 2022 impossible to select dimensions placed in a chain...)
No @froussel the unhook is done on your own when you do the climbs (Sw2023 sp05). Even if from time to time you have to add one, the majority are done well and automatically!
it's a possibility but the time it would take me (as there would be a lot of them) is equivalent to the time I spend rearranging the quotes in chain so well... For the time being, yes, this is clearly not a strong point of Solidworks, whatever the version!
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