Pro/Engineer Wildfire guru

[ted johnson]

Doug, I don't use it all that much any more. I sure don't want to go through the learning curve of a new system! I used WF 3.0 and 5.0 for five years at Sandia Labs doing satellite design. I had used Tntergraph IEMS before that at Kennedy Space Center, and Unigraphics II even earlier at Webster Fluid Power in Wisconsin. I have never even used anything like AutoCAD. UGII was the first CAD system I ever touched. There were always system specialists to do the background work, so all we did was to conjure up the designs and do the CAD models and drawings. To me, CAD is just the tool by which I translate my design for the machinist and fabricator. Before I left Sandia in 2010, I realized the new "designers" were CAD experts who had no clue as to how to design a system. To them, the CAD system was the end item. To me, the gear pump or the satellite was the end item.
I appreciate your help. This WF 4 outputs that "Certificate Trust List" file when I do an STL conversion. I don't even know if that file is of any use to the 3D printer or not. Pruit Ginsberg and I have completed our new Mac and West Bend rod designs, and I thought it might be nice to 3D print one of them just to hold it and maybe put it into an engine to run it through it's cycle. I have an aluminum test bushing I can put in a rod for port timing check, so all I'd need to do would be to ream the small end of the 3D rod and shove a needle bearing in there.
The $125 I spent at the computer repair shop was the best $125 I ever spent! Ted