Enormous File Sizes

General Discussion
#1

All,
I’m trying to keep my file size down as I do a lot of file storage on the cloud. The file sizes I’m getting are huge, a boat load larger than the solids I’m putting in. I do very detailed setups because I program remotely and send to my customer, I also produce the setup sheets simulation videos from BobCAD to provide to my customers. I can’t handle a file for a simple part, 3 setups, that is 142MB.

I’ve got the below solids pulled into my CAM

  1. Vice base/fixed jaw - 5x - 116kb step file on hard drive (580kb)
  2. Vice flexible jaw - 10x - 38kb step file on hard drive (380kb)
  3. Vice stock jaws - 5x - 107kb step file on hard drive (535kb)
  4. Mite-e-bite 8" talon - 5x - 636kb xt file on hard drive (3180kb)
  5. Solid part model - 3x - 237kb step file on hard drive (711kb)
  6. CAM tool paths
  • total hard drive space for all solids - 5386kb (~5MB)
  • everything listed above includes the transforms/copies to move and duplicate the actual solids I imported
  • .bbcd file as its saved on hard drive is 142,867kb ~ 140MB
#2

If you are building solids or moving/modifying them then your cad history tree will grow. If you dont need the history then simply delete the cad history and save your file…it will be much smaller brcause the history is not saving copies of the solids.

Maybe this is part of your file size.

Hth.

Alex

#3

Thank Alex, I considered that. Upon deleting my entire CAD Tree the file size only dropped from 142,000kb to 140,000kb so a small improvement, but not nearly enough.

#4

Would you be able to share one of the files so we could take a look and see what all data is in the file? Alex was spot on where sometimes after a bunch of manipulations of the solids the CAD tree can be a common culprit of the large sizes, but if you deleted the history and only went down 2 MB, we would have to see what you have in there to offer any advice on how to minimize the sizes.

#5

I have a file that is 348k and doesn’t even have all the solids/surfaces. It is smaller than us used to be after I re-worked it (567k vs 348k). It seems that it is “all” toolpath. I’m no where near bumping storage space but opening, saving and closing the file takes considerable time. But the file size is very similar to many others that are much quicker to open/close.

#6

I’m not quite sure how to upload a file, it’s to big for the forum, 4096kb max

#7

Do you have a dropbox or Google drive account? You could upload there and send a link to me or Greg

Alex