Jason Pancoast
Simulation Tech Tip: Using Color and Deflection Scale to Make Your Point
I’ve often said that post-processing is the single most important step in any analysis. If you can’t effectively interpret your results, or communicate them to others, your entire analysis was a waste of time no matter how clever your setup was! There are a myriad of ways to plot and visualize your results in SolidWorks [...]
Turkey with All the Fixin’s (A Simulation Tech Tip… or 4 or 5)
Almost without fail, in every single Simulation class I teach, someone asks me, “What’s the difference between Fixed and Immoveable?” They’re asking about two options in the Fixture dialog (often referred to as boundary conditions or restraints). It occurred to me this week: Who better to explain fixins than a Thanksgiving Turkey! So, I fired [...]
SolidWorks Tech Tip: The Most Addictive Functionality in SolidWorks… Mouse Gestures
When I first heard about Mouse Gestures, I immediately thought of an innapropriate hand gesture from that loveable Disney character… But it turns out, Mouse Gestures are about this: Introduced in SolidWorks 2010, when you hold down your Right Mouse Button and drag, a magical ring of commands appears! When your cursor passes over one [...]
SolidWorks Tech Tip: Shortcut for Making an Offset Plane
Remember the promotion NBC Studios ran during summer re-runs? “If you haven’t seen it, it’s new to you!” Well, after 14 years of supporting SolidWorks I forget which tips and tricks the average user might not know. Here’s an oldie-but-goodie that wowed my students in a recent Advanced Parts class. To quickly make an Offset [...]
SolidWorks Tech Tip: Auto Recover and Backups
SolidWorks has two different methods of helping you to recover recent work in case an unplanned event causes data loss. Auto recover settings and Backup settings are both found under Tools – Options – System Options – Backups, and they do two different things. Auto recover helps you if there is a crash or other [...]
SolidWorks Tech Tip: Thickness Analysis
If you are doing plastic part design, or castings, the material thickness throughout your part is an important design concern. SolidWorks Professional includes a Thickness Analysis tool so you can visualize the thicknesses of your part. To check a part’s thickness, go to Tools > Thickness Analysis… This will automatically turn on the SolidWorks Utilities [...]
SolidWorks Tech Tip: Cut With Plane
You can use a Reference Plane to cut away a portion of a model. This is very useful for creating sections or cutaway configurations — for example for symmetric simplification prior to analysis — or to remove material to make a part flush with a datum. To cut with a Reference Plane, go to Insert [...]
New CAPINC Customer Portal
This is especially useful for Engineering Managers or internal user group leaders who want to share information across your team.
My newest custom hotkeys… for Drawings!
I’m a bit of a nonconformist. I like to do things my way. So I guess it’s good that SolidWorks has a lot of customization options. I’m not a big keyboard guy, having grown up in the Mouse Age in terms of CAD, but I’m a big fan of Alt-Tab and Ctrl-Tab to switch applications [...]
