In the land of SolidWorks Assemblies exists a funny creature called the “Virtual Component”. Virtual components are typically used in top-down design when you need to create a new part in the context of an existing assembly. During the conceptual design process, when you frequently experiment with and make changes to the assembly structure and components, [...]
What’s the fastest way to show mates between two components in SolidWorks? This was a question posed to the tech team here at CAPINC at our internal Beat the Geek challenge last week. Let’s uncover some of the possible solutions:
One method is to use the Show Mates function that is part of context menu in [...]
2Aug10
“ALT” Reality Part II
Which key do you hold down to “shift” drawing views around on the sheet without having to click exactly on the bounding box of the view or on the edge of a part or assembly in that view? Once, again the “ALT” key comes to the rescue. Simply hold the “ALT” key down then left [...]
29Jul10
Furniture Design with SolidWorks
SolidWorks has an array of tools for furniture and cabinet design. With SolidWorks “Weldments”, stock wood sizes for creating frame based geometry can be accomplished quickly, with accurate cut lists. Part Library Features for wood joining methods and Smart components for assembling systems with mechanical fasteners make assembling and specifiying a complete job easy. I [...]
26Jul10
Schematics with SolidWorks
There are a number of ways not to use AutoCAD to create schematic diagrams out there. I prefer to use SolidWorks related tools to get my job done. I can take advantage of BOM’s, Libraries of symbols, parametric dimensioning and collaborate tools like eDrawings and Enterprise PDM. Let’s discuss how to create a [...]
13Jul10
“Alt” reality
Do you sometimes feel as though you are living in an alternate reality? Well, if you know me, that doesn’t seem so strange. Using the “ALT” key in SolidWorks can bring you great joy and help you achieve SolidWorks bliss.
The first cool use of the ALT key is in the realm of large scale design. If you have [...]
What defines a smart company? Knowing when to adapt and change with the needs of the customers they serve. You all may have heard of the new 2D Product DraftSight, which came out recently. There is quite a buzz about the product. But you may ask yourself, why have they come out with DraftSight? The [...]
Have you ever wanted to make sure an inspection balloon could be tethered to another annotation item, like a dimension? Here is how to accomplish this is a few short steps. First, dimension your drawing in the normal way. Then add your balloons, notes, symbols, ect… by double clicking the view that [...]
19Jun10
Convert to a section view
I recently had a question from a customer asking if there was a way to convert a regular old named or projected view to a complete section view. Let’s say you fully detail a view up with many dimensions, notes, symbols, etc… and then you want to convert it to a section view [...]
Is there any way to alter the output line color of a DXF save for sheet metal parts from white to any other color? The answer is yes and you don’t have to be Magellan. Use the SolidWorks DXF Entity Mapping to save your company many hours of time. To export a [...]
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