When asked why they didn’t upgrade, many of these customers said they thought the EPDM upgrade was too much hassle but this is not the case. In fact, an EPDM upgrade is usually easier than upgrading SolidWorks. We’re fully trained on how to successfully upgrade EPDM and would be more than happy to come to your site and do the job for you (if you’re located in New England). However, if you have a smaller install base where the Archive Server and the Database server are installed on the same box and you are feeling adventurous, here is a quick guide to the process.

1)      Familiarize yourself with Chapter 8, Upgrading Enterprise PDM, and Chapter 9, Upgrading SolidWorks Files, in the SolidWorks Enterprise PDM Installation Guide, which can be found on the SolidWorks Enterprise PDM DVD.

2)      Develop a roll-out plan.  Consider things like:

• How many client machines do I need to touch?  Do I have enough time or help to get that done during the upgrade window?
• Do I have to upgrade archive servers at remote locations?  Will there be time zone implications and have local users been notified?
• For employees that are out of the office, how will their machines get updated?

3)      Make sure someone from your IT staff is available when you do the upgrade.  While the average computer savvy person can do the upgrade on his or her own, nothing is worse than rebooting the server and not knowing the password when it comes back up.

4)      Make sure you know the following accounts and their passwords:

• The EPDM admin account
• The database SA account
• The EPDM Server password

5)      Make sure you have a good backup!  99.9% of the time there is never any problem with an upgrade but for that .1% you may need to restore from backup and start over.  Instructions on how to create an EPDM backup are covered in Chapter 7, Backing Up and Restoring File Vaults, of the SolidWorks Enterprise PDM Installation Guide.

6)      Contact CAPINC for a new EPDM License file – When you upgrade to a new major version, your license count is reset to 0 users.  After you upgrade you must install a valid license file for the new version.  NOTE: You do not need a new license file if you are only a installing a service patch.

7)      Verify all users have checked in all their files and are logged out of the vault.

8)      When all of the above steps are done, you are ready to run the upgrade.  Log in locally to the server with local admin rights (you can log in remotely but it is recommended you have the install media on the remote system) and run Setup.exe from the EPDM DVD.

9)      Click on the HTML link “How to upgrade from a previous SolidWorks Enterprise PDM version” FIRST and follow the directions on the screen.  DO NOT CLICK ON THE “UPGRADE” BUTTOM WITHOUT CLICKING THE LINK FIRST!

10)   After the upgrade of the Archive Server and the Database server is finished, install the new license file.

11)   Update the clients to the new version by running SETUP.EXE from the DVD and choosing the client install option on each workstation.

As we said above, these are basic instructions.  For customers who have their archive and database servers on different machines, have replicated servers, manage their toolbox in the vault, want to automate the upgrade of their workstations or want to upgrade SolidWorks at the same time, please contact CAPINC Technical Support at 1-800-424-2255.

SolidWorks is very good at converting parts like these. Using the Insert Bends command almost finishes the job: bends have the correct radius and corner reliefs are added. But notice that the flange on the left is missing. There’s more work to do.

Let’s look at What’s Wrong in the Feature Manager.

SolidWorks sheet metal parts must be a uniform thickness, and the warning is telling us to look at the thickness of the missing flange. In this case, that flange is .06” thick, while the rest of the part is .05” thick. Cutting away material can make the flange a uniform thickness, but there’s a surfacing command that’s faster and perfectly suited to the job. First, roll back the history bar to just below the Imported 1 feature.

Using Insert>Face>Move, select the bottom of the flange and offset it by .01” to match the rest of the part. All the adjacent faces are trimmed to match the moved face and the result is solid body with uniform thickness.

Finally, drag the history bar to the bottom of the Feature Manager to let the part rebuild. The missing flange re-appears because it’s recognized as uniform thickness in Insert Bends.

Here’s another example showing a different problem. This imported part looks good, but it won’t unfold.

Highlight RoundBend 12 and 13: It turns out they really aren’t problems after all. Measuring the inside and outside radii of these bends shows a difference of .06” which is the part thickness.

Looking at other bends shows this one where the inside radius is incorrect for the part thickness. This bend and another at the opposite end of the part are not of uniform thickness and won’t unfold.

It’s possible to do an extruded cut across the part to make a sharp inside corner, and then apply the correct fillet radius. This would have to be repeated for all bends with non-uniform thickness, and could be very time consuming.

There’s another way: using Insert>Surface>Offset, change the offset value to zero and the command becomes Copy Surface. Right click somewhere on the outside surface of the part and accept the Select Tangency option. This will propagate the selected face through all bends. Hide the solid body to see the surface body:

Now use the command Insert>Base/Boss>Thicken with the .06” value for thickness. This offsets every outside face the same amount, and the final result is a part of uniform thickness that unfolds without problems:

Enhanced Meshing Technology in SolidWorks Flow Simulation 2012 SP0: 

New meshing technology improves the CAD geometry representation by the computational mesh. As a result, the accuracy of calculation is improved with a fewer number of cells. This means for the users an improvement of the accuracy of the solution with less cells required to capture geometry meaning less time to solve it.  How does this enhanced Meshing technology work?

Let’s step back a second and explain how the SolidWorks Flow Simulation meshing tools actually work. I am going to give a shout out to the Flow Simulation Technical Reference that is installed as a PDF file with every license of the software. Check it out in the following path “C:\Program Files\SolidWorks Corp\SolidWorks Flow Simulation\lang\english\Docs”

But in essence, Flow Simulation creates a computational mesh that is rectangular. This mesh of rectangular cells called the computational domain creates “cells” that lie inside, outside or both inside and outside the SolidWorks model depending upon the type of analysis selected. The boundary between the solid model and where the fluid region lies is the solid/fluid interface, or boundary layer.

The following image shows a zoomed in representation of a SolidWorks model’s edge.

In the 2012 release, starting at Service Pack 0, the advanced Geometry Resolution technology uses points on real CAD edge – here points C1 and C2 to build two faces A1-C1-C2-A2 and B1-C1-C2-B2 which correspond to two CAD faces. What does this mean to you? Less time to solve the problem to get more accurate results.  Less mesh refinement needs to occur as the cell map more directly to the SolidWorks model. In the Ball Valve example that is part of the Flow Simulation Training class that CAPINC offers, there is a 20% improvement to the results from physical test data with the default cell size.

Better Solution Adaptive Meshing Technology in Flow Simulation 2012 SP1: 

A solution-adaptive mesh allows the computational mesh to change resolution during the calculation in regions where better results are required. It splits the mesh cells in the high-gradient flow regions for a better accuracy of the solution. The new method in 2012 SP1 considers each gradient area separately for a better refinement strategy. This new method creates a more uniform mesh which is good for the solver and leads to a better accuracy.

Improved Multi-Core Performance in SolidWorks Flow Simulation 2012 SP0: 

It’s hard to purchase a computer nowadays without at least a dual core setup. Most systems now have even more. SolidWorks Flow Simulation has been taking advantage of multi-core for many releases now, even working on computers over the network to spawn jobs on other CPUs. You have a choice to select how many CPUs to use for a simulation, you just need to open the Run dialog box and make a selection in the Use CPU(s) list.

With 2012 release, SolidWorks Flow Simulation even better supports additional CPUs with higher efficiency than ever before.

Fan Boundary Conditions in Flow 2012 SP2: 

A Fan is a type of flow boundary condition, considered as an ideal device creating a Volume (or Mass) flow rate depending on the difference between the inlet and outlet pressures averaged over the selected face. SolidWorks Flow Simulation 2012 SP2 offers an improved Fan model for a more accurate and more robust simulation of the fans, mainly for simulations when you have several fans installed.

The main advantage of the new fan technology is the fan curve calculation now solves at every iteration. This leads to a better convergence in simulation with multiple fans.

Other Flow Simulation Enhancements recently added in SP0:

• The Tracer Study in the Flow Simulation HVAC module can be used to easily detect and visualize gas concentrations and improve ventilation.
• Draught Rate (DR) : new comfort parameter represents a percentage of people feeling discomfort by draught (Identified in ISO 7730).  This is also part of the HVAC module.

• Automatic recognition of solid-solid contact area when setting up thermal resistance. This will save time by detecting the surface of contact.
• Quick callouts are now available to identify easily the invalid contact location in the graphics area so you can fix them quicker.
• Finally, my favorite feature for viewing results in 2012, you can now dynamically adjust the palette size, position, and number of levels. You can also define the default settings and appearance of the Color Bar and new palettes of the Color Bar dialog box optimized for visualization of the temperature distribution.

2012 Service Pack 02 enhancements:

• Exporting of results will simultaneously export multiple surface parameters to Microsoft Excel for further analysis or to include in reports.
• Screen capture videos can be created to record all screen activities.
• Plots can be saved to standard image sizes.
• A new HVAC module tutorial demonstrates how to use tracers to simulate the pollutant dispersion.

If you have not had a chance to download Service Pack 02, it looks like there are lots of goodies in store!

The wife of one of our employees is a diabetic and recently started using an insulin pump which uses disposable 2cc cartridges and are filled by the user with the required type of insulin. These can be prefilled to save time and trouble for an extended trip from home. The problem with prefilling is there is nothing to prevent the plunger on the cartridge from depressing, which wastes the insulin and makes a mess in her diabetic kit.

To solve this problem our Dimension Support Specialist, Dave Tupper, decided to design a holder which would protect the cartridge and be small enough to fit in his wife’s purse without taking up much room.

The first design simply went around the cartridge with a shoulder preventing the plunger from being depressed. Unfortunately, there was nothing to prevent the center of the cartridge from swinging out, as it was being held in only by the o-ring.

The second iteration added a ring in one end to receive the plunger, slightly larger than the plunger itself. Dave also added a second shoulder to prevent the cartridge from shifting in the other direction; however this time there was a measurement mistake and the second shoulder was too far from the first.

The third iteration moved the shoulder to the correct position but shortened the overall length, which prevented the cartridge from snapping into place with the cap on it to keep it sterile.

The fourth design extended the length too much and allowed excess space at the top near the cap. This design would work but was larger than it needed to be, wasting material and space in the already full diabetic kit.

Design 1

Design 2

Design 3

Design 4

The fifth and final design brought the overall and internal length down to the minimum needed to safely protect the cartridge and still fit in the diabetic kit.

Design 5

The total time for designing and prototyping his wife’s insulin pump holder, including his very basic SolidWorks skills, was about 2 hours design time and less than 4 hours of build time (for all 5 models) in the uPrint 3D Printer. This doesn’t include time in the clean station, but there is no human interaction needed for that phase.

Dave’s story shows how ingenuity and persistence pay off when designing new products. He identified a problem that his wife faced, which many others may also encounter, and chose to take action to alleviate the stress of carrying an insulin pump. He was able to design a relatively simple object in SolidWorks, print a prototype and make revisions within hours, not days or weeks. SolidWorks and a 3D printer made this possible.

For more information, please contact us.

Our journey begins with an imported model:
If you’ve ever worked with imported models, you’re probably used to the model landing in some strange orientation and with no relation to the origin, as shown to the side.  There are several possible reasons the model imported in this way, and all of them point to the system of origination.  Regardless of why, we need to know how to work with what we’ve been given.
Each of the following three methods is useful for specific intents…..know your intention!

1)  Create a Reference Coordinate System

One of the more common questions presented is, “how can I move the origin?”  The answer is simply, “you can’t.”  SolidWorks has hard coded the origin and the XYZ orientation into the file templates.  You are able to define your own “Reference Coordinate System”, however.  Coordinate systems are useful:

• with the Measure and Mass Properties tools.
• when exporting SolidWorks documents to IGES, STL, ACIS, STEP, Parasolid, VRML, and VDA.
• when applying assembly mates.
• when inserting Table Driven patterns.
• when inserting your model into drawing views.
• for orienting a CircuitWorks PCB Component.
• for specifying loads in Simulation analyses.
• for specifying loads in Simulation Flow.

A Reference Coordinate System becomes a usable feature in the feature tree.  The Coordinate System command may be found under Insert > Reference Geometry > Coordinate System.  The Coordinate System screen capture outlines the command picks….the blue box filled with “Vertex<1>” is the reference origin, the edge highlighted in yellow corresponds to the reference X-Axis, and the blue highlighted edge is the corresponding reference Z-Axis.

2)  Re-orient the model views using “Update Standard Views”

Updating the standard views is useful only in viewing the current file (part or assembly) and inserting the model into its respective drawing views. Attempting to view the imported model from one of the standard orientations, such as front or top, can be frustrating if it is not already oriented along the default XYZ coordinate system. The reference coordinate system, covered earlier, fails when it comes to viewing the model, unfortunately. To “Update Standard Views” means to re-orient the viewing position so when you select the front view you get to look at the front of the model or selecting the top view shows you the top of the model. The updated standard views will propagate to the drawing.

Let’s start by using the orientation method that Crystal shared with us two weeks ago.  The screenshot to the left shows the desired orientation selections.

Notice in the screenshot below that we are looking at the isometric view, and the model appears as desired, but the origin looks funny.  The standard views have been oriented to the model and broken from the part XYZ orientation.

3)  Use Move/Copy Body

The Move/Copy Body command is sure to become the best friend to anyone working with imported geometry. Move/Copy Body (M/CB) allows you to change the orientation of a body with respect to the origin/coordinate system. The command is located under Insert > Features > Move/Copy Body and is only available in part files. I like MC/B because it allows us to take advantage of the default origin/coordinate system and standard views, but also allows us to insert the model into an assembly while respecting the both part orientation and assembly coordinate system (it drops the part in as expected, not in the same random location and orientation as initially imported into the part).

M/CB allows two methods of re-orientation:

• by specifying either translation or rotation (requires multiple M/CB’s to perform multiple translations and/or rotations).
• by assigning mates between the body to move and other reference geometry or other bodies (in a multi-body solid).

When possible, I find it much simpler to M/CB using the mates interface. Clicking on either the “Constraints” or “Translate/Rotate” buttons, as shown in the captures to the right, will toggle between the interfaces.

In the shot below, you can see that all of the orientation mates are tucked away under the M/CB feature in the tree. For clarity, I have selected the first locating mate which highlights both the front plane and the front face. You can also see that the origin is in a logical location and the model is oriented in a usable fashion.

Conclusion
When importing models which are dis-oriented upon import, you must first determine the importance of re-orienting the model.  If you simply need to create a drawing, you may be able to save rebuild time by applying the second method, “Updating Standard Views.”  You may choose the first method, creating reference coordinate systems, if origin location and XYZ orientation is important to analyze the mass properties, run a Simulation, or re-export the model.  If you want your model to be oriented for all of the above reasons, plus be able to insert the model into an assembly properly and don’t mind the overhead of an extra feature or more, then use the Move/Copy Body option.

Comments or questions? Feel free to add them to the comments section below, or give us a call: 800-424-2255.

There are times when you want to use document links. Perhaps you are sending an email to a colleague.   Maybe you have a master list of specifications and you want to make accessing one of these listed documents a simple click away.

And let’s not forget how we love our desktop shortcuts!

While many features (copy, paste, rename) appear to behave the same way in EPDM as they do in Windows, document linking is an exception. If you want to link directly to a document in the vault, it can be done, but a standard file path isn’t the right path to take.

Standard File Paths (Links that don’t work consistently)

Standard disk storage is like a filing cabinet. If you are looking for a particular document, first you find the right drawer (D:), then you look for a particular folder (‘MyDirectory’), and then possibly a folder within that folder (‘MySubDirectory’), and then you locate your document (‘MyDoc001.txt’). [In some cases, when you have more than one filing cabinet (server) you might need to note that also.]

So a standard link or shortcut to a document looks something like this:
D:\MyDirectory\MySubDirectory\MyDoc001.txt

But this does not work in a vault subfolder. This style of path will only access your local cache which will create a variety of behaviors:

• If the file in cache happens to be the latest, then it will open up
• If the file in cache is an older file, then the older copy in cache will open up
• If the file is not in cache, the link will fail to find the document.
• If any version of the file is in cache, it will open up that file even if the user does not have permission to access that file in the vault! (A possible concern for machines with multiple users sharing the same cache, or if permissions are made more restrictive after a document has been pulled into cache.)

If you want to get the document straight from the vault, you need to reference it differently…

Vault Links (Links that do work)

When you access a file directly from the vault (and you have permission to view that file) you get the following more desirable behaviors:

• If the file in cache happens to be the latest, then it will open up
• If the file is not in cache, the latest version of the document will be copied to cache and opened.
• If the file in cache is an older file, then the user will get the following dialogue box, notifying them that there is a newer version of the file in the vault, and asking if they would like to get the newer version.

But an EPDM vault is not like a filing cabinet.  It is like a bank vault filled with safety deposit boxes. In order to get into the box you want, you need two things:

1) Permission from the bank to view the contents of that box
AND
2) The two keys to open it.

If you do not have permission to look in the box, the vault will block your access, even in the file is already in local cache.

The keys, once you have them, are used in the link. A vault link looks something like this:

conisio://MyVault/open?projectid=14&documentid=65&objecttype=1

In this example, the vault name is: MyVault
The first key to open the box is the project ID number: 14
The second key is the document ID number:  65

While the format may look a little strange at first, it’s actually quite simple. The biggest challenge is how do you get those keys? Like any other reputable bank, you can get them from the manager of the vault.

Getting and Using Project & Document IDs

The Project ID identifies the folder the document is in. The Document ID identifies the document. You need both to open up the safety deposit box and get the latest copy of the document.

To display the IDs are for a given file or folder, someone with access to the EPDM Administration tool needs to add the ID column to one of your views.

Adding the ID column to a view

Go into the Admin tool and right click on Columns to create a New Column Set.

Create a new File List column for viewing IDs, and assign it to one of your users or groups (I chose to give it to the Admin user).

Then, when viewing the vault as that user, you will able to see both the IDs for the Project folders and the documents.

Using IDs to create the link

Using the above information, a link to the testing doc links.txt file would look like this:

conisio://ACME1/open?projectid=50&documentid=92&objecttype=1

The vault name, in this example: ACME1
The project ID number, in this example: 50
The document ID number, in this example:  92

Modify the link, replacing the vault name, and the project and document IDs.

Added bonuses

The days of banks giving away toasters with every new account are over, but in addition to hyperlinking directly to your documents, EPDM offers the following hyperlink functionality:

In the vault link you can replace the keyword “open” with the following for these features:
view – opens up the document in the SolidWorks Enterprise PDM Viewer
explorer – opens up the folder that the document resides in
history – opens up the document’s history

First open the Part/Assembly you want the view of.  Here is my part in the Isometric Orientation:

We want to create a view of the angled surface with the hole in it.  I have highlighted it in blue below:

One option would be to use the “Normal To” option.  This can be found under View > Modify > Orientation or if you hit the “Space” key.  The results are seen below:

Not bad, however, not what I had in mind.  So, here is another option, Hold the CTRL key and select the Normal To surface and the surface you want to be the “Top”.  Then use your “Normal To” command.

Now isn’t that better!  To save this view so that it can be used on a drawing, simply hit the space bar to bring up the list of available views and hit the “New View” icon:

Give the view a name and it will be added to the list of available orientations.  You can then use that orientation on a drawing view!

There are a myriad of ways to plot and visualize your results in SolidWorks Simulation. My personal favorite is the “Iso” plot, but that’s for another post. Today I want to talk about color and scale.

Look at these two results and tell me which has the higher stress (A or B) and which deflects more (A or B).

A

B

Hard to tell isn’t it? That’s because for each plot generated, the default color scale and deformation scale is automatically calculated based on the current maximum. So they look identical even though they are not.
Now look at these two results. Which has the higher stress (A or B)? Which deflects more (A or B)?

A

B

It’s crystal clear when you match the color scales and deflection scale of the two plots. Compared to A, B has lower stress and higher displacement. (By the way, A is steel, and B is aluminum with a smaller load.)

Fig 5

[Fig5] To edit the color scale, I like to double-click on the color bar on the plot. Set the maximum to a meaningful number, perhaps the yield stress or a fraction of it, or to a nice round number below the current maximum. I also like to force the minimum to zero on most plots.

Fig 6

[Fig6] To edit the deformation scale, I like to double-click on the plot in the tree. Set the user defined scale to a nice round number near the default scale. This will depend on each study.

Now, do the same with your other plot, using the same scale values. Or if the studies are of similar type, you can copy/paste the plots from study tree to study tree. Or drag/drop the plot from the tree to the tab of another study!

Manually setting the maximum color of a plot to the yield stress (or a specified stress criterion) allows you to emphasize the regions that are out of spec, which may get lost in blue when you have a high stress-concentration. Or you can de-emphasize the regions that are way below spec (but would otherwise show up red) when sharing your results with non-technical people.

Now, for extra credit, find the icon in the Simulation Command Manager called “Compare Results”. It will let you show multiple plots from different studies side-by-side and will automatically match their color and deflection scales!

Would you like to learn more? Attend one of our hands-on training classes or take one of Specialized simulation classes coming up!

(I love Amanda’s “Whaaaaaaat?!?” reaction at the end.  You’ll understand the first time you try Maide out yourself.)

To give credit where it is due, we first heard about this on the SolidSmack blog.

More information on the Maide app can be found at on the Maide Website. You have to download and install a small, free add-in on the computer running SolidWorks, then buy the $4.99 app for your iPad at the Apple App Store.  (The app is in beta for SW 2011, but we ran it on 2012 for the video and it worked fine.)  The other requirement is that the computer and iPad must be connected to the same Wi-Fi network.  If I’ve got Wi-Fi the next time I’m making a presentation, I’m definitely using this to make a splash.

But what if you have 2 engineers and 2 iPads, and want to collaborate on SolidWorks models over the cloud?  While one of you is in the airport and another at a local Starbucks?  Well, SolidWorks doesn’t have an iPad viewing app yet, nor does eDrawings, but there is a company called CADFaster that gets the job done:

The CADFaster app is free to download, but requires a monthly service to use (there is a 14-day free trial, however.) More info is available on the CADFaster website. Again, this is putting your data in the cloud, so be aware you’re only one lost iPad or hacked e-mail away from everyone seeing your new, top-secret mousetrap design.  You can delete the models from the cloudspace when you’re done, but while they’re there, your entire review group can view them at once, measure, and make comments.  It’s great for a fast-moving, distributed, high-tech company, (just like CAPINC is becoming).

Leave any questions in the comments section below, and let us know if you’d like to try any of these out!

What if you’re interested in seeing all the mates between two specific parts? If there are a lot of mates in the folder, the method above is hit-or-miss, because you would have to look at the entire list to see which mates exist between the two chosen parts.

Fortunately, there’s an easy solution and a big time saver. Drag the top or bottom edge of the Feature Manager to split it into two panes, and select the Property Manager tab for the lower pane as shown below. Next Control-left-click two parts in the Feature Manager or in the graphics window. The Property Manager will show a list of all mates related to the selected parts, and best of all, the mates between just those parts are shown in BOLD and they float to the top of the list.