Rev Control on Multi-Sheet drawings or Configurations
Is it possible to Revision Control a SolidWorks or AutoCAD Drawing with multiple sheets with different revisions, versions or workflow states? The answer to this question is yes, this is possible. The reason to do this is most prevalent on process sheet drawings. A company may execute a workflow that approves each process of making [...]
InspectionXpert for SolidWorks 2011
For SolidWorks 2011, InspectionXpert has completely revamped the way quality departments can ensure proper inspection report documentation. In case you have not seen it, InspectionXpert for SolidWorks is a SolidWorks Partner Product add-in that automates the ballooning of SolidWorks drawings and creation of Inspection Sheets for quality control inspections. InspectionXpert eliminates the manual creation of [...]
“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 [...]
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 simple schematic [...]
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 to revel [...]
A better way to create schematics inside of SolidWorks
There are many ways NOT to use AutoCAD to create 2d Schematic diagrams, wire summaries and P&ID (Process and Instrumentation Diagrams). Many users that I talk to have Microsoft Visio installed on their machines. If you have Visio 2003 or higher installed, you can use SolidWorks and Visio together to overthrow AutoCAD. Here is how [...]
Dimension Palette Update for SP3
The infamous “Dimension palette” introduced to the SolidWorks user community has been received with much fanfare. Many people have come to love it or hate it. The concept is great. As soon as you select a dimension, it gives you a heads-up interface in which you can change the tolerance, unit precision and browse to [...]
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 [...]
