There is a recipe to concoct that will make for successful schematic diagrams in SolidWorks. The first ingredients are the symbol libraries. SolidWorks provides users with hundreds of symbols that can be found here in the SolidWorks Content tab. Simply go to the Design Library Tab on the right side of the screen and choose the SolidWorks Content node. Then expose the Blocks node. Here you will find Hydraulic and Electrical appear in the lower window. Hold the CTRL key and Left Click on the appropriate icon to download the library. Once it is done downloading, the best option is to store it in a central location, like a server or the Enterprise PDM Vault.
Next, you want to add this file location to your Design Library references. To do this, go to “Add File Location” button on the Design Library tab. Then point it to where you downloaded the files. It is a good idea from this point to save our settings as a SolidWorks registry file using the “Copy Options Wizard” so these file locations can be easily deployed to other SolidWorks users at your company.

I like to add the line format, layer and, weird but true, the explode line sketch toolbar to my SolidWorks drawing environment. The explode line sketch toolbar includes the Jog Line tool which is handy to do exactly what it states.
The advantages to using SolidWorks drawing environment here are that you can marry 3D Views of the piping system and 3D Schematic view, export eDrawings, PDF’s and other such formats SolidWorks can export, plus Enterprise PDM can automate the filling out of title blocks and the creation of said export formats thought an Approval workflow.

Another way to create the schematic is to actually drag the blocks into Layout mode in an Assembly. The advantages to building it here are the Bill of Materials function can be called. To execute this, you must convert the blocks to parts for the BOM to pick up on these; however, this is an easy step. After you have added all your 2DBlocks, right-click on the blocks in the FeatureManager Design Tree and choose “Make Part from Block” and choose the either the “On Block” setting or the “Project” setting. The “On Block” setting is usually fine as this will constrains the part to be co-planar with the plane of the block in the layout sketch, which is fine for a schematic diagram.

Once you have the blocks all laid out, you will have the opportunity to create a Bill of Materials in Assembly or Drawing mode. If you want to Balloon the block symbols to match the items on the BOM, you can use the Balloon Invisible components setting on the Balloon properties. They are invisible by default as there is no geometry. But if you select the balloon button and choose the part you want to balloon in the invisible components list, and then select he part to balloon in the display, you get the patching properties to balloon on that part.

The broken out section view is typically used to review the inner workings of a part or assembly view in a small portion of the view, rather than making a separate section view. When the user creates a broken out section, SolidWorks promptly places you into the spline tool where you can draw a boundary for the sectioned out area. Then you can manually enter a value for the depth or choose an edge in a projected view to determine the depth. But rather than drawing a small spline area for the broken out area, you can draw the spline all the way around the view, or even draw a rectangle before entering the broken out section command and then it will use that for the boundary.

The dimensions in the view that still make sense at the section depth still appear. in other words, dimensions to features which no longer appear in the view are removed automatically. I hope this post get’s you out of a jam!

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 it works: In a SolidWorks drawing, from the pull down menu’s, Click Insert, Schematic. The Position Schematic PropertyManager opens. Under Schematic Templates, select a template. These are all the templates the come with Visio or the ones that you have customized. Note: The PropertyManager lists the templates most commonly required in SolidWorks. To choose from the more extensive list in Visio, select Other from the bottom of the SolidWorks list, or else make no selection. Next, Drag-select a box in the graphics area of your drawing to size and position the schematic. Now you can drag and drop components from the Visio library to create the schematic in SolidWorks. Click outside the OLE object that is dropped into SolidWorks to accept it.

Even better yet, you can use the Visio diagram to drive a 3D Pipe route. In SolidWorks 2010, you can import a Piping and Instrumentation Diagram (P&ID) file created with an external system such as Visio and use that file as a guide in building route assemblies. To import route specifications from a P&ID file, click Piping and Instrumentation tab (If you have SolidWorks Routing turned on) from the SolidWorks Task Pane, select the P&ID file, and click Import P&ID. Note: You must import the P&ID data file in .xml format. For an example, see Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\SolidWorks\SolidWorks_Version\design library\routing\piping\pnid sample.xml. The path to the Application Data folder depends on your operating system. You must show hidden files to view this folder. A wizard will then guide you through the process of dropping in the piping components. As a best practice, import schematics from a P&ID file to design a piping route so that the piping design matches the connectivity and pipe sizes in the schematic and the design validation tools in SolidWorks Routing warn of any deviation from the schematic.

I was looking purposelessly at the pull-down menus in SolidWorks the other day and found View – Next Sheet, and View – Previous Sheet. I tried them out in a multi-sheet Drawing and sure enough, they allowed a nice switch between Drawing Sheets! (Double-clicking the FeatureManager is SO MUCH WORK!) But who would want to pull these commands out of a menu? That’s so 20 years ago.

So I went on over to Tools – Customize – Keyboard, I did a little search for “sheet” and found the two View commands I had just discovered. “I wonder if you can assign a hotkey to PgUp and PgDn?” I thought.

Yes, you can. It shows up as “Prior” and “Next” within the Customize Keyboard dialog.

So now I’ve got the PgUp key and the PgDn key to walk up and down through the Sheets in a Drawing. Slick.