CAPUniversity » SolidWorks

“Alt” reality

Michael LaFleche — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 18:36:02 +0000

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 an assembly open, and it’s quite large, SolidWorks will try to reduce your graphics overhead by “decimating” the graphics. It will turn you really nice detailed models into chunky, block looking objects. This is usually for the greater good, but if you need to run an animation, fly through or need to see all the details of your SolidWorks model, this may be a hindrance. To remedy this, invoke the view command of your choice, like the Rotate option and then hold the left ALT key down (yes, it has to be the LEFT ALT key). With the left ALT key still held down, rotate and notice the full graphics are available! Check out the video below…

The other ALT key is set to make use of smart mating in assemblies. If you have the parts you already want to mate in the assembly, hold down the RIGHT ALT key (yes, the right ALT key) and drag the face you want to mate on top of another face you want to mate. All the rules of smart mating here apply, where are in the SolidWorks help system online, which you can click here to get to. Here is a video on smart mating using the Right ALT key!

DXF Entity Mapping for SolidWorks

Michael LaFleche — Mon, 24 May 2010 14:55:23 +0000

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 DXF file of a sheet metal flat pattern, save it like normal, then chose “Options” in the Save As… dialog box. Here you will notice a host of options, but the most important one is the Mapping choice. Flip this switch on the on position and close the Options box. When you save the file, you will get a box that pops up that asks you to translate SolidWorks Entity types to DXF layers, colors and line-type. Save this mapping file out in a central location that everybody in the company can access. The next time you export a DXF file, go back to Options to tell it not to ask you again for the mapping information so the save process is transparent. A quick tips is to create a DXF/DWG mapping file for each piece of equipment that requires different mapping or for customers that you work with that need DWG/DXF, typically for schematics or plant layouts.

One of my customers has indicated that it is a bit cumbersome with the large volume of DXF files to change the color every time after export. The reason for the color change is that their CAM/Laser/Waterjet systems all use white as a highlight color, so creating machining/laser files is not practical when you can’t tell what is/isn’t selected. This will save time when exporting DXF output! Watch the video below for a full description of the mapping process. Happy trails!

No power tools required, SolidWorks Toolbox Shortcuts

Michael LaFleche — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 19:52:28 +0000

SolidWorks Toolbox has a plethora of available mechanical hardware for machine designers to choose from. In fact, the estimate is that there are over 2 millions distinct sizes of hardware to grab. In playing around with Toolbox today, I rediscovered a trick to rapidly insert screws into an assembly. The normal process to insert a screw is to drag and drop the appropriate screw into an assembly model and drag it close to a hole. Then it will SmartMate itself into position and ask for the size and length of the screw.

The rediscovered shortcut is to pre-select the edges of the holes that you wish to add hardware to. These can be on completely separate surfaces, or on separate parts. After you choose the edges, go ahead and right-mouse button click on the part in the Toolbox browser and choose “Insert into assembly” Then it will happily go on its way to placing the hardware in exactly as you will it. At the end of the process, it will then prompt for the size and length, which you can select in the PropertyManager or dynamically on-screen with the drop down list and green arrow. See the YouTube video below for more.

SolidWorks Title Block Tips

Michael LaFleche — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 12:45:06 +0000

A question that pops up from time to time with our customers is how to create a Title Block. More specifically, the description field. Many times, a description for a part on the drawing will not fit on one line of text. This is in many cases rectified by adding another field for the second line or third line. While this serves it’s purpose of producing a drawing that can be printed and sent out for manufacturing, a sinister problem surfaces. The custom property field for description is no longer one field that is easily searched for in a a PDM or ERP system. So if you set up your SolidWorks properties to be synchronized with your ERP system’s item Master or even on your BOM on the assembly drawing, the note for description is truncated.

To solve this issue, the flexible and stretchable annotation field comes to the rescue. To enable this, double-click the note and a border appears around the note. Drag the handles surrounding the note to fit to your description box in your title block. To make filling out the title block even more seamless, use the “Title Block Area” functionality to edit the description without having to go back to the part model The YouTube video below will show how to accomplish this.

The “Hole” Story – SolidWorks Fill Patterns

Michael LaFleche — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 21:14:52 +0000

Ask a hundred engineers wow they would go about the process of generating a hole pattern with lots and lots of holes, and you will get a hundred answers. So this is just my two cents, but a penny saved is a penny earned.

The technique that I am going to show you describes using the all powerful “Fill Pattern”. The Fill Pattern feature lets you select an area defined by co-planar faces or a sketch that lies on co-planar faces. The command fills the defined region with a pattern of features or a predefined cut shape. The typical uses for this are for ventilation, filters, grips or to reduce the weight of your parts.

The best way to set these up is to create to sketches to capture the region that you want to work in and to create a sketch to orient the pattern of holes. In the YouTube video below, you will notice that I offset the boundary of the cylindrical disk for one sketch, then in another sketch I create a single line for a direction vector for the pattern to line up on. Now, here is the coolest part: I get to make the pattern, even without creating the hole ahead of time as a feature. The “Fill Pattern” tool, which is found under Insert… Pattern/Mirror… Fill Pattern or in the Pattern Drop down toolbar button, can create a hole for you, without a sketch. The video below describes some of the features and menu picks to set this up.

After quickly creating the pattern, I send the file out to the laser drilling machine by saving a DXF file directly from the part file by selecting the pace with all the hole, choosing File.. Save As… and choosing DXF as the file type. SolidWorks nicely presents a preview of the DXF file to ensure that it will be good for the Laser machine.

No more Virtual Components by default…

Michael LaFleche — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 13:43:36 +0000

In SolidWorks 2010, there is a new option relating to creating new in-context components in an assembly that may reduce the blood pressure of many SolidWorks users. The new option is “Save new components to external files”. If selected, SolidWorks prompts you to name and save new in-context components to external files, like it used to prior to SolidWorks 2008. If cleared, saves new in-context components in the assembly file as virtual components. I can go on and on about Virtual components and how useful they are, but I will save that for another post.

I’ve got the power!

Michael LaFleche — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 22:07:59 +0000

In my webcast today on Event-Based Simulation I showed how SolidWorks revolutionizes the way controls and CAD modeling work together. This approach allows you to directly integrate your models with the behaviors you desire, bringing mechanical and electrical design to the forefront while maintaining machine controls flexibility. EBS accomplishes this in a novel way: instead of defining specific times for events, you can start and stop each event in relation to one another. This translates into major savings. Companies can make and modify products in simulation rather than after manufacturing and can avoid a costly rework of the design process.

During today’s webcast I discovered how you can extract detailed quantities relating to components in the design. For example when an simulation is running, you can choose the “results” button on the MotionManager toolbar and then choose a motor component in the MotionManager tree. The selection choices are myriad to say the least. One selection most machine designers are concerned with is Power Consumption, so that they can pick the right sized motor or actuator to handle the movement of a component.

Another possibility is running a static stress analysis during and event-based simulation run. A user can choose to run the static analysis on one or more components during the event simulation. Users can specify if they want to run the simulation during the entire motion run (which may take a while) or choose to run the static study during a small portion of the motion run, during a critical time. This critical time can of course be found by adding a “result” plot to the component in question and running the static study only during the peak of acceleration or power consumption. To learn more, please contact us here at CAPINC.

Create a new view in a Drawing

Michael LaFleche — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 15:55:51 +0000

Have you ever wanted to to change the orientation of a view in a drawing after you have inserted a view? There is a little know function that allows a user to rotate / pan or zoom in a model view in a drawing. Typically one can use this function to add a dimension to a hidden feature. When you choose the OK button, it then reverts back to the original view position. However, if you want to save the view’s rotated state, use our old friend the space bar to invoke the old school view dialog box. Here, you can save the view orientation, choose the OK check mark and then change the view from the current view to the new view that you just saved. Cool huh? new_view_drawing

Be a CTRL Freak: Part 2

Michael LaFleche — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 16:10:41 +0000

One of my customers contacted me and gave me a great CTRL key tip when it concerns the user interface. It turns out that you can add a toolbar on top of docked toolbars without docking it, just hold the “CTRL” down and drag any toolbar from graphical area to the empty area of a docked toolbar and voila – it’s on top of it without affecting anything else. I thought this to be a cool tip for those toolbar mavens out there…

Interesting Corner on Welded Frame

Michael LaFleche — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 13:52:23 +0000

Have you ever wanted to have a nice equal mitre cut on the corner of a weldment? This is possible since SolidWorks provides tools to group weldment profiles together in one feature. The try this out yourselves, create a 3DSketch of your frame structure, insert a weldment feature, then insert a structural member. Select the top two consecutive edges in the 3DSketch and choose “Mitre” as the corner treatment option. Then, choose the “New Group” option and select the vertical member. You will notice that the default is the make a flat cut up to the mitered cut above it. This is fine on many weldments. But if there is a special situation where you need an equal mitre cut for rigidity’s sake, you have the option to choose from multiple corner treatment types. While you are still in the structural member setup, you will notice a blue dot on the corner of your weldment preview on your screen. Click the blue dot and you will be presented with a box. Here, change the “Trim Order” from “1″ to “2″ and gawk in amazement! you now have an equal mitre cut!

Download the weldment part here from my 3DContentCentral library.