The SolidWorks Geek - Latest Comments

Re: Quick Tip #2 - Dimension Arc Length

xorge — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 12:57:21 -0000

WOW!!! had no idea you coudl do this
Thanks
X Castro

Re: Mating in SolidWorks – Standard Mates

Mille — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 08:12:14 -0000

Thank you for all the tips. I was wondering.. do you have a blog (that I haven't found so far) or are you planning on making a blog about the other mates - Advanced and Mechanical?
I resently discovered the screw mate, which I think is very useful for making assemblies, that reflects the products I'm dealing with. With that and a motion study I can check whether my model is concistent when working/moving (thus whether I've missed anything while designing each part seperately).

Re: Mating in SolidWorks – Standard Mates

TheSWGeek — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 12:30:18 -0000

Hi John,

That is a good point. i actually wrote a post about that very topic earlier. http://www.theswgeek.com/2008/08/18/design-fast...
I actually go through the steps up setting up the Mate References for parts. Thanks for the reminder :)

Re: Mating in SolidWorks – Standard Mates

John M — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 12:23:55 -0000

Don't forget about adding a mate reference to a part! That way when you drag it in to your assembly from wherever it will snap in based on the faces you select. I'm amazed how little this function is used sometime.....

Re: Sum Simple Equations

bigmikeo — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 11:37:15 -0000

I'm trying to do a simple equation in a drawing table. I have the mass of my parts shown in the table and then the quantity of parts in the next column. The third column has the total mass, the obvious equation is SUM(C2*D2) but it will not accept it?

Never mind, the SUM is not required.

Re: Slots O’ Fun

Rob White — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 12:35:27 -0000

Brilliant!!

Re: Creating Your BOM Template

TheSWGeek — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 16:33:25 -0000

Hi Robert,

There are a couple of things you can do. First, you can cut and paste
the entire BOM onto another sheet of the drawing. Select the Cross in
the upper left corner of the BOM and select CTRL-X. Change sheets and
press CTRL-V to paste the BOM.

You can also split the BOM and paste only half of the BOM on a second
sheet. Check out this post on splitting a BOM:
http://www.theswgeek.com/2008/07/03/using-boms-...

Re: Video - Splitting a Part in SolidWorks

TheSWGeek — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 12:22:28 -0000

Hi James,

I sent you an email but a good site to check out would be my friend Brian Slick at http://clingingtoideas.blogspot.com/ . I believe he made the transistion last year....but I could be wrong.

Re: Video - Splitting a Part in SolidWorks

James — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 11:51:33 -0000

With eighteen years experience with SDRC Ideas V5.i to NX ideas 5m3, what would be the learning curve switching to solidworks. I would (my peers also) consider myself an advanced user.

Re: Creating Your BOM Template

ircsmith — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 20:53:53 -0000

Thank you very much. This helped out a lot.

Re: Creating Your BOM Template

Robert Roach — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 13:04:24 -0000

We have a serious problem with room on the sheet. Sometimes the assembly is too big or the sheet is too small to insert a BOM onto the same sheet. So far I have found nothing to show me how to place the BOM onto a second sheet.
HELP!!

Re: The Modify Sketch Tool

Kevin — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 13:56:52 -0000

Awesome, very helpful. I made a wing from a few changing airfoil sections and I found it very helpful to convert entities using an original sketch to one of a series of reference planes. Once the original sketch spline was on the reference plane, I suggest using the global plane coordinates to drop a point about which you can scale and rotate your sketch, if you are making something that doesn't scale at the origin.

Re: Building a Stapler - Arm Spring

TheSWGeek — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 13:35:20 -0000

Beat me to it. :) I was just working on a response.

Re: Building a Stapler - Arm Spring

Chris — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 13:32:09 -0000

Nevermind on this, there is a command, $CONFIGURATION@"part file name" that lets you write out the configurations for assemblies. Easy

Re: Building a Stapler - Arm Spring

Chris — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 13:26:04 -0000

Do you know if there is a way to use a design table in Assemblies to be able to type in configurations used on a part? I.E. Can I have configurations named A, B, and C in a part file and create a design table in an assembly where I can create configurations in the assembly 1A, 1B, and 1C, by typing in the configurations in the design table? Something similar to the $STATE@ command, but for configurations, not suppressions.

Re: Mating in SolidWorks – Standard Mates

fcsuper — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 02:43:33 -0000

it's funny one way is called aligned, and the other way is anti-aligned, yet isn't "anti-aligned" always the way that you don't want, regardless to orientation. :) That is to say, "anti-aligned" in SolidWorks is many times really the aligned method.

Re: Mating in SolidWorks – Standard Mates

Richaard Williams — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 15:12:41 -0000

Thanks for the tips. Always good to go over the basics again.

Re: Building a Stapler - Arm Bracket (Sheet Metal)

TheSWGeek — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 12:41:25 -0000

Glad to hear you like the tutorial. :)

In order to change the dimple, you'll need to delete the feature created by the forming tool. Then edit the form in the design library prior to adding it to the part again.

Re: Building a Stapler - Arm Bracket (Sheet Metal)

20100 — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 10:44:13 -0000

great tutorial - but I've ran into a problem with the dimples: they're way too big for the model: it seems I can't resize them... Any idea what the problem is? I use a student evaluation kit (SW09); thanks,

Re: Mating in SolidWorks – Standard Mates

JRat — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 05:37:23 -0000

ALT key option is an productive discovery...

Re: Review: 3Dconnexion SpacePilot PRO 3D Mouse

fcsuper — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 09:34:14 -0000

Dude, where have you been?

Re: Creating Your BOM Template

Filipe Venceslau — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 09:16:42 -0000

Hi! Very good post! Thanks for sharing!
I am currently making up a BOM list (for production purposes).
My BOM type is "Parts Only", so I get a list of all my parts.
Now in my main assembly, I have one custom property which is called Quantity, which basically is the total amount required of that final product (which consists of a group of parts as well).
Every part also has a custom property called quantity, so my bill of materials tells me how many parts I need for 1 assembly.
I have two rows for quantities, one for a single assembly, and one for the total amount of assemblies required. I was thinking of making a formula like:
Total quantity = Single quantity * assembly quantity
This would work perfectly, however...I can't seem to find a way to link to that Main assembly custom property or any for that mater. All the other custom properties I can link to no problem and calculate stuff, but I'd like to know if there's a way of reading custom properties from a specific assembly, when it's not in the BOM list.

Thanks in advance

Re: The Appearance of Things - Display Pane

dave — Sun, 24 May 2009 18:52:27 -0000

Thanks, this solved a problem

Re: Check Out Our New Look

Wayne — Fri, 22 May 2009 16:28:33 -0000

Alex I am new to your site and like what I see. I am a Pro-e user (75% design time) and SolidWorks user (25% of design time) and can use any information on making my time faster and easier. Thanks for the tips and information. Keep up the good work.

Re: Building a Stapler - Arm Spring

pachuco — Mon, 04 May 2009 23:39:25 -0000

would you show how to make a spring withclosed ends