See if you can stump the chumps with your SolidWorks questions at our session in SolidWorks World 2010:
Also, if you have files to submit as part of your question, please email your question and files to stumpthechumps@gmail.com.
It a rather blatant attempt to promote CoCreate, PTC sends out something that appears to be a fake survey via email every once in awhile. The email invites the reader to try out a “self-qualification” test on whether their team’s design style is parametric or explicit. The test asks such questions as “within the selected concept design, a broad range of predictable and structured changes can be driven quickly and easily to derive new designs” (choose one in a range of Strongly Agree to Strongly Disagree).
The funny thing with this test, of course, is that regardless to one’s responses, the result is always the same. A screen will pop up declaring “Explicit Modeling is right for you.” It has links to find out about and download CoCreate. Even if I wasn’t my jaded self, this marketing approach would rub me the wrong way. It’s just cheezy, so I’m briefly ranting about it.
It’s been many years since ASME Y14.5M-1994 introduced the controlled radius symbol. Yet, we will still frequent find individuals in the industry who have never seen the symbol, nor know what it is. The symbol is CR.
It’s been many years since ASME Y14.5M-1994 introduced the controlled radius symbol. Yet, we will still frequent find individuals in the industry who have never seen the symbol, nor know what it is. The symbol is CR. Really, a controlled radius is actually just a radius that is a fair curve, with no reversals. I’ve not read ASME Y14.5-1982 in a very long time, but I believe this is actually similar to the original definition of a plain ol’ radius from the older standard.
Since ASME Y14.5M-1994, a simple radius has no fair or reversal limitation. As long as the arc of the radius feature’s profile falls within the tolerance zone, it is considered acceptable. These are represented by R.
So much time has gone by since the introduction of CR, I am left wondering why so many people have never seen it. The reason CR was created, as it seems, was to allow engineers to specify a radius without the need for it to be fair or non-reversed. This is good for breaking edges or filling corners. A CR would be more useful when fit and/or function is important, such as guiding features. In this way, the added expense of a creating a fair and non-reversed curve would only be employed when it is necessary for function.
One of the unexpected weaknesses in SolidWorks is that there is no External Thread feature. For years, SolidWorks has had the Hole Wizard and related functionality for various types of holes, including threads. But there is [was] no feature for creating external threads. I’ve always been baffled by this.
[All this has changed as of SOLIDWORKS 2022 with the release of the new Stud Wizard tool! The remainder of this article will be about my impressions before Stud Wizard tool from the original publish date. I will italicize outdated statements below. A new article will be posted at some point to review the new tool.]
So, when I saw that SolidWorks 2010 was improving the Cosmetic Thread annotation to allow the user to quickly choose a thread size from one of the thread standards (ANSI, ISO, etc), I had a brief glimmer of hope. I found out, this is one of those enhancements that is just too little, too late. All this new enhancement does is pull values from the Hole Wizard to add a Cosmetic Thread annotation. If an external thread is desired, the user is still left with having to create the OD of the thread as a separate feature.
Sure, one may not expect an annotation to make a feature. It just seems like an opportunity was missed. Instead of just having the Cosmetic Thread annotation read from the standards, SolidWorks should have included an External Thread feature.
In my view, this feature should work in several ways.
Although the addition of the standards lookup within the Cosmetic Thread annotation is welcome, SolidWorks should fully support External Threads as an actual feature. I created an ER for this topic this week, and invite others to do so as well.
[To see information about the new Stud Wizard (that works pretty much as I laid out above), see the What’s New for SOLIDWORKS 2022. For more information, you can check out the SOLIDWORKS 2022 Help File articles about Stud Wizard.]
One comment I’ve seen about ASME suggests that it is geared towards fully detailing product definition. One trap that rookie designers and engineers will often fall into is over-specifying their parts by placing manufacturing process information on the drawing.
The new designer may do this because maybe a machine shop made the part wrong and was trying to work the rookie’s inexperience to weasel out of their responsibility. Maybe someone in Quality Control was confused by a drawing because they don’t have adequate blueprint reading skills, so they come to the new designer to ask that more information be spelled out on the drawing (when it is already fully specified). These are just a couple of examples. Often, new designers don’t know why manufacturing processes are not included on drawings, nor even that there exists standards that forbid it.
ASME Y14.5-2009 (and previous versions) states:
1.4(d)The drawing should define a part without specifying manufacturing methods. …However, in those instances where manufacturing, processing, quality assurance, or environmental information is essential to the definition of engineering requirements, it shall be specified on the drawing or in a document referenced on the drawing.
It is usually pretty obvious when manufacturing methods are necessary to the engineering requirements, even to the individuals new to the field. Unless one is in particular industries, manufacturing methods are almost never required. A drawing should fully detail the final product without over specification.
ASME Y14.5-2009 adds as an example:
Thus, only the diameter of a hole is given without indicating whether it is to be drilled, reamed, punched, or made by any other operation.
The manufacturer is responsible to provide a final product that complies with the drawing regardless to the processes they use. It is still important for designers to know the processes that will most likely be employed, so they know that the product is economically manufacturable. This does not mean that they should unnecessarily limit the manufacturer to particular processes.
SolidWorks Corp has been working hard to improve the user experience. SolidWorks 2010 has examples have several innovative interface additions. The one addition that is sure to get a lot of attention is Mouse Gestures.
Mouse Gestures is a simple a menu scheme that is controlled by the RMB and a gesture (or short movement) of the mouse. When the RMB is clicked and held briefly in addition to a very slight movement of the mouse, a wheel menu appears around the cursor location.
Simply continue to hold the RMB down and move the cursor over the desired command. Without any further action, that command will execute and the menu wheel will disappear. If the RMB is released before a selection is made, the menu wheel is cancelled without any command executed.
If the traditional RMB is desired instead of the menu wheel, simply give the RMB a quick click (same as it ever was) without a mouse movement.
As with the “S” key shortcut menu scheme, Mouse Gestures menu wheel is customizable and context sensitive. The user is allowed 4 or 8 gestures with four different menus for each of the major modes: Part, Assembly, Drawing and Sketch. These are customized under a new tab in the good ol’ Tools>Customize… window.
Here are the eight gesture choices that can be assigned to particular commands:
Mouse Gestures is suprizingly easy to use. It’s intuitive when it is activated intentionally. However, I have found myself activating it unintentionally once in awhile. This may result in the surprize command being executed before I even know what hit me. So, for now and for me, Mouse Gesturing will be limited to View Modify functions. I certainly won’t be placing the Quit in my menu wheel. That said, the usual result of the accidental activation is just that the user will see the menu wheel briefly ghost in and out before any command is executed.
Mouse Gestures is a great new tool that looks to be a major time saver for frequently used commands. I’m looking forward to having a bit of fun playing with Mouse Gestures and customizing its functions until I find just the right combination of commands for each mode.
