Category: Model Assembly

Methodology in making solid models (a discussion)

According to some of my sources (who shall remain nameless), there was a time when SolidWorks Corp thought about making a something like a best modelling practices guide for SolidWorks users.  The idea of best practices is something of which I’ve been critical.  The main reason is that every situation, environment, company and industry is different, with different needs.  Even the same tools in SolidWorks are be used in completely different ways to achieve desired results.

An example of this can be sheet metal functionality.  Sheet metal models may be created in one way for a company that makes cabinet chassis and be used completely differently at a company that makes furniture.  Heck, even within just one industry, different methods may be employed for different scenarios.

Each company should develop their own standard or set of standards.  Depending on the environment and type of modelling, these may be rigid, they may be very general, or somewhere in-between.  Set rules can apply to the models and assemblies.  Rules may even vary from project to project, depending on business needs.  Even non-design considerations come in to play when setting up standards.  Network setup, computing power, PDM/PLM/ERP programs, etc can impact methodology.

All of these variables make it impossible to establish best practices for all of SolidWorks users.  This is likely why SolidWorks Corp has seemingly dropped the idea of providing set best practices advice.

Different ways to Mate with a SLOT -1

Now we have finished and learned the techniques of making a SLOT, the second question comes up in the mind is “How to Mate with a SLOT”. Again there can be several ways to achieve this and one may adopt the method which he/she finds easy and quick to use. In this chapter let’s discuss about various simple ways of mating with a SLOT.

To use these methods you need a simple plate with a Slot of any size, a cylindrical, rectangular or square part with diameter/width equal to or less than slot width. In this chapter I’m going to use the cylindrical part (pin). I will be covering another discussion on same topic with a square part too.

Start you assembly with the plate inserted as the base part and fixed. You can also use mating techniques to position your plate. Now insert you pin which you want to mate with the slot.

MS1

Method 1: With your assembly opened and both the part inserted, select the back face of the plate and bottom face of the pin. Add a coincident mate between them. You can select front and top faces too. This is to set the initial position. Now show on the temporary axis (View > Temporary axis) to display the temporary axis of the pin. Select the side face of the plate and the temporary axis of the pin and give a distance mate. Repeat this with the bottom face. Your pin is now in to the required position.

MS4

Method 2: Using the same technique as described in method 1, use the planes instead of the temporary axis of pin to give distance mates with the side and bottom faces of the plate. Your planes may vary from the one shown in the picture.

The difference in the above two methods is that in Method 1 the part is not fully define and its free to revolve on its axis whereas in Method 2, the part gets fully defined.

Method 3: This is a combination of above 2 methods. Add a distance mate using the side face of the plate with the corresponding plane of the pin. Now show up the temporary axis if they are not on. Select either of the temporary axes of the slot and corresponding plane of the pin. Add a coincident mate.

Method 4: If your slot width and diameter of the pin and equal then you can use this method. Add a tangent mate between the side face of the slot and the cylindrical face of the second part. Then add a distance mate with the bottom/side face depending upon the location of your slot with the corresponding plane/temporary axis of the pin.

or

Method 5: In this method, RMB on the edge of the plate and select “Midpoint”. Then select the corresponding plane of the pin and add a coincident mate. Then add a distance mate with the bottom/side face depending upon the location of your slot with the corresponding plane of the pin.

Method 6: This is tricky method and I prefer to use this method most of the time. Open the plate and edit the slot sketch. Add these two construction lines to your slot sketch. Now in assembly, select to show the slot sketch. Use the planes of the pin and mate them with the corresponding construction line

 

 

These are few of the methods which I use for mating with a slot. I would be interesting to hear if you more methods or any other method that you use for mating with the slot.

New type of SaveAsPDF macro

SolidWorks is able to save drawings and current model views as a PDF format file.  SaveAsPDF with Folder SelectionThere’s been a lot of macros written over the years that cut the process of saving as PDF down to as few steps as possible. One of the long standing requests for this type of macro (and many similar types of macros) is to allow the user to pick the save location. Just uploaded is a macro (SaveAsPDF with Folder Selection) that does just this, and simplifies the location selection process for default folders. This new macro also uses more modern API techniques to save the file (using modelext::saveas instead of model::saveas4).

This macro does many things that previous macros haven’t.  While allowing the user to establish a default save location folder, it also provides automatic alternative choices when the default is not available.  Yet, even with all of these, the user can still override automated selection and pick a new location.  It does all of this without the use of VB6 forms.

As with other macros that do similar tasks, this will work best when assigned to a keyboard shortcut or a toolbar icon.   Also, as with all SolidWorks macros, there is a chance it will not work “out-of-the-box”.  This is normally due to the fact that SolidWorks updates core reference libraries with each release.  If errors are encountered, simply re-reference to the libraries that are available to allow the macro to function.  More information about that is available in this previous article.

3DConnexion SpacePilot PRO (Tinkering with buttons and views)

I’ve been tinkering with the SpacePilot PRO.  I love customization.  The SpacePilot PRO offers a high level of customization.  I will discuss different facets of the device in future articles.  This time I am writing about the programmable buttons.

SpacePilot PROThe SpacePilot PRO has 21 programmable buttons.  Additionally, 10 of those buttons have dual mappings for a total of 31 mapped commands.  That is a lot!  On top of that, each of the buttons are mapped differently for each program or mode supported by the device.  Within SolidWorks itself, there are three different mappings: Drawing, Part and Assembly modes.  (There is no mapping just for sketches, but there should be.)

Many of the buttons are directly related to functionality of the device or specific commands that are defined by intuitive icons.  Ultimately, I only recommend changing the mapping for the five buttons.  These are the dual mapped buttons labelled 1/6, 2/7, 3/8, 4/9, and 5/10.  When holding the left hand over the navigation knob, these buttons fall under the pinky finger. Giving the dual mapped button a single quick press initiates the first command.  To choose the second command instead, press and hold the button down for a second.  These buttons are a little awkward at first (being under the pinky), but I got used to it pretty quickly.

The 5 dual mapped buttons to the right of the knob (accessed with the thumb or index finger) provide quick access to standard model views.  For example, one button jumps to the front or back views of the model.  Most of the standard model views are covered by this set of buttons.  However, one thing that is missing is the ability to save a named view and to return to it at any time.  Given the level of detail that has gone into the SpacePilot PRO, it surprizes me that this ability is missing.  I think this is one of the points I mentioned to 3Dconnexion back in February.

So, you know what I did?  I made up for this missing functionality by writing a pair of macros that do just that.  One saves the current model view as a named view.  The other returns to that named view.  I then programmed these two functions to button 1/6.  (I’ve already uploaded these to my resources site here: Quick View Save and Restore.  These macros can actually be used with any device with programmable functions, or even just as icons on a toolbar.) Let’s hope that 3Dconnexion covers this basic function in future iterations of their 3D mice.

Hint: for users of SolidWorks 2008 and 2009, I would recommend programming one of the buttons to the letter “S” for the shortcut toolbar.  This would practically eliminate the need to touch the keyboard except for typing notes and numbers.

Overall, I have found that the plentiful number of buttons is a big plus for the SpacePilot PRO.  These buttons extend the functionality of the device beyond just being a 3D mouse.

SWW09: Focus Groups (Drawings and Sheet Metal)

As previously mentioned, I attended two focus groups (also called roundtable discussions) this year.  These are generally held on Sunday before all the major SolidWorks World activities begin on Monday.

Sheet Metal

The first group I attended was for sheet metal functionality.  Though attendence was very light, the number of different methodologies and opinions was high.  My own interest in the topic is the problem with being forced to use assemblies to fully document sheet metail parts with inserts.  This is an issue because if you start a drawing of a part, you cannot later replace that part with an assembly.  So, if you create a sheet metal part with no inserts and then you need to add inserts on some later revision, you are forced to recreate the drawing practically from scratch.  This is a horid time and resource sink.

Others in the group talked about using K-factors to determine the material used by the sheet metal part (for flat patterning), while others disregarded K-factors in favor of bend reduction techniques.

One request that seemed to get common acceptance is the idea of creating a table of all the bends of a part with their full characteristics, with the ability to highlight each bend by clicking on it within the table.  When this table is on a drawing, it was suggested that details be added to a specific layer.

The session  also revealed that some used work arounds to use the SolidWorks model to instruct sheet metal tooling to perform certain actions (either via direct or translated input).  Some use alternative features which do not match the final design in order to instruct a tool to produce the feature desired in the final design.

One work around solution did come out of this session.  Right now, the material mass number changes from bent state to flattened state.  Although this difference is minor, over a large quality of parts, the error multiples and can create issues in part handling.  Use a non-configuration custom property to link to the the material property (of a specific configuration?).  Use this custom property as the source for the mass regardless of the configuration or part state.

Drawings

A large portion of the drawings discussion revolved around printing and saving issues with Drawings.  It seems many people are experiencing similar problems.  When saving as a PDF, views randomly disappear.  When printing as a PDF, text locations get shifted.  Also, changes to parts at lower levels of an assembly may cause errors and view changes in higher level assembly drawings; meaning the the company has to open up all levels of a product’s assemblies to make sure that any change did not affect the drawings in unexpected ways.  It seems more people are having these kind of issues that I originally thought.  Many of the problems are magnified by use of PDM’s.

The meeting also focused on DimXpert and how to handle its dimensions.  One comment is that it should place dimensions per current standards within the model.  Another comment noted that datums and feature frames should drive the model.

I voiced my other major concern as well.  Symbols from the Gtol.sym library file should be stored within a drawing.  Right now, I cannot give native drawings to others outside of my organization because they will not be able to see symbols that we employ.  When a symbol is used within a drawing, it should be included in that drawing’s file and not require editing of any other user’s Gtol.sym file.

SWW09: “Sage”; Engineering and Environmental Impact

SolidWorks Corp has made a giant first step in providing engineers and designers with the ability to quickly determine the environmental impact of any design.  In partnership with PE International, SolidWorks Corp announced today that they are providing a new tool for this purpose that will run within SolidWorks, currently codenamed Sage.  It promises to make sustainability more accessible to engineers and designers.SolidWorks Corp believes that many engineers do not understand the environmental impact of their designs.  This is perhaps because the engineers have little or no access to this information.  But also, many companies still do not have a focus on designing with environmental impact in mind.  Sage will provide this information in an easy fallow report that can be used by the engineer during the design process.

The question is this, why should engineers care about the environmental impact of their designs?  Decisions they make early in the design process have the most influence on the environmental impact of the final product.  Sage not only makes it possible for them to determine the impact of their designs, it also allows them to provide others (who may not be technically inclined) with this information in a clear manner.

The core areas that will be addressed by Sage are carbon footprint, energy consumption of the processes used to make a part (including regional data, transportation, etc), air and water pollution (such as emissions from the manufacturing processes).  It displays this information in several easy to read charts.  As stated by SolidWorks Corp, “Sage is the only CAD-integrated software to provide a comprehensive view of a design’s impact.”  Sage will not only provide the overall impact, but it will allow the engineer to drill down into the design to find out which factors are having particular influence on the product’s environmental impact.

As stated above, Sage will run within SolidWorks.  It is based on PE International’s GaBi software engine.  Sage will use the PE International vetted database which contains extremely comprehensive information about a wide number of variables that are affected by each design.  Though information in this database may be as specialized as a full blown special study conducted by PE International, the results it provides will be of the same quality.  The database used by Sage contains averages for particular areas of impact

Sage will contain the ability to allow engineers to compare design changes, so they can make informed decisions early in the design process.  It will allow them to “see hidden gotchas”, as stated by Rick Chin, Director of Product and Marketing Innovation, SolidWorks.  The reports created by Sage will be standalone (i.e., SolidWorks or SolidWorks experience is not required to see or use the report once it is created).  The reports will contain educational matter that will explain the criteria within the report, and also why the information within the report is important.  This will empower the engineer to explain critical design decisions to upper management.

Though nothing is finalized yet, reports will likely be available in both Microsoft Word and Adobe PDF formats.

Two versions of Sage will be available for SolidWorks 2010.  First is the Xpress version that will allow analysis of individual parts.  The Pro version will provide analysis of assemblies and entire designs.  Also, a downloadable version (presumably an Xpress version for SolidWorks 2009) will be available early from SolidWorks Labs by this summer.

This new tool from PE International and SolidWorks Corp gives the engineer a whole new level of understanding of their designs.  It allows them to make environmentally friendly decisions rapidly based on years of data and experience from the PE International team.  I’m personally looking forward to having a chance to utilize Sage as soon as it is available, not only out of curiosity, but also to write are more detailed review of it’s capabilities in action.