SolidWorks 2010 Multiple Materials in Multibody parts

In the SolidWorks 2010 Beta 2, there was only one entry in the What’s New file under Parts.  It is a rather modest statement regarding the fact that each body within a multibody part can now be assigned its own material.

You can assign different materials to individual bodies in a multibody part. The material assignments are used by mass properties, drawing section views, and SolidWorks Simulation.

That’s it!  That’s all the Beta 2 What’s New file said.  It didn’t even say how to add material to different bodies!  (Beta 3 did add some information, but not a lot.)  Even the embellishment regarding where the material information is used doesn’t do this new capability any justice.  Think about it!  Are you kidding me?!  SolidWorks now allows us to give a different material to each body within a multibody part!  Composites can now have material information included in the part file! No more guessing, estimating, averaging out properties!  No more funky assemblies to try to get around the previous limitation!  For example, the user can now model a part and its coating in one file to accurately run FEA simulations!

OK, so how does one add material to each of the bodies within a multibody part?  A general material can still be specified in the same way as before.  RMB click on the Material heading within the FeatureManager of the part, then choose Edit Material.  This will assign a material to the overall part.  The steps are just a little different to assign material to a specific body. LMB click on the Solid Bodies folder.  RMB click on the body which will have the different material, then pick the material for that body.  When complete, the Solid Body will have its material listed underneath within the Solid Bodies folder.

SolidWorks 2010 Borders within Annotations

SolidWorks move towards quality has affected many areas in SolidWorks 2010, including annotation functionality.  One of particular note is the fact that borders around text can now be added within an annotation note!

The following example has borders added to text using only this new method.  No <> tag symbols where used:

Click to see larger view

Access to this functionality is in the same place as before, under the Border heading within the Note PropertyManager.  The only difference is that the border selection now responds to highlighted text within the affected Note.  In fact, it only responds to highlighted text now.

Because of this new functionality, some behavior has changed with making flagnotes.  As of Beta 2, notice that they will no longer directly attach to a leader unless they are round (Circle border).  Some may like this, others may not.  Another behavior that might need to be taken into consideration when using these borders is that spacing between lines may be affected, as also shown in the example.  Also, this functionality is not supported within dimension callouts.

SolidWorks World 2010 early registration offer ends soon!

Register Now

There’s a special deal that can allow SolidWorks World 2010 attendees to save $200 on registration.  It’s the Early Bird #1 special offer.  Instead of paying $995, people who register early qualify for the price of $795.  For those who are already planning to attend, this is a good reason to register sooner.  For those who are on the fence about attending, this discount could make the difference.  To take advantage of the offer, one must register by October 9. Hope to see you there!!!

Free Upgrade for Californians will end soon

Up soon! SolidWorks has a special running right now for Californians.  Right now, if a company or individual buys any seat of SolidWorks, they will upgrade that license to the Premium package at no additional cost (with the purchase of a subscription).  Not a bad deal at all.

The Premium package includes many tools that can boost the power and capabilities given to engineers.  Beyond SolidWorks itself, the package included feature recognition of imported models, standard hardware libraries, design checker, routing (for everything from pipes to wires), tolerance stack-up validation, non-linear dynamics simulation (FEA), and more.

The deadline is September 30, 2009.  That’s not a lot of time left!

Here’s the details.

SolidWorks 2010: Minor tweaks I

One of the funny little things that SolidWorks used to do is that when one added a center mark to a hole (or set of holes) that are already dimensioned, it would not adjust the dimension extension lines to fit with the center mark.

In the march to quality improvements, SolidWorks has fixed this little oversight.  Now, when one adds a center mark to a previously dimensioned hole, a gap appears between the center mark and the dimension’s extension line.  The same is also true if one adds a dimension to a hole that already has a center mark.  No more dragging extension lines after the fact.

Here’s the sample image from the What’s New file:

Woohoo!

External Threads in SolidWorks (where are they?)

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.]

Examples of Stud Wizard
From SOLIDWORKS 2022 Help File

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.

  1. Allow the user to select an OD upon which the External Thread will be cut.
  2. Or, allow the user to select a flat face from which the External Thread will extend.
  3. Don’t require a precondition.  Allow the user to select their method within the workflow of External Thread command.
  4. Have the External Thread feature work the same way as Hole Wizard.  The helix of the thread is not modelled, but have several modelling and annotation options available (model to the ID or OD, and choice to use cosmetic thread).

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.]