Engineering a SCARA Robot using 3DEXPERIENCE SOLIDWORKS

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With the new 3DEXPERIENCE SOLIDWORKS Offers, it’s true that we’re offering SOLIDWORKS designers unprecedented connection to the cloud. And, as you would likely guess, this means that your SOLIDWORKS files are generally much more accessible to you than they’d be, for example, if they were located solely on your C drive.

But limiting our understanding of what ‘connecting our SOLIDWORKS design team’s workflows to the 3DEXPERIENCE platform’ means to ‘storing our design data on the cloud’ would be a mistake. In his most recent video, Dejan Nedelkovski of How To Mechatronics (>450k subscribers on YouTube) shows us some of the ways he, as a SOLIDWORKS user, leveraged the tools on the 3DEXPERIENCE platform in new ways using 3DEXPERIENCE SOLIDWORKS.

For this project, which has been seen by >130k viewers at time of writing, Dejan sought out to build his own Arduino-based SCARA robot from scratch that featured a GUI for full control. While this blog on the How To Mechatronics website goes into full detail on the technical project scope, we’ll focus here on the many ways Dejan used 3DEXPERIENCE SOLIDWORKS and complementary capabilities on the 3DEXPERIENCE platform to make this impressive robot come to life.

Planning and design

Sound project planning and task/data management is crucially important for almost any project you’re setting out to do, if you hope to get it done on time and with minimum stress. As you’ll see in this video, Dejan uses Project Planner on the 3DEXPERIENCE platform, as well as the Collaborative Tasks app (part of Collaborative Industry Innovator role), to make sure he stays on the right track with arm adjustment tasks and 3D printing/build timelines. A simple amount of effort in this area, as evidenced to the viewer, winds up going a long way.

For the design itself, Dejan uses design software we all know and love: SOLIDWORKS 3D CAD! Only this time, he uses a version of SOLIDWORKS 3D CAD connected to the 3DEXPERIENCE platform (aptly called SOLIDWORKS Connected). With integrated cloud data and lifecycle management right inside SOLIDWORKS, Dejan is able to easily keep tabs on project revisions while he works on getting the robot performing just right.

Revision and assembly

Low hanging fruit when it comes to ‘cloud data management’ is the central idea that files should be available from anywhere, on any device, to anyone who wishes to (and ‘should’ be able to, permissions-wise) access to data. This is one of the core things that 3DEXPERIENCE SOLIDWORKS readily accomplishes for us, but one of my favorite things to explore, personally, is ‘what else’ you can do with the 3DEXPERIENCE platform with your data in the cloud.

The Collaborative Industry Innovator role I mentioned earlier contains the simple and very useful Collaborative Tasks app, yes. However, it also contains many other apps that work synchronously with one another to help teams enhance decision-making flows to get products finished faster. In Dejan’s case, he was able to take good advantage of apps like 3D Markup. This app gives you the ability, on any device, to analyze/markup your product designs – and even generate change action or issue reports based on your findings.

In Dejan’s case, doing one of his checks, he noticed before print time that a number of the holes on his future print were misaligned, and made a note for himself to fix it inside SOLIDWORKS 3D CAD.

What else you can do?

Connecting your SOLIDWORKS data to the cloud opens the doors of possibility, tying together historically disconnected workstreams and departments in a unified, collaborative environment. With solutions available covering domains like simulation and manufacturing in addition to many others, the platform enables you to do almost anything with your data to help you and your company build better products faster.

Particularly, however, when it comes to 3DEXPERIENCE SOLIDWORKS, this blog article by Divi Lohiya here at SOLIDWORKS (Product Manager for 3DEXPERIENCE SOLIDWORKS) goes into great detail on these new offers. To make it easier, I’ve also included an offer-level breakdown of the Standard, Professional, and Premium bundles below.

While Dejan also shows a bit of 3D Creator (featuring the xDesign app) in the video, it’d be hard for any one video to show all that’s included above! For that reason, after watching Dejan’s video here, be sure to check out the 3DEXPERIENCE SOLIDWORKS Offers page on SOLIDWORKS.com to fully explore what else is available for you and your team.

 

Sean O'Neill

Sean O'Neill

As an Industry Process Consultant, Sean's role is to help amplify the 'best of' both our products and our community, via the stories we showcase on our livestreaming programs (like SOLIDWORKS LIVE) and other digital outlets. Sean is also the creator of both the SOLIDWORKS Champions Program and the SOLIDWORKS Influencer Program.