Author Archives: CAPINC
How to Roll Back a Revision in SolidWorks Enterprise PDM
Workflows in SolidWorks Enterprise PDM (EPDM) are designed to be pretty linear. Files start in the initial state in your workflow, cycle through your company’s approval process and end up in the released/approved sate at the end, where they are
... ContinuedImproving Tech Pubs With SolidWorks Composer: Integrating Color
So, we talk to a good number of customers about improving their internal pubs to reduce assembly errors and assembly time, and usually, the customer’s work instructions start off looking something like this: That’s the image the assembler has to
... ContinuedNote-Building Machine: SolidWorks vs Infinite Monkeys
If you’re like most mechanical engineers, you’re probably not very good at typing. And even if you are, you probably don’t enjoy every minute of it. There’s a theory that an infinite number of monkeys typing for an infinite amount
... ContinuedStripping a Coated/Plated Part in SolidWorks
In response to a comment from a past Coating/Plating Parts blog article, here is a simple technique for removing a few thousands of an inch from a finished part to simulate the stripping of a finish. The task is very similar to adding a finish to the part, except in reverse. The tools will be the same as the method Jason shared, only used a bit differently. The tricky thing about stripping the part is ensuring that you leave any non-finished faces, such as reamed or threaded holes, at their final size.
Please read through the steps below and watch the video for step-by-step instructions.
... ContinuedReduce, Reuse, Recycle Your Sketches
By CAPINC Applications Engineer, Laura Weismantel One of the ways you can save time while building a model in SolidWorks is to never model the same feature twice. There are many tools that can be used to achieve this objective,
... ContinuedSolidWorks Simulation Tech Tip: Initial Temperatures
A friend recently emailed me an article that CERN researchers had ‘discovered’ that materials could be brought down to temperatures BELOW zero Kelvin. And I thought, “That’s gotta be against the law”. But it also reminds me of a common
... ContinuedSolidWorks Electrical: What’s In the Black Box?
What’s in the Black Box? Let’s discuss how to represent certain objects in a SolidWorks Electrical schematic as a “Black Box.” A black box is a generic schematic symbol which can be used to represent any device or
... ContinuedUsing SolidWorks to Create a Helical Pattern
SolidWorks has many different flavors of pattern features that can aid you in your design process. On top of the extensive capabilities available in the traditional linear, circular and mirror patterns, we can also create patterns utilizing data from curves,
... ContinuedThree New Simulation Functions in SolidWorks 2013
From CAPINC's What's New Segment, here are three new SolidWorks Simulation functions in 2013.
Shell Edge to Beam Bonding
The bonding of shell edges that belong to surface or sheet metal bodies to beams, commonly used to simulate gusset plates connecting beams, is supported through manual contact set definitions.
This functionality is available for linear static, frequency, buckling, and linear dynamic studies.
To create a shell edge to beam bonded contact, in the Contact Sets PropertyManager, under Type, select Bonded. For Set 1, click Beams and select the beam from the graphics area. For Faces, Edges for Set 2, select the shell edge.
Rho, Rho, Rho Your Boat: Conics in SolidWorks 2013
SolidWorks 2013 introduces a sketch entity type that was once the soledominion of expensive Class-A surface modeling systems of yesteryear: The Conic Section. As I learned in 10th grade, if you take a cone and slice it with a plane,
... ContinuedCutting All Ties: Best Practices for Removing External References
Designing parts using the Top-Down assembly modeling technique can be extremely useful. If a component is designed with the “top-down” technique, this means it is born in the assembly environment and it is designed using references to other parts within
... ContinuedHow to Use the Bolt Connector in SolidWorks
If you analyze assemblies of parts that are joined by bolts or screws, you probably know about the “Bolt Connector.” In SolidWorks, Bolt Connectors are a very efficient way of representing the bolt stiffness, and compression due to pre-load, on
... ContinuedRun Simultaneous Simulations
Written by Senior Applications Engineer, Al Zullo. Starting with SolidWorks Simulation 2009, we have been granted the ability to run a Simulation study while continuing to work on other models in SolidWorks or even shut SolidWorks down while the Simulation
... ContinuedSketches That Enforce Proportion
Sometimes a sketched feature is not intended to produce a particular dimension, so much as to create a chosen proportion. The most obvious way to enforce proportionality between any two dimensions in SolidWorks is to write an equation. Equations are
... Continued