Tips & Tricks
Revisiting Your SolidWorks Copy Settings
Most users run the SolidWorks Copy Settings Wizard after they have initially set up the SolidWorks interface to their liking. The problem with this is you turn on all the possible options you may use and leave them at that.
... ContinuedSolidWorks Dismissed Warning and Error Messages
One call that we get on a regular basis on the support line is a question of “I used to get this warning message when I did…. and now thing are not happening the way they did before–why?” More often
... ContinuedSolidWorks Composer: An Easy Way to Rotate Actors
I have to credit this trick to Scott Lidgey. When you are rotating an actor in SolidWorks Composer, you can control the amount of revolution and make sure it rotates at a constant velocity. The trick to this is to
... ContinuedRendering Liquids In PhotoView 360
So close…yet so far. This should look perfect, but it doesn’t. What’s the problem? It is not uncommon, when using PhotoView 360 to portray liquid in a glass, to create the liquid as a second feature in the part file.
... ContinuedSnapshots of PhotoView 360: Lighting
There are several different types of lights that can be utilized in SolidWorks.
... ContinuedSolidWorks Enterprise PDM – Using the Report Generator
The SolidWorks Enterprise PDM Report Generator can be used to search in a selected file vault for information that you can specify in one or more queries. A number of sample queries are distributed with SolidWorks Enterprise PDM and can be added to the report generator.
... ContinuedHow to Add a Custom Hole Size to the Hole Wizard Database in SolidWorks
SolidWorks Hole Wizard is pretty complete when it comes to industry standards for hole sizes, but what happens when you want a hole size that isn’t in the list? Not a lot of people are familiar with SolidWorks ability to
... 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
... ContinuedSnapshots of PhotoView 360: Appearances
Read the entire series: (Part One: The Basics, Part Two: Appearances)
Appearances are usually one of the first properties added to produce a rendered image. They can add a color, texture, or illumination settings to an assembly, component, face, feature, body, or part. Applying appearances works in a hierarchy; assembly appearances will always override component appearances, and component appearances will override face appearances, and it continues down the list.
TIP: Adding appearances does NOT add mechanical properties.
When dragging and dropping appearances onto a part from the task pane, pressing ALT while dragging and dropping will enable the property manager for that appearance. This gives you the option of choosing your settings without having to edit the appearance to enable the property manager of that appearance.
How to overline text on a SolidWorks drawing
Remastered from SolidWorks Legion article entitled How to overline text on a SolidWorks drawing. Occasionally, a SolidWorks user may need to state a number or variable as approximate within an annotation note. The mathematical symbol for this is an overline.
... ContinuedDimension Tangent to an Arc or Circle
When adding sketch dimensions from one circle or arc to another, a dimension will be added between the center points by default. However, by selecting the circle and/or arc when adding the dimension, the properties for that dimension now have
... ContinuedCreating Drawings for SolidWorks Multi-body Parts
When you have a multi-body part in SolidWorks the question that comes into play at some point is how do I make a drawing for each of the different bodies “parts”. The answer to this is like many items in
... ContinuedEnterprise PDM: How to Map to Microsoft Office
EPDM variables can be mapped to a Microsoft Office document. This can be used to automatically populate documents such as ECN’s (Engineering Change Notices). The first step is to define variables in EPDM: Right Click on the Variables node in
... ContinuedMake A Single Body with Multiple Open Contours in SolidWorks 2013
SolidWorks 2013 has a great new set of behaviors with thin feature extrusions. In the past, if you wanted to work with open contours, only one open contour was allowed. In SolidWorks 2013, multiple open contours can be extruded as
... 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,
... Continued