SOLIDWORKS Support Monthly News – February 2019

Hello to all,

Welcome to the new edition of the SOLIDWORKS Support Monthly News!  This monthly news blog is co-authored by members of the SOLIDWORKS Technical Support teams worldwide.

What’s New in SOLIDWORKS Plastics 2019 SP1.0

By Julien Boissat

Christmas isn’t just over yet! The SOLIDWORKS Plastics R&D team continues to pour gifts onto users.

Automatic SOLID Mesh with hybrid mesh for single body cavity

The Automatic Solid mesh is now able to mesh automatically a single cavity with Hybrid mesh. You will save several steps (compared to a manual mesh) to get the better-suited Hybrid mesh for the Plastics solver. We will continue to enhance this feature for multi-body parts in future releases.

                         Automatic solid mesh in version 2019 SP1.0

                         Automatic solid mesh in version 2019 SP1.0

Creating Body from a Deformed Shape

This is a unique feature with important benefits for plastics part designers, mold designers. You can use the deformed part to check the plastics assembly quality, tolerances. This can also help the mold maker to cut his mold according to the predicted warpage.

After you run the Warp analysis, you can RMB the Warp Results > Create Body from Deformed Shape.

This new functionality works the same say as that of SOLIDWORKS Simulation. You can save the deformed shape of the plastic part from the Warp results, either as a new configuration or as a new SOLIDWORKS document.

SOLIDWORKS PDM Revision Table Integration: 

Configuring the display of Major and Minor revision schemes

By Gordon Pursel

SOLIDWORKS PDM workflows provide a highly configurable Revision Table Integration with SOLIDWORKS Drawings.  The table integration can insert new rows and capture signatures during approval routing. However, there may be stages in a workflow where a drawing is changed, the revision in the drawing title block should update but does not require a revision table update. If you are configuring SOLIDWORKS PDM and that document control process sounds familiar, you are at the right place and should continue reading.

We will be covering how to configure the PDM Drawing Revision Table Integration to insert new rows for a Primary revision scheme and ignore all other revision schemes. In particular, this example will insert a new revision row when the Major Revision ( Primary Revision such as A, B, C, ) is incremented through a workflow and the revision table will ignore the Minor Revision scheme (Primary + Secondary A.1, A.2, B.1). This blog is not intended to be a complete systematic guide and will require SOLIDWORKS PDM Administration knowledge.

First, let us review the relationship between variables and the revision table.

Variables, block names and attribute mapping are key to understanding how workflow actions update the revision table.  Variables with the “SWRevtable” Block name are mapped to the standard revision table columns (Zone, Revision, Description, Date, and Approved) by selecting the attribute name in the drop down. If you are linking the variable to custom revision table columns, type in the value as displayed in the Revision Table Column Title. This “SWRevTable” mapping is how PDM is connected to the revision table column and writes to the cell.

Below is a common scenario that maps variable “Revision” to both the Custom Property” Revision” and the standard Revision Table Column “Revision”.

However, in our example below, we will delete the “SWRevTable” mapping to decouple the variable “Revision” from handling both the custom property and the revision table. The custom property mapping will exclusively write the PDM revision value to the SOLIDWORKS custom property ”Revision” and in turn update a linked note in the title block using the $PRP:”REVISION” expression.

Next, we will create distinct variables that only contain a “SWRevTable” attribute mapping.  In the below example we have created the variable “RT_Revision” which will capture the revision in our revision table. Create additional variables for each revision table column (Example “RT_Description”, RT_ApprovedBy”, RT_ApprovedDate”, etc.).

Since our goal is to update the revision table and custom property “Revision” when we release a new Major Revision. We create the following Set Variable and Increment Revision actions in the “Release Major Revision” Workflow transition.

The Set Variable action for variable “RT_Revision” will display the next revision in the revision table. The action will update the revision table placeholder or insert a new row in the table when the next revision value is different from the latest row.

Create additional Set Variable actions for variables used in the revision table.

Add the last Set Variable action to update the Custom Property “Revision” with the next revision. This is common practice where the next revision updates the custom property “Revision” and a note linked to the custom property using the $PRP:”REVISION” expression is displayed in the drawing title block.

The last action in the transition, Increment Revision tags the file version as a revision.

Any workflow transition that should not update the revision table such as “Release Minor Revision” will not include actions that update variables with SWRevTable mappings. However, this transition will include actions to update variable “Revision” and Increment Revision.

After routing this drawing through 2 Release Major Revision transitions and then 1 Release Minor Revision transition. The revision table lists both A and B Primary revisions while the title block displays latest Primary + Secondary revision as expected.

For more information on configuring PDM revision tables see Solution S-074196 ”How to set up the Revision Table integration in SOLIDWORKS PDM”.

Noteworthy Solutions from the SOLIDWORKS Knowledge Base

Is the SOLIDWORKS®, SOLIDWORKS PDM, or SOLIDWORKS SolidNetWork License (SNL) Manager software supported for installation on the Windows Server® 2019 operating system?
For more information, see Solution Id: S-075462.

 In the SOLIDWORKS® CAD software, how do I change the component side in a PCB assembly?
For more information, see Solution Id: S-075464.

Using SOLIDWORKS® PDM 2018 SP5 or later, how do I enable the Autodesk® Inventor View software for use in previewing the Inventor file formats (‘.iam’, ‘.ipt’ and ‘.idw’) in a file vault view?
To see how to use the Inventor view, follow the steps in Solution Id: S-075456.

Is it possible to specify the number format for ‘Simulation Data’ sensors?
For additional information on the steps to view the option, check out solution Id: S-075480.

In SOLIDWORKS® Flow Simulation, can I analyze the plastic extrusion that happens on the injection molding process as a non-Newtonian fluid?
For more information, see Solution Id: S-075457.

That’s it for this month. Thanks for reading this edition of SOLIDWORKS Support News. If you need additional help with these issues or any others, please contact your SOLIDWORKS Value Added Reseller.

Comments and suggestions are always welcome. You can enter them below.