In order to fit a bunch of lights onto our dragon, we\u2019re going to need a slightly smaller bulb. The good news is we can do this by quickly modifying the smallest bulb that we created to light up our house last year. This allows us to skip the steps of adding electrical intelligence and the base of the bulb is identical as well. To modify our part, all we need to do is Open<\/strong> it in SOLIDWORKS 3D, delete a few features, and add a Revolve<\/strong> feature with the correct dimensions. Then we can simply apply a translucent plastic appearance and a white LED appearance and we\u2019re done! Here\u2019s what our so-called Polka Dot Bulb looks like:<\/p>\n Perfect! Now we can create an assembly and insert this bulb wherever we want it. Let\u2019s start by inserting our dragon and we can utilize patterns to get our bulbs exactly where we want them in no time at all.<\/p>\n The first pattern I decided to use is the Curve-Driven Component Pattern<\/strong> for the body of the dragon. I did this by first creating reference surfaces in the original dragon model using Surface Loft <\/strong>and circular sketches at each section of the body.<\/p>\n Then I used the Split Line<\/strong> feature to create curves in four quadrants around the body. These edges will become our curves for each Curve-Driven Component Pattern<\/strong>.<\/p>\n Next, all we need to do is return to the assembly and insert our Polka Dot Bulb 4 times around the quadrants of the dragon\u2019s nose. Then we can use each of these components as the seed for a Curve-Driven Component Pattern<\/strong>.<\/p>\n At the end of each edge, we can create a new pattern in the same way, using the last instance of the previous pattern as the seed. One thing to note here is that we want to select the option for Equal Spacing <\/strong>in the Properties dialogue box for the pattern and we will want to adjust the number of instances based on the length of the line. Additionally, for the left and right sides, we can utilize Mirror Components<\/strong> rather than redoing our patterns. This saves time and also ensures perfect symmetry.<\/p>\n Now that our body is illuminated, we can move on to our wings and legs. To simplify things a bit, I decided to pattern these using a Sketch-Driven Component Pattern<\/strong> after modifying the original sketches (previously used to create the Structural Member features) to also contain points. Here\u2019s what our wing sketch looks like after modification:<\/p>\n To create our pattern, all we need to do is insert an initial instance of our Polka Dot Light and then pattern it using a Sketch-Driven Component Pattern<\/strong> (Assembly<\/strong> > Linear Component Pattern drop-down menu <\/strong>> Sketch- Driven Component Pattern<\/strong>).<\/p>\n Instead of repeating this process on the other side, we can utilize symmetry again and simply Mirror Components<\/strong>.<\/p>\n This process is exactly the same for the legs, so I\u2019ll spare you the details here, but we\u2019re not done yet!<\/p>\n Before we can move on, we need to make sure that our lights are not interfering with our dragon model. We can do this from Evaluate <\/strong>> Interference Detection<\/strong>. After activating this command, we can see that we do have quite a few interferences, but no worries \u2013 we can fix these quickly by zooming to the interfering parts from the Properties<\/strong> dialogue box and either deleting them or modifying their position.<\/p>\n In the above example, I simply decided to delete the instance. In other cases, however, I decided to move a row of components quickly by selecting them in the graphics area and Right-clicking <\/strong>> Move with Triad<\/strong>. After making modifications and checking for interferences a final time, we can see that we now have No interferences<\/strong> so we can move on!<\/p>\n Note: After inserting all of the lights, I also quickly re-used our 3D models for male and female plug components before moving on to the next step.<\/p>\n Step 2: Make a new SOLIDWORKS Electrical Project from an existing project in schematics and modify<\/strong><\/p>\n Again, as much as possible, we\u2019re going to save time by re-using work that we\u2019ve already completed. Luckily, we created a similar schematic package a year ago when we were working on lighting up our house, so we can start there and make changes as necessary.<\/p>\n From our Projects Manager<\/strong> in SOLIDWORKS Electrical Schematics, all we need to do is find the project we want to start with, Right-click<\/strong> and select Duplicate<\/strong>.<\/p>\n This creates a new project with all of the same content as the original, allowing us to rename it and then modify it (essentially a Save As Copy and Continue<\/strong>).<\/p>\n Now that we have a jump start, we can proceed to modify a few things and draw our schematics. Just as we did in 3D, we also want to create a new bulb in 2D by modifying an existing part. To do this, we can quickly open our Manufacturer Part Manager<\/strong> from the Libraries<\/strong> tab, search for our C9 bulb that we previously used, and Right-Click <\/strong>> Add manufacturer part\u2026<\/strong>.<\/p>\n From here, we can change the name and properties of the part, deleting and adding information as needed. The great part about doing it this way is that (once again) we don\u2019t have to add circuits and terminals because this remains the same!<\/p>\n With our part completed, we can continue with our modification by renaming\/adding\/deleting schematics in our Document Tree. To rename, all we need to do is Right-Click <\/strong>a sheet and select Properties\u2026<\/strong> before changing the Description (English) <\/strong>field. For the sake of organization, I decided to create separate schematics for Body, Wings, and Legs.<\/p>\n Speaking of organization, we can also organize our components by Location<\/strong>. This is the next thing we will modify. From Project <\/strong>> Locations<\/strong>, we can modify and add these before applying them to individual schematic sheets and components. I quickly deleted the old locations before adding new ones along with sub-locations. Sub-locations can be added by first selecting a \u201cparent\u201d location in the tree and then selecting New Location<\/strong>. Below you can see all locations listed along with their structure on the left-hand-side.<\/p>\n Now that we have defined our new locations, we can apply them to our schematic sheets with a simple Right-click<\/strong> on each sheet from the Documents<\/strong> tab > Properties<\/strong>. This allows us to change the location of all components on the sheet in one click, and it also sets things up so that when we add new components to our schematics, they automatically pop into the corresponding location.<\/p>\n We\u2019re almost ready to draw our schematics, but before we do we need to know how many light components to add to each location based on our 3D model.<\/p>\n To figure this out, we\u2019ll use a trick. Jumping back into our Assembly in SOLIDWORKS 3D, and switching over to the Evaluate<\/strong> tab, we want to activate Assembly Visualization<\/strong>. This command is incredibly powerful, and one of the things is does is group components together and count them for us. In this case, all we need to do is Suppress<\/strong> components to isolate components in a given area and then activate Assembly Visualization<\/strong> each time to get a quick count. Our results can be seen below:<\/p>\n Now that we know our component counts, we can jump back into SOLIDOWORKS Electrical Schematics and draw everything up! I started by deleting most of the symbols on the page from our previous project, leaving only a plug and one light. Then I double-clicked the light, selected the Manufacturer Parts<\/strong> tab, and made sure to switch out the Manufacturer Part for the one we previously copy\/pasted\/modified. By modifying this symbol up front, we can be sure that the correct part comes over when we copy\/paste it in the next step.<\/p>\n We could simply copy\/paste (Ctrl + C <\/strong>> Ctrl + V<\/strong>), but since we have so many components to create, we can save quite a bit of time using the Array<\/strong> function from Modify<\/strong> > Array<\/strong>. In this case, we only want one Row and 25 Columns with a spacing of .6 as can be seen below.<\/p>\n After doing this, we get a nice line of lights that is easy to count and keep track of.<\/p>\n From here, we can either use the Array<\/strong> command to create rows or we can simply select lights and copy\/paste as needed. I opted for the latter because it seemed easier for me to keep track of the count this way. I also added Location Outlines<\/strong> (Schematic <\/strong>> Location Outline<\/strong>) as I went to further define sub-locations of components.<\/p>\n Next, I repeated this process for the remaining schematics before quickly Right-clicking<\/strong> a wire and selecting Wire style<\/strong> > Replace<\/strong> to grab a thinner, 22 AWG, wire. I selected Whole Project<\/strong> as the scope of this command since this is the only wire style we need here so far.<\/p>\n Fantastic! We\u2019re almost done drawing our schematics. Now all we need to do is connect wires using Origin-Destination Arrows<\/strong>. After looking at our 3D model, we can see that one logical way to connect different locations is to start with the female plug and then connect Wings > Legs > Body > male plug, with the final wires extending from the tail of our dragon. Schematic<\/strong> > Origin-Destination Arrows<\/strong> makes connecting wires super quick and easy. All we need to do is select Single Insertion<\/strong> and start clicking. SOLIDWORKS Electrical highlights wire ends that match for us, adds arrows, and ultimately adds hyperlinks for us as well automatically.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/blog-assets.solidworks.com\/uploads\/sites\/4\/hdragon2201.png\")
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