Jeff's Blog

Dealing with imported data

This will be a short post but, hopefully, a useful one.

Have you ever imported a non-native SolidWorks file only to see errors? If you right click on one of those errors, you'll see an option called 'Import Diagnostics'. Choosing that will bring up a new dialogue box that gives you a list of the errors. At this point you have the choice of fixing all faces, fixing all gaps or, by right clicking on one of the offenders, fixing them individually. Through trial and error, I've found that fixing all faces will fix the gaps. Naturally, though, there are instances where this doesn't work. I've had times when the "fix" actually causes the offending surface to be incorrectly fixed. After you've fixed the errors, you'll end up with a bunch of bodies (unless you have FeatureWorks, but that's a different post). At this point, go to Tools->Features->Combine. With any luck, you'll be able to combine all the bodies.

Where, often times, these erroneous imports are surfaces, you can utilize the surfacing tools in SolidWorks to repair them as well. I'm no expert on surfacing, so I don't want to go too deep into the "how" portion. I would recommend getting familiar with the 'Delete Face' option, as well as the 'Filled Surface'. Perhaps a surfacing expert (Matt, you reading?) might be able to shed a bit more light on this subject.

This is how I deal with imported data. How do you do it?

Let's Talk Sheetmetal

I really like the Sheetmetal functionality in SolidWorks. I like that it's fairly intuitive and does a nice job of creating your part. There is one aspect of it, however, that many people seem to miss. That would be the unfold/fold commands. When you have a part that's been bent, and you need to cut some holes in it, this is the way you want to go, especially if you're putting a hole in that straddles one of the bends. How do you use it? Simple. From your sheetmetal toolbar, select the 'Unfold' button. At this point, you'll need to select a fixed face. You'll then be prompted to select your bends. Generally, I simply 'select all'. Hit the check mark and your part will unfold. One thing to note is that your 'Flatten' feature is still surpressed. You can now insert your cuts. Once done, select the 'Fold' button, the fixed face from before and the bend(s) you used. Voila! Your holes are done. Why not just use the 'Flatten' feature? Because the cuts you put in would be surpressed in the "unflattened" state. I know, from experience, that this can be rather frustrating.

Stumbling onto "new" things

So I've stumbled onto a couple of things in SolidWorks that I thought I'd share. I'm hoping that these weren't common knowledge...

First, have you ever brought a huge piece of equipment into a new assembly only to find that the assembly template's planes are miniscule? Did you know you can right click on the plane and select 'Auto-size'? I stumbled across that one two days ago.

Next, and I'm really feeling like an idiot over this one, is renaming. I spent a good portion of yesterday fighting with a renaming macro. As you may recall, I'm dealing with non-native assemblies. When you import said assemblies, all the lower level parts are named "Import1", "Import2", etc. When you have multiple assemblies that you are going to combine into one large assembly, all those like-named parts cause problems. This is why I was fighting with the macro yesterday (many thanks to you guys on eng-tips!). Just as I was about to strangle the kid we hired to help us out, even though none of this was his fault, I "discovered" something in the 'Save-As' dialog. You know how you can choose References when doing a save-as? And then you can change the file paths for all those lower level parts? Well, there's an option button there, too. Damn if you can't add a prefix or suffix to the file names. I'm honestly embarrassed about not knowing that.

Weldments and my IPod

What do Weldments in SolidWorks and my IPod have to do with each other you might ask? Nothing, aside from the fact that I'm listening to ITunes as I write this post. I finally broke down and bought an IPod Nano a few weeks ago and have now spent more money on song downloads than I did on the damn player. Right now, I'm listening to my 80's playlist, reliving my high school years...

Now for the meat of this post, Weldments. Up until recently, I never used the Weldments function in SolidWorks very much. Lately, though, I've been using it on an almost daily basis. Have you used it? I know that there are some that don't like it very much, but I don't see why. I'm enjoying the hell out of it. It really makes things easier if you ask me. With a fairly simple skeleton sketch, you can create a nice weldment, complete with a cutlist, in no time. As with so much in SolidWorks, it's pretty intuitive as well. Granted, I use to teach how to use weldments, when I was on the "other side", but it didn't take me long to get the hang of it. Now I'm not claiming to be an expert at it. I'm sure there's some tricks that I don't know on how to make it even more simple, but as I've said so often before, if I can do it, anyone can.

If you're in a field that creates welded structures, I strongly recommend you check out weldments. There's a tutorial in SolidWorks to get you started, then dive right in and started creating your own.

If you've used weldments, and have some tips and tricks, I'd love to hear from you!

GO SOX!!

Clean Install...huh...what?

Clean install. What is it? It's what you should be doing when moving from one major release to the next. Why? Because I said so. Ok, so that's not a valid reason. However, I've often said, "if you just do things my way, there won't be any problems." I digress, though...
Back to clean installs. First the 'why?'. It's actually quite simple. By doing a clean install, you remove all traces of the previous version of SolidWorks from your machine. By removing this legacy data, you lessen the chances of having dangling bits of data floating around to screw up your new installation. There have been many times when someone will call in, or I'll read something in a forum, where a user is bemoaning the latest version of SolidWorks. They'll harp on about it being full of bugs. After determining that s/he simply stuck in their DVD and upgraded, a clean install is recommended. Lo and behold, no more bugs! (Ok, so there probably are still some legitimate bugs left, but not anywhere near what they were experiencing.) Naturally, there is a codicil to  this whole thing. There are users out there, myself included, who need to have multiple versions on their machines.  Since I started running two separate installs, I've found that I tend to have to reinstall more often. Though, working for a VAR presents a whole host of new and exciting problems....
I've always found it strange how a very small percentage of the user community will complain about "numerous bugs" in a new release and suddenly said new release is crap.  It never ceases to amaze me how negative reviews travel so much faster and wider than the positive reviews. What prompted this quasi-rant? A post located here, in the Eng-Tips forum. Because the original poster had one customer complaining about their '08 install, his company was prepared to NOT install '08 and wait for '09. This, in my opinion, is simpy ridiculous. Since '08 came out, people have been raving about it. Yes, it's had some problems. Yes, people had trouble adjusting to the new UI, but come on! '08 has to be one of the most stable releases yet! Is it perfect? Hardly. Remember, though, that SolidWorks is created by Humans and Humans make mistakes. Ergo, the program will have mistakes. Can you name any software product that doesn't?
How do you go about doing a clean install? Well, I'm glad you asked. First things first. Use your copy settings wizard to, duh, copy your settings. Next, use Add/Remove programs to remove SolidWorks. Once this is done, go to C:\Program Files and remove any SolidWorks folders in there. After that, go to Start->Run and type in regedit. This will bring up your Registry Editor. Under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE->Software, remove any SolidWorks or SRAC folders. Do the same under HKEY_CURRENT_USER->Software. You've now completed a clean install.

Dangling Command Manager?

If your 2008 command manager looks like the one in the picture, here's a fix I stumbled across:
• Turn off the command manager (RMB in the toolbar area).
• Drag any remaining toolbars into the graphics area.
• Turn the command manager back on.

I don't know who, what or why, but this fix worked on my machine. 

Go Pats! 

See you at SolidWorks World!