This is a continuation of the article How to Model Threads Part One.

Once the helix is created as the path for the Swept Cut, the profile sketch for cutting the threads will need to be designed. I like to think of this as the design of my cutting tool. This can best be done as a triangular sketch with the tip cut off (observe the trapezoidal shape in the picture placed horizontally). The small flat edge on the left is for the necessary required root flat, this is referenced in the thread standard. The included angle is defined as the angle between the two cutting edges of your tool. For most thread types the included angle is 60 degrees which can be seen in the pictured cutting tool sketch. The .07 length of the side of the trapezoid represents the length necessary for the thread to cut all of the way to the open pocket where the drilling hole was made.

What was really crucial, more than the sketch of the cutting tool, was the placement of the sketch. This sketch was placed on a plane that intersected the center point of the helix. This plane also is at a 90 degree perpendicular to the end point of the helix. I set the endpoint of the helix perpendicular by changing the start angle of the helix to 185 degrees as mentioned in the previous section of this article. If this plane is not perpendicular to the endpoint of the helix it will make for an inaccurate cut of the thread due to the fact that the cutting tool is not at a 90 degree perpendicular. It is easiest to think of it just like it would be on your machine in real life, so without perpendicular placement of the cutting tool you would end up with a cut thread that has a skew in the dimensions. Also, if you take a look at the sketch pictured above you will notice that a pierce relation has been added to the sketch. The pierce relation is symbolized by the orange square with the blue dot on it; this can be seen on the upper left hand corner of the sketch pictured above. This is a not necessarily an everyday used relation, and many users may be unfamiliar with it. What the pierce relation is used for is to achieve a real 3D contact condition where the 2D coincident relation will not suffice. This relation is perfect for thread creation because as the sketch revolves and travels up or down along the path, the pierce relation will assure that the sketch remains placed correctly on the path. Something worth mentioning: notice how my profile and path for the sweep start off of the solid part in open space. The reason this was done is to give me a nice clean entry point with a smooth transition where my threads begin on the part. If I had just gone ahead and started the profile and path at the bottom edge of my part it would have given me an abrupt start without a smooth transition at the start of my threads.

In the end, all that is left is to apply the Swept Cut feature. Upon opening up the Swept Cut feature it will ask you for a profile and a path selection. When the correct boxes are populated with your sketch of your cutting tool as the profile and the helix as your path, SOLIDWORKS will do all of the heavy lifting and create your usable 3D threads (you can see a reference of this in the picture above). From here you are all ready to go and 3D print your part with real threads, or go and run a simulation of the threads in your part. The final part with threads is pictured below.

Keep an eye out for more great SOLIDWORKS content on the blog and subscribe to our YouTube channel.

Link to Modeling Threads Part One blog article.

Top 10 What’s New in SOLIDWORKS 2016

1. User Interface Redesign

   SOLIDWORKS 2016 provides an updated, clean, and modern user interface. The innovative styling incorporates the most useful user interface concepts from the portfolio of SOLIDWORKS products. Enhancements include selection breadcrumbs, a visualization tool for references, and a revamped triad.

2. Sketching

   Equal Curve Length Parametric Relations, improvements to midpoint selection, and the new ability to create B-Splines of 3°, 5°, or 7° with the Style Spline tool. You can adjust the smoothness of the curve by manipulating the degree of the curve, making it much easier to work with.

3. Parts and Features

   Curvature continuous edge fillets, bi-directional sweeps, custom thread wizard, improved options for modifying geometry with the intersect tool, and improved advanced surface flattening.

4. Assemblies

   Mate Controller, a component preview window, renaming components in the FeatureManager, and globally replacing failed mate references.

5. Drawings and Detailing

   Improvements to Foreshortening Linear Dimensions, Part and Assembly watermarks, Flag Notes, and Rearranging Stacked Balloons as well as a new Automatic Border tool and configuration-based Model Break Views make production ready 2D drawings a snap.

6. SOLIDWORKS Simulation

   An alternate curvature-based mesher is now available that uses improved algorithms that provide a high-quality surface mesh. You can now easily section the mesh for insight into internal mesh structure to ensure the desired mesh density at any location.

7. SOLIDWORKS Electrical

   You can now annotate documents, drawings, and schematics using eDrawings and new side panels display on the right side of the interface to help you find information faster and take actions with fewer clicks.

8. SOLIDWORKS PDM Standard

   A new offering based on the same architecture as SOLIDWORKS PDM Professional (Enterprise PDM) to easily manage SOLIDWORKS data in a workgroup environment. Included with each license of SOLIDWORKS 2016 Professional and SOLIDWORKS 2016 Premium.

9. SOLIDWORKS Costing

   You can customize machining templates to more accurately reflect your manufacturing process for creating parts. The machining templates include customizable IF/THEN rules for handling special geometry cases such as large holes or stock body selection.

10. SOLIDWORKS Visualize (available January 2016)

    (Formerly known as Bunkspeed) SOLIDWORKS Visualize provides a suite of standalone software tools that combine industry-leading rendering capabilities with design-oriented features and workflows that enable easy and fast creation of visual content for designers, engineers, marketing, and other content creators.

October is finally here, and that means our SOLIDWORKS 2016 Launch events begin next week! Make sure you sign up for the Hawk Ridge Systems event near you and make great design happen with SOLIDWORKS 2016. Register Here.

Co-sponsored by HP and Intel® Core™ i7.

Sketching in 3D can be challenging, but it is a very powerful tool once you understand the basics. It is especially useful when creating weldment parts like this workbench. This example will demonstrate how to create a 3D sketch that will govern the overall size of this welded frame workbench.

Unlike sketching in 2D, where you are required to select a plane, face, or edge to begin a sketch, it is not necessary to select one of these references to begin a 3D Sketch. Simply selecting the 3D Sketch command, located in the drop down menu below the Sketch Icon on the Sketch tab of the Command Manager, places you in the 3D Sketch environment.

The important thing to be aware of when sketching in 3D is the orientation of the cursor as you begin to place sketch entities in the sketch environment. The first entity I have chosen to begin the sketch of my frame is a center rectangle which I plan to place centered at the origin and resting on the top plane. The cursor indicates to me the orientation that the sketch entity will assume when placed in the 3D environment. In the image at left, the system feedback indicates that if I begin sketching, the entity will be placed on a plane parallel to the Front plane. Notice the red highlighted axes at the origin as well as the XY beneath my cursor. In order to change this I need to press the TAB key on my keyboard to cycle through the available plane orientations. After cycling to the desired orientation, ZX, with the TAB key, I now place my center rectangle at the origin, make it construction geometry, and dimension it 26” X 48”.

Now I am ready to begin adding the actual geometry that will represent the frame in the weldment. As soon as I activate the line tool, my cursor reflects the last plane orientation I sketched on, ZX, and since I am going to sketch one of the ends of my frame, I need to change the orientation to XY and select one of the vertices of the construction rectangle. Beginning at the vertex on the corner, I sketch 3 lines up, over, and down, terminating at the opposite vertex of my rectangle. I can use the system feedback inference lines to capture sketch relation automatically. These are based on the orientation that I am sketching on. I can also add relations after I sketch, which is a practice that I employ often. In addition to the relations typically found in SOLIDWORKS such as equal, perpendicular, concentric, etc., sketching in 3D provides a few extra types of relations that are not found in the 2D environment. These are relations that basically align sketch entities parallel along the primary system axes X, Y, and Z.

I will add these to the lines I just sketched along with a dimension to establish the height of my frame at 30”. I now have the overall width, length, and height of my frame established. For the other end on my frame, I will repeat the process with three more lines placed on the opposite end of the construction rectangle and using the same XY orientation of my cursor. This time I will select one of the vertical lines and make it equal to one of the previous vertical lines one the other end in order for the height of both ends to be controlled by one dimension.

At this point I don’t need to be concerned with the TAB key and the orientation of my cursor. When I add the two lines that will connect the ends of the frame, selecting the vertices will add coincident relations of the end points of the new lines to the existing geometry. The orientation does not matter.

Adding geometry for a shelf in my table is handled the same way. As long as I select existing geometry, defining endpoints with coincident relations, I don’t need to be concerned with the orientation of the cursor. In my example here, I inserted lines at both ends coincident to the uprights, added Along X relationships to them, and dimensioned one end with a 6” dimension. Adding the line down the center coincident to the midpoints of these lines with an Along Z relation, ties the shelf entities together. Now my 3D sketch frame is ready to accept the structural members of my weldment. This 3D sketch, containing only the four critical dimensions, now governs the overall size of my frame and shelf position, and as is the magic of SOLIDWORKS parametric modeling, no matter what size I change these dimensions to, all components of my frame will update as well as all associated documents.

Have you ever needed to test several configurations of an injection molded part, but didn’t want to create a brand new study and re-input all the parameters? Or, have you needed to test several different fill times, materials, etc. for the same part? In this edition of Plastics Quick Tips, I will show you the right way to duplicate a Plastics study to make setting up multiple analyses a breeze.

Step #1: Create SOLIDWORKS configurations.

Whether you have multiple design configurations to run or multiple fill times to test, you will need to create a different configuration for each analysis. It’s easiest to do this with the SOLIDWORKS Plastics add-in turned off.

Step #2: Make sure SOLIDWORKS Configuration Integration is turned on.

This step is crucial. With the SOLIDWORKS Plastics add-in enabled, make sure to go into your SOLIDWORKS Plastics settings (SOLIDWORKS Plastics > Help > Settings; in SOLIDWORKS 2015 it’s under Tools > SOLIDWORKS Plastics > Help > Settings) and check the box labeled “SOLIDWORKS Configuration Integration” (Fig. 1).

[Figure 1. SOLIDWORKS Plastics settings.]

Step #3: Use the Model Manager.

Open up the SOLIDWORKS Plastics Model Manager (Fig. 2) and browse to the location where your results files are (Fig. 3). This is typically a subfolder where your part file is located. You should see your Plastics results files, assuming you’ve already run at least one analysis (Fig. 4). Right click on the result file, and select “copy”. Then, right click on the result folder itself and select “paste”. Make sure to select “paste” and not “paste without results”, as the latter will not copy over any mesh settings. Repeat this copy/paste as many times as you have configurations i.e. if you have 4 configurations, you can right-click the folder and select “paste” 3 more times.

[Figure 2. SOLIDWORKS Plastics Model Manager.]

[Figure 3. Browsing to your result files.]

[Figure 4. Your result files.]

Step #4: Rename the result files.

This is another key step. You need to make sure that the result names you copy/pasted in step #3 have the EXACT same name as the SOLIDWORKS configuration you want to associate it to. You can right-click each result file and select “rename” to do this.

Conclusion: It’s not being lazy, it’s being efficient.

That’s it! Now you can switch between SOLIDWORKS configurations and each of them will have its own Plastics analysis setup attached to it. From there, you can modify each setup to have a different mesh, injection location, injection material, injection pressure, etc.

Once you’ve gotten the hang of duplicating studies in SOLIDWORKS Plastics, you’ll wonder how you ever got by without it. Remember, leverage SOLIDWORKS Plastics’ Configuration Integration and the Model Manager to get your work done quicker and smarter. Feel free to leave your comments below and let me know if this workflow helps!

Have you needed to specify an injection location at a specific XY location in SOLIDWORKS Plastics, but weren’t sure how? Or, have you created multiple Plastics studies and needed to add injection locations multiple times? Have you found it difficult to add these injection locations in same place every time? In this edition of Plastics Quick Tips, I will show you how to select the exact location you want the first time, every time.

Tip: Use Split Lines in SOLIDWORKS to Mark Injection Locations

When you mesh a part in SOLIDWORKS Plastics, you break up the geometry into elements; at the corners of each of these elements are nodes. When you select an injection location, you’re picking a node to designate as the injection location. In order to force SOLIDWORKS Plastics to put a node where you want, use split lines in SOLIDWORKS. What I like to do is mark my injection location with a sketch consisting of a circle and two perpendicular lines (Fig. 1).

[Figure 1. Injection location created with split lines.]

From this sketch I create a split line feature on the face where the plastic will start flowing. The idea behind the two perpendicular lines is that the intersection creates a selectable vertex (and forces SOLIDWORKS Plastics to put a node there), which makes selecting the exact injection location easy (Fig. 2).

[Figure 2. Adding an injection location to a specific location.]

Even if you model the sprue and runner(s) in your part file (Fig. 3), you’ll still need to specify an injection location on the sprue’s end face (and surprise, I like using the split line method here too).

[Figure 3. Example of a family mold with a sprue.]

One last note with regard to meshing; if you’re meshing your part with a shell mesh, using the above method is critical because you are only allowed to select a vertex (node) injection location. If you’re meshing your part with a solid mesh, it isn’t as crucial because you have the option of specifying faces or a vertex for your injection location. I’d still use the split line method though; if you want to specify faces for your injection location, add split lines that represent the gate location and then select the appropriate split faces.

Whether you’re adding injection locations once or multiple times, remember to leverage the power of split lines to dictate where your injection locations will be. That’s all for now; stay tuned for more Quick Tips coming soon. Feel free to leave a comment below and let me know if this helps reduce your setup time!

When I mention the word “multibody”, I hope it doesn’t bring up the bowling dream sequence in The Big Lebowski because that’s an out-of-body experience. A multibody part is a part in SOLIDWORKS that is made up of multiple solids and/or surfaces within the same part file. These bodies can be touching or not touching, but if they aren’t touching, then they are separate bodies by default. You can make multibody parts using various modules within SOLIDWORKS, but this article will focus on creating multibody sheet metal parts within the sheet metal module.

Making a multibody sheet metal part is easy and useful. Some reasons you would make this type of part is if you are working with different gauges and different materials of sheet metal within the same part. Also, if the bodies are within the same part, if you change a dimension or relation of one part, everything will change accordingly. This insures that your parts fit together when you are done with your design.

Here’s an example of what a multibody sheet metal part looks like. This is a router table with a top and 4 legs:

In this example, the router table is AISI 304 material while the legs are AISI 306. Also, the legs and the table top are different gauges. Let’s step through how you would create a part like this.

I’m going to start at the step where the table top was created as a single body. To summarize, this was created as a profile sketch, extruded as a Base Flange/Tab, and then Edge Flanges were added to the sides. There’s also some holes added to the part:

From the feature manager tree, we can see that there is one body in the Cut list, and one sheet-metal feature, as expected since this is a single body part. I’m going to start a sketch on one of the inside faces that will be the profile of one of the legs:

Note that the view has been sectioned so that we can make dimensions and relations to the profile of the table. Now I will revolve the profile about the long side 90 degrees:

By default, SOLIDWORKS will want to merge this new feature with the table top since they are touching (remember the first paragraph of this article?) I don’t want it to do this since I want a separate body, so make sure that the Merge result box is unchecked. Now if we look at the Cut list folder, there are 2 bodies. I can also isolate the body I want to work on by right clicking the name in the Cut list folder and clicking Isolate:

The icons are different since the first body is a sheet metal body and the second body is a solid body. Next, we convert the solid leg to sheet metal by clicking the Convert to Sheet Metal button:

At this point, we can choose to use the same gauge as the table or change it:

After the conversion and exiting the Isolate, we now have two separate pieces:

We can add different materials to each (right click on the body in the Cut list, and if you look down at the bottom of the Feature Manager tree, you can see we have two separate flat patterns:

If you hit the Flatten button in the Command Manager, it will only flatten the first body, so you will need to actually unsuppress the flat pattern feature for the other body, or right click on the body and select Flatten. Now with a couple of Mirror operations, we can use that first leg to create 3 more legs. SOLIDWORKS might add these bodies to a new Cut list, so just select them and left click and drag them into the Cut list you want them to be in.

That’s it! If you would like to see a video on this, please click on this link. Good luck on your sheet metal designs and thanks for reading!

It is sometimes desired to have the option to remove the “SolidWorks Enterprise PDM” tab from the templates menu when you perform a “File > New” operation in SOLIDWORKS:

The reason that tab appears is because the Administrator of your EPDM vault has given the user permission to use the EPDM template in the right-click menu. The templates in this tab are essentially derived from the EPDM “right-click” templates because when they were created, they were given a “SOLIDWORKS” icon. When SOLIDWORKS opens, it checks the Vault for any templates associated with SOLIDWORKS icons, and any it finds get extracted and saved in the folder: “C:\Users\(username)\AppData\Local\Temp\SolidWorks Enterprise PDM.” That same file location also gets added to the “File Locations > Document Templates” section of your “Tools > Options” menu. Simply removing this location from your “File Locations > Document Templates” will not get rid of the templates tab, because SOLIDWORKS checks the vault and re-inserts the file location every time you perform a “File > New” operation.

As a result of this, one potential option to get rid of the tab in the “File > New” menu in SOLIDWORKS would be to change the icon to a non-SOLIDWORKS item in the EPDM template:

The problem with this workaround, however is that the change may add some confusion to the users who are used to seeing the icon associated with their EPDM templates.

SOLIDWORKS has officially recognized the need for an option to disable the EPDM tab in the “File > New” menu, and has created SPR 613573 to add an option in the Enterprise PDM Add-in to disable the automatic check for Enterprise templates. This is not listed as an enhancement request. The functionality can be implemented, however, without needing an option in the Enterprise Add-in.

In order to disable the reading of templates from the Vault, the user will need to add the following REG_DWORD value to the registry key “HKCU\Software\SolidWorks\Applications\PDMWorks Enterprise\PDMSW”:

ExcludeEnterprisePDMTemplates  1

The end result should look like this in the registry:

The last operation you must perform for this to work around is to remove the “C:\Users\(username)\AppData\Local\Temp\SolidWorks Enterprise PDM” file location from your “File Locations > Document Templates” menu. You should then be able to select “File > New” and not have that “SolidWorks Enterprise PDM” tab listed:

In your installation of SOLIDWORKS, there is a basic file management utility called SOLIDWORKS Explorer that goes a long way in helping you ensure that if files are renamed or moved, those references are still maintained! The reason SOLIDWORKS documents can’t easily be renamed by right-clicking in Windows Explorer and clicking ‘Rename’ is because of references.

If you go to ‘File > Open > select a drawing or assembly file once without opening it, in the lower right hand of the dialog you’ll see ‘References’. What this will provide us with is a list of all the referenced files for that selected document. To put it simply, SOLIDWORKS will need to see those components in those folders for the assembly/drawing document to open correctly. That’s the reason why you can’t just send a vendor an assembly file without the associated components!

The problem comes up if one of those components is renamed in Windows Explorer or moved to a different folder as listed in the above image. When a file cannot be found, you’ll see the component is greyed out in the FeatureManager, and a quick check of the references (if the document is open, you can go to ‘File > Find References’) will indicate the file cannot be found.

If you had renamed the file, you can locate where the file is and rename it back to the original name. What if, however, you wanted to keep the existing name and have the assembly refer to that new name going forward? What you’ll want to do is open ‘SOLIDWORKS Explorer’ and using the ‘File Explorer’ on the left pane, select your assembly you want to fix. You’ll then click on the ‘References’ tab, right-click on the part, and select ‘Replace’.

The ‘Replace Document’ dialog box will then pop up, allowing you to ‘Browse’ to the file with new name. You’ll want to make sure ‘Update Where Used’ is checked on so all existing references for that part, are updated.

So now that we’ve taken a look at how if you were to rename a part incorrectly, how do we fix it? What’s the correct process? Glad you asked! While still in SOLIDWORKS Explorer, you can right-click the part to be renamed and you’ll be presented with ‘Rename’. The dialog box will closely resemble the ‘Replace Document’ dialog box; the only difference is SOLIDWORKS Explorer will ask you what you’d like the new name to be. Like before, you’ll want to ensure ‘Update where used’ is checked on so reference documents will be updated with the new name.

If you’re in Windows Explorer, you can achieve the same result by right-clicking the document to be renamed and going to ‘SOLIDWORKS > Rename’. You’ll then see the exact same dialog box as above.

As you can see, the reason SOLIDWORKS files function a little differently from other Windows files lies in the References files it needs to open and update correctly. So the next time you’re thinking of renaming that file, consider all those sub-assemblies and drawings that are dependent on it to open! You don’t want to be THAT person, do you?

The Pattern feature inside SOLIDWORKS is one of those go-to tools that we use day in and day out, but we may take it for granted and not appreciate the full capabilities that the tool can offer. One feature in particular is the Variable Pattern feature introduced to SOLIDWORKS in 2015.

The Variable Pattern feature is a great tool to be able to create patterns on features while being able to vary the parameters of that feature. To clarify what I mean, let’s take a look at the scenario below:

What we have is an assembly of a drone and we want to pattern the cut slot while varying the slot size to implement some LEDs to the model.

If we isolate the Body Shell part and navigate to INSERT>PATTERN/MIRROR, we can choose the Variable Pattern feature. In this menu, we have the option to select the feature we want to pattern; in this case, the cut slot feature. In order for us to vary the size of the pattern, we need to select Create Pattern Table.

Notice that all the dimensions wake up, allowing us to select them in the Pattern Table window. For this case, I want to vary the distance from the Origin and the actual slot width. Those parameters will pop up in the window, then allowing us to add how many instances we want to vary the feature. If we select Update Preview, you will see how the end result will look.

Starting in 2016, we will have the option to Import and Export this table to Excel, meaning that we can create complex tables based on what we can do in Excel. We can also link parameters to equation based parameters along with negative values to specify a reversed direction.

If you would like to see this tool in action, please refer to my YouTube video found here!

A question that I have been asked many times by SOLIDWORKS users who have modeled a part that has an internal volume is, “Is there a feature that can show me the volume inside my hollow part?” Luckily, SOLIDWORKS has many great tools where we can easily find the mass and volume of bodies from our Evaluate section, but does not directly tell us the volume inside a part that has been shelled. In order to make this happen, we need to somehow create a body that will fill in the hollow volume where we can then measure the volume for it. To create a body to fill every cavity of a shelled part can be a difficult task especially if the internal volume has obscure areas where it has been hollowed out such as the water jug seen below. As you can see, the water jug has the spout and handle that has been shelled to be able to hold water which will make it really difficult to calculate the volume in those areas. So how can we generate a body that can fill in the volume of this empty water jug? The feature that we need to use is the Intersect tool found in INSERT>FEATURES. This feature allows us to create multiple regions due to the cutting plane and generate a body of an enclosed open volume. Within this tool, we can select a Plane, Surface, or Solid to use as a reference to intersect the model to create regions that we can keep or exclude. And in SOLIDWORKS 2016, it can create a body of the internal region of a hollow volume, saving you some extra steps. For this model, I created a reference plane that defined my water level and made sure it intersected the model. That way the feature can find different regions where I can exclude them and only be left with the internal volume. As seen in the image below, I selected the plane, the body, and excluded the regions I didn’t want and kept the new body it created from that internal region. What you are left with is the body the feature created by finding that internal region. At this point, we can use the Mass Property tool and find that the amount of water this jug can hold is 8.941 liters. The Intersect feature has always been available to us and always helpful to answer these types of questions. However, they have made some improvements to the tool starting in SOLIDWORKS 2016. If we go back to the property manager, we now have the option to “Crete Internal Region” where it eliminates the step of us having to manually exclude the regions we don’t want. As seen below, by selecting that option, the internal region is generated but the original model remains intact where we can hide it if we choose to. If you want to see this feature in action, please refer to my YouTube video found here!

Product Data Management (aka idea-lockers) – A Simple Explanation

Here at Hawk Ridge Systems, our customers design some of the most complex and amazing products and systems in the world. We provide engineering tools and services to those companies, and while they’re some of the most user-friendly tools on the market, those tools can be complex. And when we talk about these tools to our customers, like everyone, we can fall into the trap of getting buried in this complexity.

Inspired by the web-comic xkcd, Michael Scott from The Office, simple.wikipedia.com and the “Explain it like I’m Five” community on Reddit, we’re taking on the challenge of explaining what some of our key software packages do, using only the 1000 most common words in the English language. Up first, is our Data Management Product Manager, Jordan Lemley. Take it away Jordan.

SOLIDWORKS Product Data Management – Explained like you’re five

When you do your job, you have many ideas. That is why you have a job, because you are full of great ideas.

But sometimes it is hard for other people on your job-team to understand your ideas even if you use a lot of words.

So you put your ideas in your computer to make a picture of your idea.

Now other people can see and understand your ideas. But sometimes ideas are hard to keep track of on your computer. Normal computers only keep one idea at a time, or the same idea in too many places, or are slow, or make it hard to remember where your ideas are, or let your job-team people change or even kill your ideas so you can not find them or bring them back from the dead. That is why you need an idea-locker with a computer-brain.

Have an idea from years ago? Do not remember your old idea or where it is in the computer? Not to worry. The computer-brain of the idea-locker does. It remembers all the great ideas you had. You can ask the computer-brain to find your idea and it will. The computer-brain is so nice!

Do you want to keep your important idea safe? Bad people might want to find your idea and take it from you so you can not find it or kill it so you can not use it. Those people are very bad. I do not like those people. If you put your idea in the locker with the computer brain, it can keep it safe. It has a police guard to make sure bad people do not take your important idea so you can still have your job and have more ideas and help your job-team make more stuff so you can make more jobs for people like you with great ideas and keep job-team-money safe.

When you put your idea in the idea-locker, how do you make sure another job-team-person does not change it, especially if it is important and should not be changed? Each idea in the idea locker has a key to open it.

Only a person with the key to change it can change it. If you do not have the key, you can not change the idea. You can even make a key to see an idea. So if a job-team-person should only see your finished idea, you can give them a key to only see your finished ideas. That way the job-team-person who makes your idea real only makes good stuff. Good job idea-locker!

Not sure what your other job-team-people are doing? In the idea-locker, you can see their name next to their idea to know they are doing work on a cool new idea. The idea-locker computer-brain can tell the police guard to stop you from changing their idea until they give you the key. Go Team!

Sometimes your idea is part of another idea, like a mom idea and her children ideas.

Sometimes your idea children run away and the relationship is broken. Oh No! The mom idea can’t find the children ideas! When a mom idea and her children ideas live in the idea-locker, the computer brain can help the mom idea always know where her children ideas are, even when they run away. Now they are a safe, happy idea-family inside the idea-locker!

Have a new idea to fix a broken idea? The idea-locker computer-brain can help you control the changes to your broken idea. It tells your job-team-people to not use the broken idea while you fix it. The computer-brain can help you ask an important job-team-person if you can make the change. They say yes and give you the key to make a change to the broken idea. When you finish, you give the key back and the important job-team-person says okay! Great! Now all the other job-team-people can see your new, not-broken idea and the computer-brain tells them you are cool and amazing and had a great idea to fix the broken idea!

What if someone on your job-team has the same idea as you? The computer-brain knows if the idea is already in the idea locker. That way, your job-team does not put the same idea in the idea-locker. The computer-brain can make sure your idea-locker is clean. A clean idea-locker is a happy locker!

Sometimes your job-team needs help from another job-team in another place. The other job-team needs their own idea locker with the same computer brain. And many times the other place does not know what you are doing. If you put your ideas in the idea-locker, the computer brain can send them to the other job-team’s computer locker.

Now everyone works together! Go computer brain!

So now you have an idea-locker with a computer brain. You can keep track of your ideas, remember old ones, make new ones. You can work with other job-teams, keep idea families together, and fix broken ideas better. And best of all, all those ideas you have can become real things! Life with your idea-locker is the best!

February is data management month at Hawk Ridge. Join Jordan and the rest of our team to learn about new and improved data management software and services from Hawk Ridge Systems and SOLIDWORKS in our 3D Solutions Spotlight Webinars:

SOLIDWORKS PDM Standard and Professional – Data Management for Every Organization

Thursday, February 11, 2016, 11:00 AM PDT

SOLIDWORKS 2016 now has two data management solutions to help manage your critical engineering and CAD data – SOLIDWORKS PDM Standard (included with every license SOLIDWORKS Professional and Premium) and SOLIDWORKS PDM Professional (formerly Enterprise PDM). Attend this webinar to find out the features and benefits of each solution so you can decide which system is the right fit for you, and see how data management tools can streamline and revolutionize your engineering workflows.

Workgroup PDM Migration – Moving Your Data to SOLIDWORKS PDM Standard or Professional

Friday, February 19, 2016, 11:00 AM PDT

Are you currently using Workgroup PDM to control and manage your SOLIDWORKS data? Are you wondering how to move that data to SQL database driven SOLIDWORKS PDM Standard or Professional before SOLIDWORKS 2018 when Workgroup PDM is being retired? Attend our webinar to learn how to migrate data from Workgroup PDM to a SOLIDWORKS PDM system, and what you should be thinking about to plan for the future.

Powering Up Your PDM – Improving your Data Management experience

Friday, February 26, 2016, 11:00 AM PDT

Tools like PDM Professional (formally Enterprise PDM) are incredibly powerful, and infinitely customizable. In this webinar we will talk about several unique offerings from Hawk Ridge Systems to improve your PDM experience, whether it is installations, upgrades, consulting, training, or customized applications.

Creating Threads as a true Feature in SOLIDWORKS prior to 2016 was something of a litmus test – if you could accomplish this in a reasonable amount of time with a few sketches and didn’t manage to ruin your model, you could probably be hired at any company using SOLIDWORKS and hit the ground running. While not particularly difficult to create, it did require someone to be pretty comfortable visualizing what they wanted and to know enough about SOLIDWORKS tools and features to combine a few tools to get the final result; in other words, you couldn’t “Costanza” that feature, and it is a favorite amongst engineering professors for final exams in CAD courses.

Unfortunately, or perhaps thankfully for some, the skill of manually creating thread features may soon be on its way to becoming an esoteric CAD art-form known only to a select few, echoing the fate of the elusive hand-drafters that still lurk in forgotten cubicles in various industries. Why, might you ask? Well SOLIDWORKS quietly added a new tool to the software for 2016, called the Thread tool.

Intrigued? Imagine Hole Wizard and Weldments got friendly at a party and a few service packs later Thread tool came out. In a nutshell, you can automatically create full Feature threads from any of the included standards in Metric and Imperial, cut or extruded, internal or external, left or right handed AND you can add your own custom thread types all through an easy to use property manager. Like Hole Wizard, you choose your Thread type and size, any modifying parameters, and then use simple face and edge reference clicks to quickly create your feature without any need for underlying sketches, reference planes, or special curves. Even better, like Weldments you can add your own custom thread profiles by creating configured sketches in exactly the same manner you would create custom weldment profiles and adding them to the Thread profile library folder. This way, you’re only limited by your imagination and what you can sketch in terms of what kinds of thread you can create using the new 2016 Thread tool.

Using the Thread tool is as simple as first adding it to your Feature tab on the Command Manager using the Customize menu, and then clicking to activate it, as shown in the first image.

Once the property manager opens on the left, choose a circular edge to start your thread, and an End Condition with appropriate reference selections to finish it. In the example in image 2, we used an “Up to Selection” End Condition and chose the face indicated by the lower arrow. The boxed area of the property manager in image 2 is where you set the Type, Size, and other modifying characteristics of the thread itself. Here, you can locate the profile like a weldment, override the standard pitch and/or diameter of the library thread profile, and even reverse the direction of the thread.

Once you’ve set the property manager to your liking, clicking the green check mark in the upper right of the property manager will confirm the selections and create the full featured thread, as shown in image 3. Now you can easily create full feature threads on any part in just a few clicks, and even create your own custom profiles. Before anyone gets too excited though, there are two small limitations. The Thread tool does NOT yet support the creation of tapered or pipe style threads, so the “old fashioned” ways of creating those thread features still apply.

One of my new favorite features that has been introduced for Drawings in SOLIDWORKS 2016 is Flag Notes. This is a great new feature to associate notes to balloons marked on a drawing.

So how does it work?

The first thing to do is add notes to the drawing. These can be operations that need to be done to a part or assembly that can only be clearly communicated by calling it out through notes. We then want to consider changing our numeric value to have a symbol to make it more unique and easier to find on the drawing after we link it to a balloon. All we have to do is click on the number and on the property manager, and then we can add the note to the Flag Note Bank section, then click on the symbol pull down menu and choose what symbol we want.

After we have added our notes and associated symbol to it, we can then add our balloons that will be linked to the note. We can navigate to INSERT>ANNOTATIONS>BALLOON and select the feature to add the balloon to the appropriate location on the model in which we want to call out. Once the balloon is placed, we can select the balloon and select in the property manager to enable the option Flag Note Bank. In the actual Flag Note Bank, we can select the note we want to link, and will notice the balloon will match the note number and symbol. You will also notice that we can hover over the balloon and the linked note appears in the pop up message.

What’s really nice about this feature is that even if we make changes to our notes such as adding a new note in between the current notes that have already been created, the number scheme will be updated along with the balloon number. The same goes if we delete a note, we do not have to go back and manually update the numeric order.

Now with this new Flag Note feature, we can feel a little bit more confident that special operations will be clearly communicated from designer to manufacturer eliminating any costly mistakes that previously may have been made due to a loss in translation from Notes.

To see this feature in action, see my YouTube video found here!

When you come to a sheet metal part with an odd shaped or partial edge flange you might realize that the usual select and size approach it not going to work. You are stuck trying to decide if you should just use a normal rectangular edge flange and then cut away the excess and drill a hole or attempt to use that mysterious Edit Flange Profile button, if you have been alert enough to notice it by now. What is the difference? As you can see in the example part below, the resulting geometry is the same and they will both give you the same flat pattern. Why should you use one over the other?

Edited Flange Profile

Cuts & Hole Wizard

To make sure we are all on the same page, let’s take a look at how I got to this point from both approaches.

Method 1: Normal Edge Flange and Cut

I am going to assume you can figure out how to get the Base Flange and first set of Edge Flanges, so we will fast forward to the point where we need to add the unique flange. First, I am going to select the edge I want to apply the flange to and select the Edge Flange command from my Sheet Metal Command Manager. (Yes, you can select the edge after you invoke the command but why wait? Time is precious!) Next, I need to click in the direction and approximate size for my new flange. Finally, I dial in my exact desired dimension and now, we have the oversized start of our flange.

Next up is the cut in order to trim it down to the size I am really after. I make a sketch on the face of the flange and convert the top and bottom edges, draw in a couple lines and an arc to designate the areas I want removed.

With that sketch, all you need to do is perform a Cut Extrude to the vertex of the bend and your part is looking better already.

The last feature we need for this approach is a hole, let’s bring on that wizard. By clicking Features > Hole Wizard, I set the size to my specifications and place it concentric with the arc accordingly.

So there you have it, three steps later and we have made our boss so very proud of the little designer we have become. Now let’s explore the option you will probably use going forward.

Method 2: Edit Flange Profile

Again, starting with our Base and Edge Flanges, we are going to use the same first step as above. Select the edge and click on the Edge Flange command. Go ahead and make that second click to place the flange in the appropriate direction. Now, we are going to deviate from our first method. Before you give your flange a real dimension, go ahead and click on the Edit Flange Profile option. [Cue Twilight Zone Theme Song]

You should now be looking at a plane old boring rectangular sketch; in 2015 and newer that is, all previous versions would show a single line to define the length of the edge flange. You are probably thinking, “Okay, now I just modify the sketch,” and you would be correct. The Edit Flange Profile option gives us the chance to sketch in the real profile of our edge flange and skip all that rectangle with cuts non-sense. We modify the sketch to look like the inverse of our sketch in the previous method, and we can even go so far as to include the hole right inside our profile. That’s right, it’s a contour within a contour. With the Edit Flange Profile option, really all you need is some sort of closed contour that uses a portion of the edge it will be bent from. Then you can get as creative as you want with the design or internal contours. The profile sketch pop-up will let you know if what you have sketched is going to work for an Edge Flange.

With the click of the Finish button, we have the same geometry as before in a third of the steps.

Try all you want, and run all the utilities you can, these two parts will be geometrically identical. Flatten them, they will have the same the exact same flat pattern. Why should you learn this way of doing your design instead of the old faithful cut? Time! Why waste time doing extra steps to add the cut and hole when you can do it all from the Edge Flange command?

You CSWP types are probably thinking, “Hey, I can do the cut and the hole in a single multi-contour cut, so are you really saving me time?” Thank you for asking, and yes, I still am. Not only do you get to skip the cut step itself saving design time, but I am also saving you rebuild time. Go to your Evaluate tab > Performance Evaluation. Sure enough, the Cut Extrude accounts for 33.48% of the rebuild time.

With Cut

Without Cut

Sure, that only adds up to 0.08 seconds which is less than a blink, but this is only one simple part. Let’s say this part is 1 of 1000 in a larger assembly. Do you really want to spend over a minute each time that assembly rebuilds thinking, “He told me so”? If you don’t just design simple paper towel racks, your designs probably have more than one such tab on it. Now, we might be talking even more time to think about your actions.

Ultimately, the choice is yours as to how you would build this part. Both ways produce a valid part that manufacturing will be able to build to your specification. However, it is clear that simplifying your tree by using the Edit Flange Profile over an extra Cut Extrude not only makes you look more proficient, it makes your designs more efficient.

With every new release of SOLIDWORKS, I’m always excited to see what new enhancements or features are added to the software. A few of the enhancements in SOLIDWORKS 2016 is with the Sweep feature. One of which allows us to automatically create circular swept profiles. This means that we no longer need to create a separate sketch containing the circular profile in order to create the sweep feature.

When you go to create a sweep, you’ll notice slight changes to the property manager. We now have the option to choose between two types of profiles, Sketch profile and Circular profile. The Sketch Profile option functions similarly to previous versions, requiring us to select a sketch to use for the profile to create the sweep.

The Circular Profile option allows you to automatically create a circular swept profile, without using a sketch. This new option is available for the Swept Boss/Base, Swept Cut, and Swept Surfaces. With this option selected, the selection box for a profile disappears, and we get a numeric box to input a diameter value. All you need to do is select a path, key in a value for the diameter of the circular profile, click OK, and your sweep is created.

In previous versions, reference curves used for the sweep are absorbed by the sweep feature. This makes it difficult to edit those reference curves because when you do, you aren’t able to access the other geometry, making adding relations a difficult task.

In 2016, you’ll also notice that once the sweep is created, the reference curves are no longer absorbed by the sweep feature. This is very convenient as it allows us to make edits to those reference curves, and be able to access the other features while doing so. This makes adding relations between the geometry much simpler.

Another great enhancement to the sweep feature is something that I’ve been asked about a handful of times in my SOLIDWORKS classes, and that’s the ability to create Bidirectional sweeps. This means that we can now create sweeps with the profile located anywhere along the path, and we have the option sweep in Direction 1, Direction 2, or Bidirectional. You can even specify independent twist values for each direction.

One thing to note with bidirectional sweeps is that it cannot be used with guide curves, and we can’t set the start and end tangency. I hope you’re as excited about these enhancements as I am! Check out our YouTubechannel for videos on these new features in 2016!

5 Great Features of CAMWorks Turning

It’s Product Spotlight month for CAMWorks here at Hawk Ridge Systems, and I got to thinking how there are many great features of CAMWorks we don’t talk about very often (and some others that do).

I wanted to present my personal top 5 favorite features of CAMWorks, starting first with a focus on CAMWorks Turning. Be sure to check back for more blogs discussing our favorite features of the other modules of CAMWorks.

1)     Automatic Feature Recognition quickly extracts turning features, saving time over manually picking profiles. AFR works whether the part is SOLIDWORKS native or an imported body.

CAMWorks recognizes OD Turning and ID Boring features, as well as Grooves, Face, and Cutoff features.
2)     CAMWorks Work-In-Process Stock automatically prevents air-cutting for any turning operations.

The orange outline below represents the state of the workpiece at any given time.
Only leftover stock will be machined by subsequent operations, ensuring short cycle time with no extra programming effort.

3)     Easily Extend or Shorten toolpath with Start/End Length Control.

Every CAMWorks turning operation has control over Start and End length.

This means changes such as extending a threading operation over a groove is as simple as entering the desired offset.

4)     Variable allowance allows extra leftover in critical areas without modifying the geometry.

Simply pick the desired segments and assign the desired allowances.

In the image below the finishing operation turns the front portion of the part to the final shape, but maintains an allowance from the two segments specified.

5)     Easily control join behavior.
When it is necessary to modify features extracted by AFR, or create new features interactively,
CAMWorks allows full control over the toolpath- allowing you to easily chain segment selections or join straight across gaps.

Normally, glue stop tabs have been cut with one single move, but because we know wire cutting is a slow process machinists may want to cut the tab in two moves.  This would add a machine stop between the two cuts.  It allows the operator to attend and monitor the last cut to ensure nothing is damaged in the process.  The first cut would take a portion of the tab off and then the last monitored cut would be the final.

Below are the steps to set up the two move cutting process:

Right click on the Machine and choose Edit Settings.

Select the EDM Setup tab.

Within this tab you will see the section called Glue Stop processing.

The first drop down available is the Two step strategy.  There are three strategies to choose from:

In order to use any of these strategies, you must activate Two Step within the Contour Toolpath itself.  You will find this by opening the Operation Parameters for one of your Contour toolpaths and selecting the EDM tab.

By selecting ‘Use Glue Stop’ from the Glue stop drop down you should notice the Two steps option become available.

If it does not, this means that there is no value in the length setting within your machine settings.

Open the Edit Settings window by right clicking on your machine.  Select the EDM Setup tab and enter in a value for the length.  This is the length of your second cut.

Select the Strategy that you would like to use to cut the tab.  Each option changes the image within the preview window when you change the selection.  This helps describe each option.

• Knock Out   

o   When the feature is processed as a die and Two steps is not active, the glue stop tab is cut in single move.

o   When the feature is processed as a die and Two steps is active, the glue stop will be cut with two moves. The length of the first move is equal to the Stop distance minus the Two step strategy Length. The second cut is equal to the Two step Strategy Length. No machine stop will be output between the first and second cut.

o   When the feature is processed as a punch and Two steps is not active, none of the glue stop tab material will be cut.

o   When the feature is processed as a punch and Two steps is active, the glue stop tab will only be partially cut. The amount that will be cut is equal to the Stop distance minus the Two step strategy Length.

• Stop on Contour

o   The glue stop tab will be cut in two moves.  The machine will stop between the first move and the second move and the wire will remain on the feature edge.  The first move length will be equal to the Stop distance minus the Two step strategy Length.

• Stop Approach/Release

o   This option is exactly the same as Stop on Contour except the second move will pull away from the feature edge by the Lead Length amount.

The last option within the Two Step Processing settings is called ‘Apply start cutting conditions to glue stop’.  This option will allow the start cutting conditions defined for the Rough Cut in Edit Cutting Conditions Dialog Box of the Wire EDM machine to be applied to the glue stop cut. Unique cutting condition values such as power and feed rate, can then be applied for a specified distance along the glue stop cut, before resuming normal cutting condition values.

By adding an option to your contour cut.  You can actually see the two step process in the CAMWorks toolpath itself.

On Wednesday March 17^th, Hawk Ridge Systems engineer Vince Farrell got the amazing opportunity to talk about engineering to Mrs. Farrell’s 4th grade class at Lincoln Elementary School in Burlingame, CA. He presented on SOLIDWORKS and 3D Printing.

Naturally 3D Printing got the attention of the students and the questions started rolling in of what is actually possible to print? A few quotes:

“Can you print yourself, can you edit yourself for big muscles and a six pack?” –Alex Sogas

“Can you print San Francisco, the actual size of it?” – Jacob Wilkinson

“Can you print a heart?” – Kristen De Mesa

 A few of the other amazing ideas the students had to print was:

• F-35 Plane
• Stephen Curry
• Life sized version of my family
• Puppy
• Giant flying machine with a paradise island and a waterfall and Jacuzzis at the bottom
• Puzzles
• Roller skates
• Houses and building for people to stay at so they wouldn’t have travel as far and be away from their families as much
• Baseball
• Myself
• More 3D Printers
• Cristiano Ronaldo
• My own army
• A baseball with all the signatures of the Giants baseball team!
• Volleyball or a kitten
• A big house
• Flower
• My dog, Lola
• Hawaii
• Basketball or a Minecraft version of Stephen Curry
• Giant toy structure

It amazed me how creative these kids’ ideas were on what they could print, what out there is actually possible to be printed!

If you are a fairly advanced SOLIDWORKS user, you have probably used Global Variables at some point. Global Variables are the easiest way allow certain dimensions to change quickly without having to go in and modify them individually. Here I have a block that is being driven by 5 Global Variables.

If I open the Equation Manger by going to Tools > Equations, I can see and control the table of Global Variables. This is where you can change the value of each Global Variable to create a whole new model variation. However, there is an underutilized option from the Equations Manager which will let you take Global Variables one step further, Link to External File. This will give you the ability to control Global Variables or equations from a text or database file.

When you turn this option on, you can choose to create the file from scratch or link to an existing file. Creating a new file will let you choose where to save it, and which of the Global Variable or equations you want to control with the text file. Once you have that set, click Link to establish the relationship.

If you create a new file, the current values will automatically populate the new file. The format for the text file is simple, “Global Variable Name” = Value, each one gets its own row. It will look something like this…

Now you will control the selected items from the text file instead of the Equations Manager. In fact if you look at the Equations Manager, you will see that those items are now locked out and show the linked to file icon.

Testing it out, I will change some of the values on the text file. Make sure to save the text file once you have made your changes. Then switch back to SOLIDWORKS, if the Equations Manager is still open, just close it down. Your model should automatically rebuild and reflect the changes, if not you can force a rebuild with Ctrl+B.

So why would you want to control your Global Variables from an external file? Often times, manipulating the values can be easier on a text file instead of in the Equations Manager. Also the text file can be modified by a non SOLIDWORKS user and the model will update the next time it is opened, and this can free up a license on crowded networks. Another use case is automatically generated text files from sources like Excel. An Excel workbook or other tool could be used to handle complex equations to determine the Global Variable values and then exported to a text file that can be used to control a model. With the easy linking of Global Variables to an external text file, the possibilities of what you will model are endless.

Creating Annotations and Notes in Electrical Schematic drawings is often a tedious, error prone task because everything must usually be created and managed as independent, unintelligent text boxes. If something in the design changes, chances are you have to go back and make sure the information in your text boxes is up-to-date, and if you’ve added a bunch of information you might find yourself in a situation where you have to resize and reposition your text boxes, which may necessitate other things being shifted around.

SOLIDWORKS Electrical Schematic handles the automation of updating the text by doing away with manual text boxes and using database driven intelligent Attribute tags. This is a huge time-saving benefit, as it allows you to simply manage the properties of your parts and components and have the relevant information appear in the position and format you prefer as a standard in your drawing, all by controlling the symbols Attribute tags. However a common question often arises – how does one take a single attribute field, and break it up into multiple lines so that the formatting is consistent from use to use? Ideally, you’d like the text to always behave and fit a certain way regardless of how long or short your description or other piece of meta-data might be.

For this, Electrical Schematic has the Multi-Line Attribute tool. It involves a 2-step process – first, you must create or edit a symbol so the Attribute tag itself is set up as multiple lines, as indicated in image 1. Then, you add “pipes” to the text in your meta-data properties to indicate where the line breaks in your text will be, as shown in image 2. It doesn’t matter what order you do it in, but always remember to right click and update any symbols you’ve modified if you’ve already used them in a schematic, or replace the symbol with the new one you created.

To edit the symbol, either open any symbol you wish to edit, create a new one, or copy and modify the copy of a symbol. Once in the editor, choose or add the Attribute tag which would display the piece of meta-data you wish to have in the symbol. Then, as shown in image 3, select the Multiple Attribute tool, making sure nothing in the drawing is pre-selected. Set the properties in the left hand side pane for how many lines you’d like to break it up into and make sure to check on the box that says “specify position on screen” to avoid having to calculate the spacing indicated by the yellow arrow in image 3.

Once you’re happy with your property manager settings, click on the Attribute tag that will be broken up, and then click again in the workspace to place as many subsequent “lines” of the Attribute as were set in the property manager pane. At this stage, you will want to place the Attribute tags in exactly the position you want the text to appear, and set all the properties of the text like the size, font type, spacing, justification, color, etc. so that it’s consistent each time you use the symbol. Save and Close the symbol, and then remember to either update or replace any existing symbols you want to swap with the new one in your drawings.

Finally, go to the meta-data property field that is linked to the Attribute you picked, and put in “pipes”, as shown in images 2 and 4 indicated by red arrows, to mark the spots where the text will break out into a new line. Now, you have full control over the placement, style, and ultimately the parsing of the Attribute text that is independent of the length of the text.