By admin | January 23, 2010
“In SolidWorks you can apply materials to your solid geometry to get a weight. You can also add your own densities to approximate a weight, so that, based on the volume of, lets say, a robotic ape face, you’ll get a mass that works perfectly to strike fear into the minds of others. In doing [...]
By admin | October 14, 2009
“Nonetheless, you love Splines, or at the very least have a mild curiosity about them. A curiosity that has led you here. We can’t keep you from upsetting your co-workers with curviness, but we can show you how to control the curves and give you a little better understanding of how these sucka’s work.” …
Keep [...]
By admin | September 16, 2009
“Five minutes from now, you will know two ways to recess a surface in SolidWorks. They won’t necessarily crush your skull, but they may expand it slightly by enriching your mind with the power of sketch, surface and split face features.
“It seems like there should be one feature to recess a surface in SolidWorks. It’s [...]
Also posted in Delete Face, Knit Surface (Surfaces), Lofted Surface, Offset Surface (Surfaces), Split Line, Thickened Cut | Tagged Delete Face, Knit Surface, Lofted Surface, Offset Surface, SolidSmack, Split Line, Thickened Cut |
“Circular references are some of the most heinous problems to crop up in assemblies this side of ancient feudal Japan. The two worst things about these type of problems is that they’re not shown as errors and you have to dig them out of the miry clay of SolidWorks features. Two items no amount of [...]
“If you’re like any other normal person, you occasionally sit at your desk putting stickers and labels on your face, thinking there’s got to be a quick and easy way to create labels in SolidWorks. There is and it’s much faster than importing AutoCAD files filled with RomanS terror.
So, ignore the looks from your co-workers, [...]
Also posted in Text, Wrap | Tagged SolidSmack, Text, Wrap |
“You suppress one feature and everything underneath it gets suppressed. You cringe, a volcano erupts under the sea and five babies are born, slapped and all at once and named Llyod. Don’t you wish those ornery SolidWorks Features would just behave sometimes?
Well there just so happens to be, not one, but two single ways to [...]
“The more I model parts and assemblies in SolidWorks, the more I find I want to get away from sketches. Not because they don’t work. The sketch features in SolidWork are incredible and gain more functionality each release. (Yes, I really believe that.) I want to work with the 3D geometry, because it keeps me [...]
“If you want to know a tip about something in particular, hit the comments already! aaaand, just to get your tastebuds wet, here’s a quick one you can use right away.” …
Keep Reading: Predictions? Resolutions? Bah! SolidWorks Tips for the New Year 2008 | SolidSmack.com.
Published by Josh Mings on 1/2/08 on SolidSmack
“If you’ve been using SolidWorks for more than a couple hours you know you parts are created by stacking up a bunch of features on the left side of the screen. It’s a veritable tower of sand, held together by the spit of fully-defined sketches.
Based on what you do in that stack, the FeatureManager Tree, [...]
“As discussed in the previous post, SolidWorks is the disco queen of features. Sketches drive these features and sometimes you want to use them in another part or nice Gorgonzola salad.
There are library features and copying features, sure, but to get a quick copy of a sketch that you’ve already created, you may want to [...]
“You’re driving down a winding road and suddenly your car goes flying off a cliff into a den of wild boar. Not a good situation to be in.
While getting some parts to stay on track in SolidWorks is not nearly as morbid, it can be a pain in the neck, especially when it comes to [...]
“If you’re like me, you like your fill of statistics and finding ways to automate getting information. I’d give all of the items in these tools below a custom property. Even though only some provide usable properties, you can find ways to speed up your design and get the info you need without questioning your [...]
“You’ve been working on a 13,000 part mega-assembly with the most well thought out top-down assembly structure ever devised by man. The next morning, you gingerly sip your coffee as the model ooooopens, and then… something doesn’t look right. Suddenly, that pastry looses it’s sweetness as you come to grips that all your parts are… [...]
“Or rather, errors force determining a solution. The hitman’s hitman to keep that cool analogy steaming along.
You have to figure out what happened, where it happened and how to prevent or get around it undetected. It’s when your senses are honed and you learn the most.
You could say there’s two laws to follow. One by [...]
“A lot of people fear having to open a large assembly. I didn’t want to feel like that when I had to make a change to one part that affected an upper level assembly, so I came up with 5 ways to cut that silliness out.” …
Keep Reading: How to Improve SolidWorks Large Assembly Performance [...]
“Dealing with small assemblies is easy right? Why not talk about the large ones that seem so difficult? Well, sometimes you can get some perspective by scaling back a little and setting things up for the smaller situations.” …
Keep Reading: 3 Easy Tips for Tiny SolidWorks Assemblies | SolidSmack.com.
Published by Josh Mings on 3/13/08 on SolidSmack
Also posted in Assembly | Tagged Assembly, SolidSmack |
“It happens, I know. You want an accurate color for your model and you can’t help but spend hours dragging your cursor through the Color Properties to get just the right shade of used-wet-gasket-red or brushed-aluminum- anodized-gray. It’s affecting the way you work and driving you insane. There’s a better way.” …
Keep Reading: How To [...]
“A tag is just a keyword. It’s been popularized by a lot of websites (Flickr, del.icio.us, Gmail, etc.) that allow users to organize items using keywords that describe their attributes. The keyword acts as a virtual folder the item is put into so it can be easily located with a simple search. A tag in [...]
Posted in SolidSmack | Tagged SolidSmack, Tags |
“Here’s a slightly useful and not-at-all complicated tip on reducing features by using 3D sketches. It’s more fun to have people gather around your desk, get all attentive and then yell the first step very, very loud as they hunker down around your screen… Now move in close people…” …
Keep Reading: How To Use 3D [...]
“For all of you crazed 3D-modeling, equation-using junkies out there, you may be really, really excited to know that your equations will update in real-time when using Instant3D in SolidWorks 2008.” …
Keep Reading: Use SolidWorks Instant3D to Update Equations in Real-Time | SolidSmack.com.
Published by Josh Mings on 3/27/08 on SolidSmack
Also posted in Instant3D | Tagged Instant3D, SolidSmack |
