Posts Tagged ‘Josh Spencer’

Too Many Edges

Tuesday, August 17th, 2010

Working with tangent edges can cause the graphic area to get a little confusing. You have a bunch of edges on your model and maybe you don’t know what they are. You can always turn “Shaded with Edges” off but if you’re like me, I like to see the model edges. Well here’s an option that you might not know about; Part/Assembly tangent edge display.
This option allows you to show, set as phantom, or remove tangent edges. This helps “clean-up” your graphics area.
Go to “Tools>Options>System Options>Display/Selection>Part/Assembly tangent edge display” to turn the option on.
Settings

Go from this:Visible To this:Removed

Josh Spencer

Josh Spencer
Application Engineer
3DVision Technologies

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Posted in General, SolidWorks, Tips & Tricks, Uncategorized | No Comments »

A Way to Stay in the Middle

Tuesday, July 27th, 2010

Oreo cookies, grilled cheese, and jelly donuts. What do these things have in common besides tasting great? They all have stuff in the middle. You may have some designs where you need geometry between 2 faces. SolidWorks has a feature that you might not know about. It’s the Mid Surface feature. What it does is create a surface between 2 faces. The surface will move if the two faces move. It is located under Insert>Surface>Mid Surface.

With the surface in the middle, you can thicken it and make it a solid.
This helps build in some “Design Intent” and intelligence into your model.

Josh Spencer

Josh Spencer
Application Engineer
3DVision Technologies

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Posted in 3D CAD, General, SolidWorks, Tips & Tricks, Uncategorized | No Comments »

Attention Greater Cincinnati, It’s Meeting Time

Friday, July 16th, 2010

The last Thursday, 29th of July, is the Greater Cincinnati User Group meeting.
The meeting will be hosted at Harris Corporation, Broadcast Communications Division and will start at 5:30. The address of Harris Corp is 4393 Digital Way, Mason, OH 45040
Here’s the Agenda:
1. 5:30pm to 6:10pm – Networking, food and drinks
2. 6:15pm to 6:25pm – Host, Harris Corp., BCD Welcome – Dave Koontz
3. 6:30pm to 7:30pm – Multi body part modeling vs assemblies and how it is used in sheetmetal – Todd Bryant
4. 7:35pm to 8:15pm – The Other Project BUB, Part 2 – Land Speed Racing Designs for Bonneville – David Woodruff
5. 8:15pm to 8:30pm – Giveaways, Q&A, next meeting date
I will be at the meeting to answering all of the technical SolidWorks questions.

Please RSVP for the meeting: gcswug@cinci.rr.com

I hope to see everyone there.

Josh Spencer

Josh Spencer
Application Engineer
3DVision Technologies

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Posted in 3D CAD, Announcements, General, SolidWorks, Training, Uncategorized | No Comments »

A New Product: DraftSight

Thursday, June 24th, 2010

Here’s some BIG news for you! DraftSight is here.
You might say, ”Wow…now Josh, what is DraftSight?”
I’m glad you asked. DraftSight is a new 2D tool that is designed to help you manage your legacy 2D data. It is very similar to your old 2D CAD tool but with a little twist. It is easier to use.
The development of DraftSight was driven by customer feedback. This will allow experienced 2D CAD users to get up to speed on DraftSight very quickly with minimal training.

Here are some questions that you may ask yourself:
Q: What will DraftSight run on?
A: It will run on Windows XP, Vista, and W7. A MAC and Linux version is planned for later this year.

Q: How large is the footprint?
A: The download file size is about 43MB.

Q: What if I need training for DraftSight?
A: If you sign up for the Community Support, you get access to online training videos, tutorials, curriculum, and discussion forums.

OK, well DraftSight does sound great but the biggest question of all; “How much will it cost?” This is starting to sound like an infomercial where the host asks if you’d pay $39.95 and then $29.95 and so-on. Well the final price is….$0!!! That’s right, it’s FREE!!!

All you need to do is go to www.DraftSight.com and download it.
DraftSight Logo

Josh Spencer

Josh Spencer
Application Engineer
3DVision Technologies

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Posted in Announcements, General, SolidWorks | No Comments »

Need an Intersection?

Monday, June 14th, 2010

This is a tool that you may have forgotten about or have never used. It is the “Intersection Curve” tool.
It finds the intersection and creates a sketched curve. Well this is great…but how does this help me?
Here’s an example:
I have a lofted part or a part with an angled face and I need to create a baffle/rib that is parallel with the bottom face and about half way up the part.
Intersection Curve
Ok, now how do I use it?
You will want to select the plane/surface that intersects the face then click Intersection Curve (Tools>Sketch Tools>Intersection Curve), and finally select the face(s) of the part. A 2D sketch is created at the intersection of the plane/surface and the face.
If you don’t preselect the plane/surface, a 3D sketch will be created.

I know you’ll find a use for this tool.

Josh Spencer

Josh Spencer
Application Engineer
3DVision Technologies

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Posted in 3D CAD, SolidWorks, Tips & Tricks | No Comments »

eDrawings…3 Useful Tricks

Wednesday, June 9th, 2010

Here are some great tips when using eDrawings.

1. Open any SolidWorks assembly inside of eDrawings and press the “E” key.
The assembly explodes without an exploded configuration. You can rotate the assembly and measure it.
Press the “E” key again and watch it collapse.

2. Something else you can do in eDrawings is hiding components in the assembly. If you Right Click on any component, you have the option to hide it. This will allow you to see inside the assembly. Right Click again and you can show all hidden components. You can also make individual components transparent. You do the same thing that you did to hide components but choose to change the transparency.

3. Here’s one more trick. If you Right Click on a component in your assembly, you can choose “New Part Document”. This will create a new part inside of eDrawings. This is great if you only got the assembly from your customer but you need see the individual files.

Give these a try and let me know what you think.

Josh Spencer

Josh Spencer
Application Engineer
3DVision Technologies

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Posted in 3D CAD, SolidWorks, Tips & Tricks | No Comments »

Attention Greater Cincinnati

Friday, April 16th, 2010

Tuesday, April 20 is the Greater Cincinnati SolidWorks User Group meeting. The meeting starts at 5:30 and is hosted by Balluf Inc.
For more information: Click Here for the link to the GCSWUG page.

I hope to see you there.

Josh Spencer

Josh Spencer
Application Engineer
3DVision Technologies

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Posted in Announcements, SolidWorks | No Comments »

Want to be more Flexible?

Monday, April 12th, 2010

I know you’re all good SolidWorks user and use sub-assemblies all the time…right?  Sub-assemblies improve performance because SolidWorks doesn’t need to solve all the mates of the sub-assemblies.  The less top-level mates the better you will be.

Well let’s say you need to show some motion of a sub-assembly but you get the message that it is fully defined.

Cannot move

You can make the sub-assembly behave like a top level assembly.  You will need to RMB on the sub-assembly and choose Properties.  The Component Properties window will open up and in the bottom right corner, there is an option to “Solve as…”.  You will want to choose “Flexible”.

 

Enjoy your new “flexibility”.

Josh Spencer

Josh Spencer
Application Engineer
3DVision Technologies

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Posted in 3D CAD, SolidWorks, Tips & Tricks, Training | No Comments »

Keep your Drawing Views Rolling

Thursday, March 18th, 2010

Have you ever wanted to rotate a model in a drawing view like you can in eDrawings? SolidWorks should really add this functionality. Oh wait….they did.
Inside your drawing, if you go to View>Modify>3D Drawing View, you will be asked which view you want to rotate.

Once you choose the view, you will be able to rotate, pan, and zoom.

Now you can see the back side of your model in real time.
With it rotated you can open the Orientation View box and create a custom view. When you go back to the model, the custom view will be there for you to use.

What a great tool. Thank you SolidWorks.

Josh Spencer

Josh Spencer
Application Engineer
3DVision Technologies

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Posted in 3D CAD, SolidWorks, Tips & Tricks | 1 Comment »