In many FEA studies using SOLIDWORKS Simulation, the use of pins and bolts are common. They are a great way to restrain assemblies realistically while managing setup difficulty and solve times. SOLIDWORKS Simulation 2020 is releasing with a new formulation for bolts and pins, called the distributed coupling. To understand this new functionality, let’s do a quick review of these connectors. At the end of the day, bolt and pin connectors consist of 2 elements. The first is a beam […]
In SOLIDWORKS 2020, there are many enhancements dedicated to Performance, focused on getting your tasks done quickly and easily. The Installation Manager downloader has improved performance in the following areas. Downloads are faster than ever before The Installation Manager uses parallel threading for downloading and extraction process. The greatest benefit will be seen for users downloading more than one product. SOLIDWORKS Installation Manager also makes it easier to install the SOLIDWORKS PCB Viewer You can install the viewer concurrently with […]
If anyone has used surface modeling before they know that creating a seamless transition between a spline and a sketch entity is the key for a good surface. In SOLIDWORKS 2019 and earlier, there were two relations that could be used to transition from a spline to a sketch entity or model edge, ‘Tangent’ and ‘Equal Curvature’. In SOLIDWORKS 2020, a sketch relation has been added to help with smoothing out these transitions called, ‘Torsion Continuity’. To explain what this […]
The new release of SOLIDWORKS 2020 is just a month away and here at Computer Aided Technology, the Tech Team is excited for this release. We have been working hard to find the best new features that SOLIDWORKS 2020 has to offer and are looking forward to sharing them with you and the SOLIDWORKS community. Starting this week on September 18th, the CATI Tech Team will be starting our 6th annual What’s New Blog Series. The Tech Team is planning […]
This is going to be a real quick post on something I ran across while on Tech Support recently. A user was creating custom Weldment profiles and one was not working. This user was experienced at creating custom profiles, has successfully created several and knew all the details of doing so. The profile was saved correctly as a Library Feature Part (.sldlfp) file. The profile was stored in a folder that contained other custom profiles that work. This folder was […]
The FeatureManager Design Tree is the list of instructions that tells SOLIDWORKS how to build your Parts and Assemblies. In Parts, the FeatureManager includes all the features that make up your part and are history-based and order-dependent. The FeatureManager Design Tree in Assemblies includes the following items: This blog is going to focus on the Assembly Components section. You can see from the screenshot above that Assembly Components in the FeatureManager Design Tree include other fluff besides just the part […]
In my last blog article, I went over a fun little topic regarding custom shaped springs. While not always necessary, you usually always have to do something with the end of the spring. SOLIDWORKS doesn’t usually like to fillet to a helix which makes things hard. You can use a bunch of entities for a sweep path and get solid edges, or you can use a fit spline which can work for some transitions: Going back to my last blog […]
Computer Aided Technology (CATI) Technical Support recently had a customer who went through all the SOLIDWORKS settings he could find, but he could not find the precision setting for the annotation for the bend lines on a SOLIDWORKS sheet metal drawing. Under Bend Notes in Tools > Options > Document Properties > Sheet Metal, there is no Precision Setting. If you right-click the bend note, there is no option for Precision. If you select the bend note, there is no […]
Large assembly performance issues are a topic that frequently comes across my plate while working support calls. Even though every assembly is different, and a company’s hardware and environments are all very different, there are some common patterns that can be seen whenever we work on large assemblies. Number of components, number of top-level mates, flexible subassemblies, number of appearances, level of image quality are just some of the most common factors that we look at. Engineering designs require us […]
SOLIDWORKS has some exceptional tools for technical communication. We have photo-rendering with SOLIDWORKS Visualize, product documentation with SOLIDWORKS Composer, and even eDrawings to generate and share an easily viewable file. With these tools, your ability to communicate is dependent on how accurately your parts were modeled. If you want very realistic results, you may consider modeling the finer details in your designs. This would include features like threads, decals, and individual wires. Here, we will look at an easy way […]