Reference Geometry includes reference planes, axes, coordinate systems, and points. In this blog, we will discuss the many ways of creating and defining Reference Planes if you need to use planes other than the default Top, Right, and Front Planes. The Reference Geometry command lives on the Features toolbar, but you can also access it from Insert > Reference Geometry. When the Reference Plane PropertyManager comes up, you will notice that there is a lot of freedom for defining references […]
Sometimes there is the need to insert a hole on a non-planar/curved surface – so how is this accomplished? When positioning a hole with the Hole Wizard feature, you need to select to insert the hole with a 2D Sketch Plane or a 3D Sketch Plane. I’ll go through both the 2D Sketch Plane and 3D Sketch Plane methods. Inserting a Hole Wizard on a Curved Surface using a 2D Sketch 1. Create a reference plane (Insert > Reference Geometry […]
Text and balloons with leader lines are a common method to convey design notes. SOLIDWORKS Schematic 2020 introduces leader lines for text and balloons. Creating a balloon layout or annotating a layout to better call out information has been something users have been looking for quite some time! Now you can create leader lines with blocks and notes in 2D panel layouts and harness drawings. Users can add in these annotations with dedicated commands and a leader style manager. You […]
In SOLIDWORKS Weldments, users have the ability to support curved members. Now, in SOLIDWORKS 2020, users can create curved beams from primary and secondary members in a structure system. Curved members behave the same way as linear members where you can add secondary members between them. If you select a 3D curve or spline as a reference, the member can only pierce through the center of the profile. Also, in some scenarios, you cannot sweep members with 2d or 3D […]
Duplicate Pad Designators Traditionally, PCB designers would make their PCB footprints with mounting holes and label those holes as pad 0. Multiple mounting holes would all be labeled pad 0. And pretty much every PCB design software doesn’t have an issue with that. SOLIDWORKS PCB hasn’t had an issue with that either, except for when it comes to the collaboration with SOLIDWORKS CAD. We couldn’t handle it on the mechanical end and required people to label every pad with a […]
Controlling the depth of your holes using the SOLDWORKS hole wizard or advanced holes just got easier in 2020. You now have the ability to control if you want to measure to the shoulder or all the way to the drill tip. Previously we were only able to measure to the shoulder. This new functionality applies to the following end conditions: Blind Up to Vertex Up to Surface Offset from Surface This is a small change, but it gives a […]
Another great enhancement in SOLIDWORKS 2020 is Searching for Materials. Sometimes, not much explanation is needed, you just need to know that it exists. Such is the case here. This awesome enhancement can save you a lot of time when trying to find the material you want from the database. All you need to do is edit material just like you normally would, by right clicking Material and clicking Edit Material. From there, you will now see a Material dialog […]
As 3D scanning and printing technology continues to become more available, design workflows can be adjusted to take advantage of it. These exciting tools utilize their own software that will ultimately produce files that represent the 3D part geometry. We will look at new functionality in SOLIDWORKS 2020 that allows us to create reference geometry based on this imported scanned data. Scanned geometry can be brought into SOLIDWORKS as a “Mesh Body”. The model is broken down into tens or […]
SOLIDWORKS 2020 features some new Markup functionality such as the ability for non-touch devices to use a mouse for creating markups as well as creating markups for drawings. Click the following link for a review on our SOLIDWORKS 2020 What’s New – Creating Markups for Drawings blog article. With SOLIDWORKS 2020 what was originally known as the “Ink Markup toolbar” has been renamed to the “Markup Toolbar”. There are slight differences in the tools that are available depending on whether […]
Setting up your drawings can be a tedious task. Especially if you must create custom drawing scales though the sheet properties.; going back and forth until you find one that works to your liking. Once you find one that works well, wouldn’t it be nice to save it for future use for quick access? In SOLIDWORKS 2020 it’s possible to quickly define custom drawing scales AND save them for future use. To compare, this is what 2019 looked like: This […]