Report Short Cuts, I Mean Links Work faster with keyboard shortcuts in SOLIDWORKS Electrical; one benefit of using them is time. There have been studies that show that using keyboard shortcuts allows computer users to work 10 times faster than working with the mouse. The time you spend looking for the mouse and then getting the cursor to the position you need is lost time! Reducing the working time by 10 brings you greater efficiency. I seem to be referencing a few past blogs in my postings and this one is no exception. Previously I had discussed how to find or create keyboard shortcuts: SOLIDWORKS ELECTRICAL: CTRL-F –
CATI Tech Notes
SOLIDWORKS Tips and Tricks and Info on Professional 3D Printing with Stratasys from the Technical staff of CATI
SOLIDWORKS: Rectangles with Construction Lines
Rectangles with Construction Lines Hello fellow geometry enthusiasts, I’m here, once again, to blow your minds. I have drawn hundreds of rectangles in SOLIDWORKS, heck maybe even thousands, and never have I noticed the option to “Add Construction Lines.” This little option can create construction lines from the midpoints or from the corners for any rectangle type. I’m talking corner. I’m talking center. I’m talking parallelogram. I’m talking three point center. I’m talking three point corner. All of these bad boys can have construction lines. All this time I thought it was only a center rectangle thing, but now
Stratasys 3D Printing: Reducing Time and Costs of Composite Tooling with FDM
Reducing Time and Costs of Composite Tooling with FDM 3D Printing your master tooling for a composite layup part can be a great way to reduce time to part and overall costs. Composite tools made with Stratasys’ FDM technology are just as effective and can create parts of the same quality as traditional methods. With traditional manufacturing methods, the time and cost to produce a tool drastically increases with its complexity. However, this is not the case with 3D printing. This introduction to composite tooling with Stratasys FDM will help you decide if FDM is the right process for your needs. Using FDM for this application is
Posted in Rapid Prototyping
Creaform 3D Scanning: Colormap, the Quick Go/No-Go of Inspection
Colormap, the Quick Go/No-Go of Inspection The HandyScan 700 is a great tool for inspecting parts for Quality Control engineers. Using VxElements, PPAP inspection reports can be created being as simple or as complicated as needed. After importing a CAD model, either .iges or .stp, the scan can be compared to the “perfect” CAD model. One of the useful tools within VxElements is the ability to create a colormap of the differences between the CAD model and the scan. This can be based on a surface best fit reference frame or a datum reference frame. This can be used as a quick go/no-go of whether a part overall is
Posted in 3D Scanning, Design Validation, Digital Prototyping
SOLIDWORKS: Simulation Load – Torque Vs Moment of Force
Simulation Load – Torque Vs Moment of Force What is the difference between torque and moment of force? Depending on who you talk to, you will get different and confusing answers. The truth is that moment of force (often known simply as moment) and torque are equivalent. Not so in SOLIDWORKS Simulation, though. We will investigate the differences between the two. I encountered a small issue with torque loads in simulation and after inspecting the help file, I was still confused. I spent some time to clear up this issue and hopefully you will find this information useful. The issue that started this quest for understanding was
SOLIDWORKS: MBD 3D PDF – Enable 3D Content by Default in Adobe Reader
Enable 3D Content by Default in Adobe Reader If you’ve either created or received a 3D PDF, you’ve probably seen this message across the top of your Adobe Reader: 3D Content in Adobe Reader is disabled by default, and if you select Options, you can ‘Trust this document one time only’ or ‘Trust this document always’. If you select ‘Trust this document always’, the next time you open this specific 3D PDF the message will be gone, but if you open a different 3D PDF the message will display again; So, I’ll show you how to enable 3D content by default. In the Adobe Reader
SOLIDWORKS: How to Create a Jog in a SOLIDWORKS Weld Symbol
How to Create a Jog in a SOLIDWORKS Weld Symbol Drawings can often get cluttered and very busy. This can particularly happen when you have a large weldment drawing. Sometimes, you just want to complete the simplest task, but just can’t figure out how to accomplish it. We recently had a customer who had a very large drawing with several dimensions, balloons, and symbols. The customer just needed to adjust some of his weld symbols to fit them on his drawing but could not figure out how to create a jog in the symbol. The SOLIDWORKS weld symbol feature has several options inside this command. You can create a
Stratasys 3D Printing: Wiper Position Adjustment Objet Desktop Printers
Wiper Position Adjustment in Stratasys Objet Desktop Printers In Stratasys 3D Printing, the wiper position adjustment sets the wiper service position and the wipe position. This procedure should be performed whenever the wiper mechanism is replaced. It does not need to be performed when the wiper blade is replaced. To do this procedure, you will need to be in Maintenance Mode. To get into Maintenance mode, move the mouse cursor to the bottom right corner of the screen until the cursor disappears. With the cursor just barely off the screen, press CTL+ALT+M keys at the same time. You should see a warning box pop up:
Posted in Digital Prototyping, Rapid Prototyping
SOLIDWORKS: Certified and Tested Video Cards
Certified and Tested Video Cards SOLIDWORKS, for as long as I can remember, has always given us the ability to find video card drivers and information on video cards that were certified to run with SOLIDWORKS. As computers have continued to develop over the years, the question has always been, “What about this machine or what about these type of video cards?” So, with this increased demand from the SOLIDWORKS Community, they have responded by now adding in a new Driver Status called Tested. What does this new Tested status have in it for us? As of right now, the first machine to fall into this category
SOLIDWORKS: Blended Curvature Based Mesh in SOLIDWORKS Simulation
Blended Curvature Based Mesh in SOLIDWORKS Simulation Meshing a part appropriately might be tenuous at times, but it is certainly a lot easier in SOLIDWORKS than just about any other software. We don’t want to set the expectation that meshing is a problem for SOLIDWORKS. Getting a good aspect ratio around the smaller geometry can drive you and your computer a bit crazy, especially if you don’t know the smallest size of your geometry. SOLIDWORKS introduced the blended curvature based mesh in SOLIDWORKS 2016. Let’s take a look at the user interface: It looks very similar to the curvature based mesh, including the options of max/min element size,
Posted in Design Validation, General Info, Simulation
SOLIDWORKS Keyboard Shortcuts Cheat Sheet
