SolidWorks

Well after getting my hands on SW2010, I got straight into installing it and looking through the Whats New PDF. The install went fine, albeit I had to end Windows Explorer and WinSCP processes (hopefully this means that the install will be rock solid). For those people who may not be familar with the procedure, I put up some screenshots. In the case of the third image, you may need to go to the View -> Select Columns -> PID to see the appropriate column. Remember, this is only a beta release! I also did change the install directory to Program Files/SolidWorks Corp 2010/.

The install finished fine. No need to restart the PC as I ended Windows Explorer (and left explorer.exe closed for the duration of the install). I started SW2010 up, activated it and that was it. Easy.
I won’t put the Whats New 2010 PDF here. Here are a few things I like:

PhotoView 360:

• Choose a 2d Background Image
• Choose a 3D HDRI Image
• Save a Custom View!

SolidWorks 2010:

• Multi-bodies in Sheet Metal
• SolidWorks RX – Download Graphic Card Drivers automatically
• Mouse Gesture Support
• View Decals in eDrawings and SW w/out PhotoWorks enabled
• SolidWorks Network Monitor (interesting)

That’s it for the moment. Lots and lots more to come.

sburke How-To 2010

SolidWorks 2010 beta has been released. News press here. Below is a sneak preview of the new Installation Manager. If you want to get your hands on it, head on over to customerportal.solidworks.com I hope to blog about some of the new features I come across. Stay tuned!

sburke News 2010

While reading through some blogs the other evening, I came across this useful essential note to remember when creating weldment profiles.

Before you go “Save As” -> Lib Feat Part (*.sldlfp), you need to PRE-SELECT the sketch. Otherwise when you create the Lib Feat Part, it will be empty (initial sketch gone!).

I came across this note on SolidJot tips for Weldments which was in SW2006, and Yes, this pre-select requirement is still needed in SW2009. I remember this because it happened me a few times, and at the time I thought it was an intermittent issue.

Also just to point out that it is really easy to create weldment profiles, allowing you to easily create structures, frames, patio deckings, railings, chassis’s, etc.. Some people think that if a profile is not in the Ansi Inch or Iso, it can’t be done. Oh yes it can. And SW2009 makes weldments much easier by auto-trimming members, allowing to change the trim-order etc. A nice post including video can be found on rickyjordan.com

sburke Note to Remember SW2009

Thanks to Josh at solidsmack I found out about the latest 3DVia web resource: www.3dvia.tv where there are indeed some nice tutorials on 3DVia Composer (and the other range of 3D Via products). Interesting to see that its powered by wordpress, and uses Youtube to store its TV videos. I have added the direct RSS feed to my solidworks planet so I’ll see the latest videos as they get added. You can do the same too ( http://gdata.youtube.com/feeds/base/users/3DVIAComposer/uploads ).
Some of the 3DVia Composer tutorials include:

• Multi-Column BOMs
• Toolbars & Hotkeys
• Information about Textures
• Kinematics and animation
• Animating Fluid and Liquid movement

I’ve picked out one of my favourite videos from the 3DVia Channel:

SolidWorks Official Youtube Channel

When I went digging more, I found that SolidWorks has quite an updated Youtube channel with some tutorials (albeit only a few ). Again you will be able to get the RSS feed from http://gdata.youtube.com/feeds/base/users/solidworks/uploads. It’ll be interesting to see what appears there. One tutorial which caught my eye was on creating a chassis for a formula racing kart. The video covered creating a custom weldment profile, creating the 3D sketches, starting with the suspension and finally trimming all the members.

Well I hope to see lots of useful videos getting added to these two channels. On one hand youtube is a good medium for hosting videos, however on the other hand, youtube is blocked in many companies. Hopefully you’ll be able to get an exception or a workaround. The hardest part about the plethora of videos is that there are too many, and a lot of poor quality. Hopefully these will be good ones to watch.

sburke Tutorials

This article outlines how I saved myself an hour of work by been able to recover virtual parts after SolidWorks crashed.

While I was working on an old assembly project, I took some parts, and went “form new subassembly”. It prompted me for a template and off I went opening up the New sub-assembly. I saved regularly. Little did I realise that I was working on a Virtual sub-assembly. After spending 60+minutes working on the sub-assembly, saving it religiously (thinking I had it saved externally). I went back to the main assembly and was fixing a few mate errors when, solidworks froze. I was a little impatient, thinking I had my sub-assembly and 60+ minutes work saved! After re-opening the assembly I saw no sign of my work, and was about to pack it in for the day.

After a bit of looking, I found my virtual assembly and virtual parts
They were located in:
C:\Users\sburke\AppData\Local\Temp
After sorting by Date Modified, the parts were in a folder called “swx5792″. I copied the part out of there and to safety.

Phfew. Thanks SolidWorks. As virtual parts become more and more mainstream, I hope this tip will help somebody and save them some time.

sburke How-To