Do you ever find yourself using the same feature over and over again?  Or maybe your new designs share many similar features.  Hopefully you already know you can copy features from one part to another (Ctrl+Drag between tiled document windows), but a better solution for a feature that you want to re-use over and over again is to add it to your Design Library. Here’s a couple quick tips:

Pick the feature(s) you want to re-use from your Feature Manager Tree (you can pick multiple features with your Ctrl key).  Then from the Design Library Tab, pick the Add to Library command  .

In the Property manager you can give your library feature a file name and description which will appear in a tool tip if you were to hover over the file in your library.  Hit the green check.

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You can further customized the Library feature part to make it more customizable by opening it up from the library folder.  You may want to consider simplifying the original model to remove features you are not re-using.

And you can use the Folders at the top of the Feature Tree in your library part to control how the features behave when inserted into a new part.

The Reference folder shows the references that you’ll be prompted for when bringing in the features.  You can Rename them hereto be more descriptive.  And the Dimension folder allows you to rename the dimensions that will be copied into your new design and you can also move them into the Location Dimensions folder if you want them to be editable on inserting the feature, or in the Internal Dimensions folder if you do not want users to be able to access them.

Always remember to test!  You can drag and drop you library feature part into a new part to test it out and make sure you get the behavior you expect…

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For more information on this topic, our subscription service customers can check out my recorded webinar on our Events Page.  Here’s a link:  http://symsolutions.com/events-and-webinars.html

SolidWorks has had the complete uninstall functionality for the last couple major releases. If you are not aware it is no surprise as it is not very easy to find.

To use it you start the uninstall and the installation manager will open with a list of products to remove. You then need to right mouse click on the header and select “Total Uninstall”. This would remove all settings with no options to not remove specific items.

New in SolidWorks 2012 you can choose what to remove from the install

As you can see above you can select to remove almost everything SolidWorks. Program files is selected by default and cannot be unselected. You may also select registry entries, data file locations and also download files.

Once you have the appropriate items selected and you continue with the uninstall a dialog opens warning that you are removing more than just the standard uninstall does. Proceed with your selective uninstall if desired.

YES!

I don’t care if you just bought the software or if you have been using SolidWorks for five years or even longer. If you have never had any type of formal training, you should, and here’s why…

I was one of those people who never had training. The company I worked for when I started using SolidWorks decided that we were smart enough to learn the software without spending any money on training. And they were right – partly. Between the five of us using the software we were able to figure out a way to do almost every task that we needed to complete the job.

Check out our SolidWorks Courses and Schedule

After about three years of working with SolidWorks I considered myself a fairly accomplished user and decided to venture out and find a new job where I would again be using SolidWorks. That led me to Symmetry Solutions. Which confirmed how good I had become using this tool right? After all, I was hired to provide technical support for our customers.

Now feeling even more confident in my abilities, I was slightly offended when the on-boarding process at Symmetry Solutions required I attend the introductory training class, SolidWorks Essentials. During the first day I picked up a few shortcuts that I had not seen before. Well, I thought, at least it wasn’t a complete waste of my time. By the end of the class I realized how little I truly knew about this tool I had been using for years. The amount of time I had wasted over the past three years doing things the wrong way was mind boggling. In retrospect the amount of money my previous employer had paid me to do things the wrong way, the long way, was almost obscene.

Since then I have become one of the SolidWorks certified instructors here at Symmetry. Over and over again, I hear from my students that have been using the software for years that the knowledge they gain through the SolidWorks training courses is invaluable. Until you take a course you don’t realize how much you don’t know.

What do you use SolidWorks for?

• Sheet metal? We have a class for that.
• Assembly modeling? Yes, we have a class for that.
• Mold design? We have a class for that too along with many other general and specialized curriculum.

Sure, training revenue is part of what pays our bills. But I can honestly say that the investment you or your employer makes in training will more than pay for itself in a very short time. It is well worth the investment.

Click the link below to check out a step by step tutorial on creating a curved helix in SolidWorks:

Let’s discuss the difference between the linear solver and the dynamic solver with a case study. Take the example of an engineer slamming his head on his desk after getting poor simulation results from his linear solver.

In scenario #1, the engineer lightly places his head on his desk then proceeds to slowly press down with his body weight. The force value, F, represents the maximum amount of force he can transmit through his neck.

In scenario #2, the engineers head starts a distance of 2 feet from his desk. The engineer proceeds to accelerate his head towards his desk with the aforementioned force value, F. After he comes into contact with the desk, his neck continues to transmit the force until his head comes to a complete rest against the surface.

Now, in both scenarios, the engineer’s neck transmits the same amount of force, F. However, the second scenario will produce higher levels of cranial stress at specific instances in time. The higher stress is related to momentum. The engineer recognizes this and proceeds with scenario #2 until the desired level of masochistic indulgence is achieved.

If we were to simulate these events, design scenario #1 could be adequately achieved with either the static solver or the dynamic solver and the results would be the same. However, if we were to run scenario #2 with a static solver, we would get the same result as we would with scenario #1. Obviously, the static solver has limitations.

The linear solver only sees the last moment in time; when things are at rest. Thus, we have two data points, the beginning and the end.

On the other hand, the dynamic solver is aware of the time in-between the beginning and the end. As a result, we are left with a much more complete picture.

For a moment, let’s sidestep the slamming head on desk approach, as this practice is no longer necessary. Let’s use the example of a cantilever beam with a weight of one hundred pounds suspended from the end.

For the linear study, let’s consider the case of loading the end very slowly. The results of this simulation are shown below.
The maximum displacement is 58 mm.

For the dynamic study, let’s consider that the weight will take .05 seconds to reach its maximum value of 100 pounds and will then level out. The maximum displacement results of this simulation are shown below.
The maximum displacement is 93 mm. This is an enormous jump from 58mm. Obviously, we’d want to study the dynamic simulation results over the static.