Before SolidWorks 2011 borrowing a license was a little cumbersome as you had to make sure to borrow a Standard seat as well as a Professional or Premium if you wanted extra add-ins. Also the list of possible products was extremely long and had nothing to do with what licenses you purchased.

In SolidWorks 2011 there were changes made to the borrow function to clean up the user interface. It now shows only what  licenses you purchased and you no longer need to select a Standard license to be able to use the software.

For example on my license manager I do not own a seat of Standard so it shows zero available but I have plenty of Premium. This is working as designed and if yours looks this way not to worry. Going forward you do not need to borrow the Standard. It will do this for you as the License Manager knows you need this.

That doesn’t mean you cannot borrow a Standard license if you want it takes a second step to do so. The process involves selecting, for example, the Premium that is available and click “Borrow”. Then the Select Product dialog comes up and this has a pull down that allows you to take either the Premium or just the Standard.

Once the product is selected I can then click OK and it will show me what I have borrowed and until when. Now at this time you need to disconnect from the server to be able to use the borrowed license. If you do not disconnect you will just take another license from the pool.

Recently, we have been getting a lot of calls from customers doing upgrades to their SolidWorks and Workgroup installations. This is a simple project, unless someone else completed the previous upgrade. If that’s the case, it is still fairly simple but there are a couple of things that can be missed or forgotten. Like the vault Admin tool on the client end, this is not selected for install by default. You will need to make sure it is selected in the products to install. It is a little hard to find if you don’t know where to look.

This screen shot shows what to select so this gets installed with the rest of the SolidWorks on the client. Workgroup is base on the SolidWorks Explorer  platform so it needs these components installed for it to work.

Now the main issue we have been seeing for the server portion is where is the location of the Vault. By default SolidWorks will place this on the root of C but most IT people I have spoke with do not like putting programs there. That is not a problem. If you need, it can be placed on the root of whatever drive you want to use. But ideally, it shouldn’t be buried in any folder, it needs to be on the root. This being said, if you are upgrading the vault and you are not sure where it is, find that out first. Then, when you start the  install you can make sure it points to the correct location. Otherwise the Installer cannot find it and it will use the default location, which is C. Then you will have it installed, but it will be an empty vault.

The screen shot above shows where it will install the vault. It should find the correct location but if it does not, look at the area I have highlighted. This will tell you where it is going to upgrade the vault to. If this is showing C:\VaultData\ and you know it is not there, select “Change”. This opens the area that will allow you to browse to the correct location.

Hopefully this will assist you in a smooth Workgroup Vault upgrade. The screen shots above are from the 2011 SP3 installation manager, so if you are using an older version it may look a little different. The 2011 vault installation uses the SolidWorks IM, while previous versions used the older Windows IM.

I hope this clears up some of the upgrade issues you may encounter. As always, if you run into any issues during an upgrade, our Technical Support team members are happy to assist you.

Keyboard Shortcuts

Keyboard accelerators let you perform 3DVIA Composer commands more quickly than graphical commands.

To create and manage shortcuts, right-click the ribbon and click Customize Quick Access Toolbar. In the Customize dialog box, for Keyboard shortcuts, click Customize.

Note: Single-character shortcuts, such as H to hide an actor, are hardcoded in the application and are not displayed in the Customize dialog box.

Default Shortcuts

To be a good simulation engineer, you need to ask “what if” questions. “What if we make this pipe longer?” “What if we change the thickness?” “What if we change the material?” However, if you have a complicated assembly or part, it’s easy to say, “I don’t want to model it again. That took forever.” Well, the solution has arrived: You need to become a better modeler.

Recently, I was introduced to parametric modeling by my partner in crime, Nick B (or #2, as I call him). It took a while before I realized its potential in regards to optimization and these so called “What if” scenarios.

Once a multi-body part or assembly is parametrically driven, changing values become much easier to do.

To illustrate my point, I’ll breeze through the modeling process for the design of a solar thermal unit. With a setup like this, a good engineer will ask questions like, “What if we add pipe passes?” and “What if we make the passes closer together?” If the model isn’t setup correctly, these changes are difficult to make. So, we’ll design with the intention of changing it later.

Let’s get started with the first pass of the copper tube. A sweep is done and the model is dimensioned and linked accordingly.

The next thing to do is create a linear pattern, linking the spacing value with the pass width and iteration values.

We then create “plane 1,” normal to the right plane and define its spacing with an equation, relating the number of pass iterations with the pass distance.

Plane Distance = (# of passes)*(pass distance)

At this point, the reason for the plane might seem unclear. However, the protective box and heat sink will reference this plane.

We then create merged pipe extensions using linked values while referencing the default right plane and plane 1.

When sunlight travels through the glass opening of our solar panel, only a small percentage of sunlight will actually hit the pipe. So, we need to create a heat sink which will capture radiation from the sunlight and transfer heat via conduction to the copper tubing. We’ll do this by creating a single sheet metal piece with linked values, then pattern it with linked values and equations.

Heat sink iterations = (# of passes)*2 +1

The next step is to create the protective box and glass cover. The geometry is defined using existing relations, similar to what we’ve already done.

Now, if I change values, like the number of tube pass iterations or tube space distance, the entire model updates automatically. This will come in handy when running optimization simulations and playing with other what if scenarios.

Have you ever needed to select specific things in your assembly and were not sure of the best way to accomplish this? The selection tool has many options for what to select if you use the pull down.

As you can see from the image above there are a number of choices. The “Volume Select…” is similar to a general window select but in 3 dimensions which makes sense as we design in 3D. The Volume Select allows you to change the size of the box in all directions. When you hit “Enter” it will highlight all the components confined in the box in the Feature Tree.

Next you have “Select Suppressed” and “Select Hidden.” These are fairly self explanatory. They will highlight the suppressed or hidden items in the Feature Tree. This is very useful for an assembly that has a very long Feature Tree.

Then there is the “Select Mated To…” which, when you to select a component(s) in the assembly, will highlight all the components that have a mate.

“Select Internal Components” is useful if you have an assembly that has components inside other components. It will allow selecting them without hiding anything.

The last of the standard selection tools is “Select Toolbox.”  It will select all toolbox components in the assembly so you can possibly suppress or hide for a simplified configuration.

The last one on the list is the “Advanced Select…” This opens a select dialog that allows you to add criteria to what it will search. In the image below you can see the list for category 1. There are quite a few options. If you select certain criteria from category 1 it will also have criteria for category 2. Clicking on the “And/Or” tab can also allow you to define search criteria in more detail.

So once you have done any one of these options, you can always invert the selection to be opposite. Suppose you want to select all components except the toolbox ones. Use the “Select Toolbox” this will select all the toolbox parts. Then use the right mouse button menus and select “Invert Selection.” This will now unselect all toolbox parts and select all other components.

I hope this has provided you with a better understanding of the selection tool. If you have questions on any of this functionality, you can go to the online SolidWorks Help section and search for the specific selection tool you are looking at. And if you are needing additional help, feel free to contact our Technical Support Team at 763-560-8600, option 4.