WNC-SWUG SoapBox

The blog has moved!

2009-02-24T06:43:00.002-05:00

Update you links the blog is now located at: www.wnc-swug.weebly.com . This link is also to the website of the WNC/ Asheville SWUG. This will be the last post at this site.

Things are changing

2009-02-04T07:12:00.002-05:00

I thought I'd mention a couple of changes to the blog page. I added a Google Calendar widget but I can't get it to link to the newly created WNC-SWUG Calendar....So if you look down in the "Things to Click" widget you will see a link to the calendar. I'm still researching the calendar widget, there must be a way for it to show the WNC-SWUG Calendar. Does anyone have any experience with this?

To make the "Things to Click" more relevant to our group I'm asking you the reader for your favorite CAD, SolidWorks or engineering links. In the mean time I'm looking over the available widgets to see if there is anything else that might be useful or even fun.

Here's a SolidWorks question: Is anyone else experiencing weird things happening with the 'CapsLock' in SolidWorks? This started in SW 2009 and with the use of the Property Tab. When I start typing in information for the various custom properties I always have to look to see what case I'm typing in. Even though the 'CapsLock' light is lit on the keyboard I might be typing in lowercase. I toggle the CapsLock, the keyboard light goes out but now I'm typing in UPPERCASE. I proceed to finish this part, save it and start another and the process has to be reversed. Are you humming the Twilight Zone theme now?

I'm back and this is why I've been away.

2009-02-03T14:36:00.002-05:00

I know it doesn't look like much but it is the 3rd one I've done since the last post. I can't tell you much about it other than say it is a glove box to handle some rather 'hot' materials. I've been doing 11.5 hour days 6 days a week for the last two weeks. I'm starting to dream in the SolidWorks interface.

Update to all SWUG members: I have to get Wes' okay on this before it will be official but I'm thinking of letting the WNC-SWUG.org website go dead and move as much of its content to this blog as I can. The bill for the domain registration and hosting will be due soon and I just don't think the traffic that the site gets justifies it's cost. Even though it's not much and I've been footing the bill since it's inception times are starting to get hard and we all need to find ways to cut back. This will also make it easier for me to update the news on the site. I know that SolidWorks requires that the usergroup have a website, is a blog good enough? Wes will need to answer that question? Are you listening Wes?

What do you think? Is the 'blog' format sufficient to get out the news concerning the usergroup? Let me know your thoughts as they will ultimately influence my decision...

Wes Cobb returns with another guest blog!

2009-01-15T07:43:00.003-05:00

WNC- ASHEVILLE SolidWorks USER GROUP

Meeting held January 8, 2009

As I am to be the “featured blogger” on Jeff Cox’s BLOG (http://wnc-swug.blogspot.com/) this week, I guess I’m going to go into much more detail of our meeting this past Thursday than I normally would if someone else had taken the notes!!

The meeting began as usual with general information concerning SW. About half of the group present is now on SW2009 (members present: 17 total w/ one VAR rep.). No problems were mentioned beyond those from our previous meeting. My grayed out “link to BOM” issue has been reported to SW and an SPR has been issued as of Fri., Jan 9th. We did intro’s all around and kicked off the technical portion of the meeting.

Rodney Hall was our presenter and did a great job giving us Administrative tips concerning hardware and software requirements, planning, support and maintenance, documentation and disaster recovery. While disaster recovery sounds pretty ominous, it doesn’t have to be if you are prepared with an Administrative image of SW. Rodney went on to show us how he has prepared his computers Administrative image to fully install SW with specific configurations for each workstation involved in a crisis and be up and running in a matter of minutes. Good stuff. Rodney has offered his PowerPoint presentation as a guide for any SWUG member wanting it. If you’re interested in this presentation and would like the PowerPoint please email me

We ended the meeting at 9:30 p.m.

Our next meeting is March 12th. The topic for that evening will be a report from SolidWorks World 2009 by Tom Wilson. Also, some tips and tricks from SW2009.

NEWS:
A new Modeling Contest kicked off at the January meeting and runs thru March 12th. The contest centers on a new logo for our group. The logo should be done in SW and will be judged on design and uniqueness. For some examples see below:

SW World happens February 8th thru 11th in Orlando Fl.

Our thanks go to the Lutheran Church of the Nativity for providing the meeting place.
Pizza and drinks were provided by SolidWorks / Tom Wilson (QMS).
Door prizes were provided by RAPID SHEETMETAL.

Our sponsor:

Rapid Sheet Metal makes prototype and short run sheet metal parts. They have donated some nice door prizes to be given out at our user group meeting.

WNC/ASHEVILLE SWUG MEETING THIS WEEK

2009-01-05T07:38:00.002-05:00

Wes Cobb is our guest blogger today. Wes is the leader of the WNC/Asheville SWUG.

Our first meeting of the year is this coming Thursday, January 8th. This years’ “kickoff meeting” features Rodney Hall talking about SolidWorks Administration Tips and “Things your IT department SHOULD KNOW about SolidWorks” The information Rodney has for us should aid anyone involved with installing and setting up SW to run efficiently.

PROBLEM!!
I installed SW2009 during the holiday break and have found an issue. If any of you can help me please respond. Here’s what’s going on:
Since installing SW2009 sp0, I am having a problem in an assembly drawing with "link to BOM" option being "grayed out". This is an issue only on my workstation. Also loaded Sw2009 sp1.0 on my laptop and DO NOT have the problem. Uninstalled and re-installed SW2009 and installed sp2.0EV on workstation and continue to have problem. I have done very little work since loading sp2.0EV. One very simple model and all performed well. A couple notes of interest, my laptop is brand new and SW2009 loaded with no problems. My workstation had SW2007 and 2008 on it previous to SW2009 install. I did remove SW2007 and cleaned out the registry as well prior to SW2009 install.
I have been on the Forum board at SW Customer Portal and find about 8 other people reporting the same problem. I posted my computer info as well as the current settings for my workstation but have yet to find any help. My VAR has the same problem but has been unable to help at this point.

Great way to start the new year!! But look, we all get together next week and we’ll solve this thing and all be heroes!!
So, if you haven't already done so, let me know ASAP if you plan on being with us Thursday, January 8th. If you need any more incentive…I’ll pay for gas for four, randomly selected members to attend. What more could you ask for, good food, me, free gas, me, Rodney Hall, me, comradery and me. O.k., enough….See you all there.
Regards to all,

Wes

AGENDA for January 8th, 2009 MEETING

5:30 – 6:15 pm: REGISTRATION / REFRESHMENTS / SOCIAL
6:15 – 7:45 pm: The topic for this evening will be “SolidWorks Administration Tips” presented by Rodney Hall. Rodney has had experience in building and customizing computer systems and optimizing those systems to run SolidWorks. Rodney will share his knowledge and expertise in deploying and administering SolidWorks in a working environment. Featured will be “Things your IT department SHOULD KNOW about SolidWorks”.
6:50 – 7:00 pm: BREAK (maybe)
7:45 – 8:00 pm: Wrap up, Questions and Answers, Q and A, Door prizes and parting gifts.

Host Facility: Lutheran Church of the Nativity Contact: Wes Cobb
2425 Hendersonville Road Technical Design Associates, Inc.
Arden, NC 828-883-4242
(fax) 828-883-3050
tecdesign@citcom.net

Click Here For a Map

Sheet Metal Miter Flange Hint

2008-12-03T10:40:00.006-05:00

When using the miter flange command in SolidWorks you have the option of setting a ‘Gap Distance’ as seen in this picture:

The gap distance was set as .069296 and the resulting ‘corner gap’ is .049. If you are wishing to add spotweld tab flanges that would fold inside of these existing flanges you need to have a ‘corner gap’ of slightly more than the material thickness. In this example I’m using 18ga which is why I went with the .049 corner gap. The mitered flange command does not give you the option of entering the ‘corner gap’ it only gives you the option of entering a Gap distance. How do you determine the Gap distance required to give you a desired corner gap?

The formula is:

where .049 is the desired corner gap.

The keystrokes on a TI 89 calculator is as follows: (replace .049 with the corner gap you desire)

KEY STROKES DISPLAY

2nd

√ √(

( √(( * - on a TI 86 press ‘(‘ twice

.049 √((.049

^ √((.049^

2 √((.049^2

) √((.049^2)

X √((.049^2)X

2 √((.049^2)X2

) √((.049^2)X2)

ENTER .069296…

With this useful piece of information I can now finish the part as such:

This started out as an exercise for myself wanting to get this procedure down on paper so I don’t have to think about when I need to do it. But I guess someone else might get some use out of it. Now I just need to create a function on the TI-89 to do this with less keystrokes…

Practical Sheet Metal Design Part 2

2008-11-21T07:59:00.003-05:00

Practical Sheet Metal Design Part 2

Tolerances for Sheet Metal parts:

A bit of history first: When I started working in sheet metal in 1975 we generally worked to +/- .063 inches. In the shop I worked at initially there wasn’t a pair of calipers to be found. Everything was checked with a tape measure. When I interviewed at Byers Precision it was stressed to me that they worked to much closer tolerances, .010 - .015 typically. This led to a funny story…On my first day on the job I was given a print, told to figure the flat pattern, shear, punch & form the part. With the interview still fresh in my mind I determined to accomplish making this part to the +/- .010 tolerance. I sheared the part using a tape measure to size it, punched the holes on a manual one station punch and then proceeded to form the part on a hand brake. I worked and worked on this part trying to get it within the goal tolerance. An hour or two passed and even though I had a nice looking part it was still not within tolerance. I was starting on my second attempt when the foreman came over and asked me what the h**l I was doing. When I explained that I was having a hard time holding the part to +/- .010 he laughed and said that the part was not critical and as long as it was within an 1/8” of an inch it was good enough! If there is a lesson in that story it is this; know what the tolerance is before you waste a lot of time.

The factors that come into play in sheet metal are numerous but let’s just look at one now.
Material thickness: Take a look at the mill tolerances of sheet stock and you will see that the range of thickness for a given gauges bottom and top range actually overlap the gauges on either side. In other words a thin 11 gauge could be sold as a thick 12 gauge while a thick 11 gauge could be a thin 10 gauge. Engineers should allow for 5% thickness variation on thickness which would equate to .006 on 11 gauge. And consider that this amount doubles for each bend in the part as the difference will be seen on each side of the bend. Can tighter tolerances be held? Yes but a premium must be realized in order to achieve them. Hole location from the edge of a part can be held to a tighter tolerance but from a bend to a hole is again affected by the material thickness. Today’s modern numeric control punches and lasers have a positional tolerance of .003 to .005 inches so this must be figured in along with the sheet thickness variation. The only way around this would be to place the hole after the forming operation which is costly. So the in effect the tolerance for a hole from a bend is 10% (2 x 5%) or .012 + .005 or .017 inches for 11 gauge material. Some sheet metal shops will also want additional tolerance allowed for material elasticity variations that affect the form dimensions. At Byers we feel that we overcome these variations to some extent by use of custom K-Factors for the different materials. We also try to overcome these variations at the forming operation by varying the bend radius of the part to get the desired result. Engineers, check a sheet metal gauge chart before designing a part. You might be surprised how many times we get designs calling for 11ga but the part is actually designed with a .125 thickness. 11ga is never .125 thick, it is more commonly .120. That’s .005 difference before we even start modeling the part. This difference shows up most when the engineer has some dimensions on the inside of the material and others on the outside of the material. Be consistent, dimension to the inside or the outside but not both.
Since I’m discussing sheet metal gauges I must comment on gauge callouts for non-ferrous materials. Don’t call out for 11ga Aluminum. This is an obsolete and leads to confusion. Don’t be surprised if you get a call about this. Most designers are not even aware that gauges differ between ferrous and non-ferrous material which is why I will always call you and ask you what thickness in inches you actually want. A much better way to spec non-ferrous thickness is to give the decimal equivalent such as .090 or .060. Look at this chart to see the difference between ferrous and non-ferrous gauges

For more information on reasonable sheet metal tolerances see this page:

Everything I’ve said in this posting should be taken with a grain of salt. If you can design you part within these boundaries then you will get a better price on the production. But if tighter tolerances are a must then they can be done but you need to expect to pay a premium for them.

November WNC-Aheville SWUG Meeting - minutes

2008-11-14T09:12:00.004-05:00

More SolidWorks 2009 Goodies

At the November WNC-Asheville Users group meeting we enjoyed good food, conversation and presentation. Tom Wilson cooked up his excellent barbecue chicken and ribs with all the fixings. Wes caught us up on what is going on with WNC-SWUG. Several People brought up issues and questions that they had about SolidWorks. This is what is so nice about these meetings; you will either find an answer or at least find out that you’re not the only person experiencing the issue.
After the meal Wes gave us a short run down on what’s going on now and in the next few months. SolidWorks World was the 1st topic: February 8-11 in Orlando Florida. As of now we only have one ‘user’ that will be attending. As a person who went last year I strongly recommend you going. If it was at all possible (i.e. I won the lottery) I would be going again this year.
Our next meeting will be on January 8th, 2009. Wes encouraged us to all bring a product that we designed in SolidWorks to this meeting. He also shared that from the recent poll he conducted that the most sought after topic for meetings was hints & tips. So next year expect more member presentations of the base SolidWorks products and less 3rd party add-on presentations.
Wes then opened the floor for problems, questions and comments. I brought up an issue I’ve been having with the visibility of sketches changing on its own. No one had an answer for that but other people were having the same issue which in a strange way made me feel a bit better. Wes is having a problem with the “Dynamic highlight from graphics view” option toggling off by itself. A bunch of us have experienced this, I remember it being an issue in SW2007. Walid is having an issue with sketch visibility between different configurations. No one else had seen this but it might be related to the problem I mentioned.
Keith Dacus took over and showed us his favorite things that are new in 2009. I present them below in list form.
1. Triad is now active…change view orientation by clicking on the triad axis.
2. Magnifier…’G’ turns it on & off. With the cursor in the magnifier, roll the mouse wheel to zoom in and out. Hold the ‘alt’ key down and roll the wheel to section what is in the magnifier. Move the magnifier by moving your cursor to its edge or by ‘ctrl’ middle button. And yes you can ‘ctrl’ select within and out of the magnifier. Really slick.
3. Double clicking the middle button is the same as typing ‘f’ for zoom all.
4. In the equation editor there is now a button on the bottom that pulls up a selector of all the properties.
5. Drop your bill of material into the assembly. This will allow you to manage all aspects of it while working on your assembly. It might have been at this point where we chased a rabbit and talked about Phil’s need to display a quantity as “as required”. We discussed virtual components and what they are used for. I asked about printing the BOM and Keith informed that while it can’t be done within the assembly file you can now do it in the drawing.
6. Instant 3D now works within assemblies allowing you to have dynamic feedback to change distance and angle mates.
7. Error reporting has been improved by the addition of phantom lines showing missing edges. For example when an edge is removed that a subsequent fillet modified you actually see a ghostly dash line showing the edge that is no longer there.
8. Rib tool – In previous versions you had no choice where the draft originated from, now when you apply draft you pick which face maintains the rib width. (not a very good explanation)
9. Measure tool now shows dual dimensions...I like this!
10. Multiple handles to pull and push on when in Instant 3D. Again we chased another rabbit here and talked about how Instant 3D should only be used for conception…hard dimensions should be applied at some point and Instant 3D turned off to prevent mishaps.
11. Weldments – several new and cool improvements here. Add chamfers and weld preps to gussets. Include weld gaps as required and some really neat trim/extend features. I wondered if the Weld Gap functionality would allow for negative values since we typically have a problem with shrinkage from the welding. In other word I need the members to be a little bit longer to compensate for the shrinkage. Keith checked it out and we found that you are limited to a positive value for the weld gap. But Michael Jolley verified that you can perform a ‘move face’ on the end of the weldment member and the cutlist updates accordingly.
12. Sheet metal – Convert to sheet metal and cross breaks...sheet metal is boring so that’s all I’m saying about that. Just kidding, once again we chased a rabbit and talked about how the convert to sheet metal is useful but will make a part that might not be manufacturable.

We wrapped up with some more questions and comments. Walid wanted to know how to do a ‘tabulated’ drawing. We received a short course on design tables from Rodney Hall. Wes closed the meeting by throwing out (literally) backpacks and briefcases to those who wanted them. He then drew names for the three $25 gas cards provide by our sponsor Rapid Sheet Metal.
Great meeting, thanks to everyone involved. Here are some pics taken by Rodney and me.

Practical Sheet Metal Design Part 1

2008-11-13T08:39:00.009-05:00

Pracitcal Sheet Metal Design Part 1

CRASH!

The ability of SolidWorks to do sheet metal design is both a blessing and a curse to sheet metal job shops. Understand this is no fault of the software but of engineers who don't really understand how bends are made in sheet metal. The example shown in the following figures is typical of what some of our customers will design. They even provide us with SolidWorks part files that they have have modeled. Can this part be made as modeled? Yes it can but it would required special costly tooling and extended lead times for the tooling. It has been our experience that making this in two pieces and welding two seams instead of one is more cost effective.

Figure 1 - the part

A simple part until you start looking at the bending operation. In the following figures you will see that I added typical press brake tooling and a section of the press brake ram so that you can see the problem with bending this part as modeled.

Figure 2

The first bend is no problem. you could start on either end of the flat blank with the same results.

Figure 3

The same holds true for the next bend. you will note that there is no interference between the sheet metal and the press brake.

Figure 4 - CRASH!

Now you can plainly see the problem. Even if the 4.00" dimension in the part sketch was increased the part would still crash. The only solution that would allow forming this part as modeled would be what we call a 'window punch'. This involves using a tool that would fit inside the part has modeled and extends far enough past both ends of the part so that 'extensions' could be placed between the press brake ram and the punch. When the last bend is made, one of the extensions would be removed so that the part could be removed. This only works for softer material of a lighter gauge because of the loading placed on the tooling.

I hope this explanation is clear to all those who design sheet metal with limited experience of the manufacture of sheet metal parts. I will continue in the coming days to share more instances where a small changes can save you money in your sheet metal designs.

WNC/ASHEVILLE SWUG MEETING TOMORROW

2008-11-12T10:33:00.006-05:00

This is your last chance this year to attend our user group meeting. Barbecue will be on the menu as well as Keith Dacus presenting "What was not shown at the SW2009 Roll Out". Keith is an excellent presenter that will keep you entertained while you learn some of the great new stuff in SolidWorks 2009. I wish to thank him and TPM for supporting our user group.

I hope he concentrates on features in the base SolidWorks package. I hate getting all excited about some new feature only to find out that I have to have the professional or premium to take advantage of it. I was kind of interested in who has what so I set up a poll here for you to respond to. If you're not sure what you have here is a product matrix line.

One other thing...I know it's a day late but call or email a veteran and thank him for serving our country so that me and you can enjoy the freedoms that we have. You will be surprised at the response you will get. I email my uncle who served during the VietNam war and I could tell that he was touched by my thinking of him. I did the same for my brother who was in the Gulf war (the 1st one) and even though he was thankful of me thinking of him he was somewhat upset that he doesn't have the day off. I remember him pointing out when he worked another job that it was a shame that he got MLK day off but not Veterans day. Something to think about. Maybe 'THE ONE" will do something about this and make Veterans Day a national holiday like July 4th.

See you tomorrow night.

CSWP Training materials

2008-11-06T10:08:00.001-05:00

CSWP Training materials…are they worth their cost?

I was able to successfully pass the CSWA exam earlier this year by doing the sample test available from SolidWorks and a lot of reading from Matt Lombard’s book. My intention was to go for the Professional exam soon afterwards but that didn’t happen. I guess I’m feeling the same trepidation as I did before I took the CSWA. In my day to day work I use such a small subset of the SolidWorks program (sheet metal) I fear that I just don’t have the experience to even think of taking the CSWP exam.

So here is my question to the SolidWorks masses out there: Are any of the training materials worth the $300 - $500 that they cost. I’m thinking of the myigetit.com course and the one from Solid Professor. I’m thinking of asking the boss to ante up for this since he’s not sending us to SolidWorks World this year. But he will expect results, successful passing of the test.

Come on guys, give me some feedback. Surely someone out there has purchased one of these and has some advice to offer.

Thanks in advance,

Copy With Mates - A Simple Tutorial

2008-11-05T12:50:00.005-05:00

The Copy with Mates command has always been an underused feature in SolidWorks for me. I'm not really sure why but every time I went to use it I had to refer to the program help to figure it out. On a recent project that involved a lot of hardware placement into the assemblies I took another look at the command and through repeated use I finally have a handle on it's use.
Take a look at this simple assembly that has a single PEM fastener installed with a concentric and a coincident mate to the sheet metal part. I need to replicate this feature with the same mates on all the holes.

Image 1

In Image 2 you see that I've selected the PEM nut and clicked the 'Copy with Mates' button. (I added the button to the toolbar, its not there by default.) The dialogue box shows the selected components and the mates associated with the components. Click in the box associated with the 1st listed mate, 'Concentric3' in this case.

Image 2

Now all that is left is picking the surfaces that will satisfy these 2 mates. You see in image 3 that I've zoomed up on one of the holes. I have the selection filter set to 'Faces' and I've already picked the inside of the hole in the sheet metal. You see a preview of the PEM nut placement.

Image3

Notice that next to the mate boxes there is a tick box with the word 'Repeat' next to it. Since all the PEM nuts will meet this mate requirement I will check the box next to the Coincident3 mate.
As soon as I check the box the PEM nut snaps into place as shown in Image 4 below.

Image 4

Make sure you click the OK button or the PEM nut will not be placed, but don't click it twice because that will exit the command and we have more hardware to place. All you have to do now is continue picking the face of the holes and clicking OK (once) after each PEM is placed.

Image5 - Shows that the face of the 2nd hole is selected and the PEM will be placed here.

Now think about how many clicks you will save by using the 'Copy with Mates'. Also note that if there had been a screw and washer inserted into that single PEM nut we could have applied the 'Copy with Mates' to all three at the same time. Here is the part with all the PEM hardware installed:

Playing around with SW2009

2008-10-23T09:35:00.002-04:00

I just found something that I hadn't read or seen concerning SolidWorks 2009. Under VIEW you will see a new entry call WORKSPACE. Here you will find picks for Default, Widescreen & Dual Monitor. Clicking on Widescreen gives you a vertical command manager. This makes more efficient use of the widescreen monitors that seem to be the norm now. Check it out!

Have you seen something new in 2009 that you didn't know about? Lets get some posting going to share what we learn...

SolidWorks 2009 rollout by TPM

2008-10-22T07:00:00.003-04:00

The rollout of SolidWorks 2009 put on by TPM was very informative. Several members of the WNC-SWUG were present as witnessed by the pictures below. Wes kicked off the event with an introduction and invitation to become involved with the user group. Keith Dacus started the presentation with a demonstration of Simulation the new upgraded version of Cosmos. This is the first presentation I’ve seen Keith do and I was very impressed, good job Keith. Every time I see a presentation of an analysis package I think back over the last year and the times when it would have came in handy in my work but there are not enough times to justify the expense for us as we actually do very little design work in house. That said I do have to comment on the new sensors that are available in even the base package SolidWorks. I not sure but I think that the ‘Mass Sensor’ will be available to all users. It allows us to constantly monitor the mass of the part while you are modeling it. If this is not included in the base package, please correct me.

After a short break the session picked up again with Steve Ostrovsky showing us all the cool stuff in SW2009. Speedpacks are slick but the thing that will help my job the best is the new way to handle custom properties. When you have a multi user environment it is hard to get consistency across the board. The new custom properties interface builder will really cut down on the typing we have to do as we will be able to select all the options from drop down lists or check boxes. From Steve’s demonstration it appears that the process of building the interface is really painless. When he started showing it I was worried that the ‘logic’ behind the interface would be visual basic like but to my pleasant surprise it was just a matter of dragging and dropping. I know I’m doing this subject justification but just suffice to say that I think you’re really going to like it.

Another new feature that is of interest to me is the ability to convert a solid to sheet metal. In fact I’m working on a project now that could benefit from this. I’ve loaded SP0 on to my laptop for testing and to try this feature. Look for another post with my results.

Below are some pictures from the rollout:

our fearless leader

Keith Dacus of TPM / Greenville

Steve Ostrovsky of TPM / Columbia

Wes, Phil, Tim, Tom & Matthew

SolidWorks 2009 Solid to Sheetmetal

Initial Thoughts on DriveWorksXpress

2008-09-16T08:01:00.002-04:00

Thoughts on DriveWorksXpress
Although this is obviously a very powerful and useful tool as evidenced from all the demos and videos floating around on the WWW I have found some issues.

1. You can never find a tutorial or demo that does exactly what you are wishing to do. (Like how would anyone know what I want to do anyway?)
2. All the tutorials and examples that I’ve seen start at the DriveWorksXpress use. You really and truly need to be thinking DriveWorksXpress when designing the parts initially.
3. You can’t teach the logic of DriveWorksXpress in a tutorial. If you don’t have a grasp on the logic of what you are trying to do you will never get it to work. This is not a fault of the program but rather a fault in my brain.

I spent a total of 5 hours over the weekend trying to make a DriveWorks database to drive a metal cabinet design that we have. At some point yesterday I finally admitted defeat to myself. Please understand that the program does exactly what it is suppose to do and does it well. But from my experience I’ve learned a few things that will help me in the future. Oh and BTW when I say that I ‘admitted defeat’ it doesn’t mean that I’m giving up, it only means that I think I need to start the process of using DriveWorks earlier in the design cycle.

What I’ve learned:
1. You can take an existing design that you did over a year ago and build a DesignWorksXpress database around it. But be forewarned you better have a complete understanding of how your design works (no pun) and interacts with other parts in the assembly. This is where I am with my cabinet project.
2. Limit or eliminate arrays of features with dimensions that need to be driven. I had several arrays with only 3 elements in them. While I’m sure that DriveWorks could deal with them it’s one more dimension rule you will have to create. I’ve found that using ‘linked’ dimensions within the sketch to make multiple features works better.
3. In my original design I did a lot of in-context part creation in the assembly. This seems to cause problems. If trying to use DriveWorks on an existing assembly you might want to go back and break all the references making sure to track down any other parts that might reference the part you just broke the references to. This includes mates in the top level assembly.
4. Your directory where the assembly resides is going to get very cluttered with the new parts and assemblies you create. Make a copy of your directory before each ‘test’ run of DriveWorks. I used Pack and Go to make a flattened copy of all the components within the assembly.

Please understand that I don’t mean this to sound like I’m putting the product down. Heck I even know that eventually I could get this to work on the mentioned cabinet assembly. But I also know that if I had of stopped 3 days ago and went back and redid the cabinet with the intention of using DriveWorks I would have been ahead of the game.

Expect additional posts on this subject and eventually a working DriveWorksXpress assembly.

COSMOS is now Design Simulation

2008-09-12T09:44:00.001-04:00

COSMOS is now Design Simulation

At the September 11th WNC SolidWorks User Group Meeting Dana Parish from Central Florida gave an excellent presentation on the Who, What, When and Why of design simulation. I left with the feeling that this is something that should be in my CAD toolbox. Dana’s presentation really focused in on how the tools can help designers and engineers alike in their endeavors to design and build products in a cost effective manner. Dana’s partner, Ramesh Lakshmipathy showed us how the software worked using real world examples. One of his example files was from Precision Gear provided by our own Phil Behm. It was a housing that Precision Gear has cast overseas. Phil said it was designed in the old days when steel was cheap and the ‘When in doubt, make it stout’ finite element analysis was the preferred method. By running the design simulation tools on the housing Ramesh was able to trim 8 lbs from the part. And he did all this in about 30 minutes. He went through the process for us and I must say that it was impressive.

Today I’m up to my eyebrows in DriveWorksXpress. We have a perfect project for this application. Look around in your kitchen at the cabinetry and picture these made from #3 brushed stainless steel. They are used in a pharmaceutical laboratory. We have made the cabinets twice before and both time I was thinking that there must be a better way. The sizes and the configuration of the cabinets change based on the wall space available and their actual use. There are single door cabinets of various sizes but they could hinge on the left or the right sides. There are double door cabinets of different sizes and there are cabinets with door and drawers and some with just drawers. It’s really confusing since some parts will be the same for multiple cabinets and some will be the same except for a single hole…You get the idea. And if I’m not confused enough the shop guys really lose their minds when the assembly starts.

I’ve watched videos, read tutorials and worked through them. I talked to Michael Jolley last night and he gave me a few pointers. So as I told my boss this morning, it’s now down to me figuring it out as I do it. I’ll keep you posted on my progress. Or not!

What ‘bout them Tarheels! Great win guys!

No politics spoken here!

2008-09-05T08:06:00.001-04:00

No politics spoken here!

Things are finally starting to calm down at the Cox household. The last few weeks have been a blur of activity. From refurbishing sixteen computers to trying to get the yard work done has been a struggle. There was some mention by my wife of having my nose in a computer screen for the last three weeks. But all that is finally behind me now. The Shelby HAMfest has come and gone and I managed to sell all the computers but three. I still have a bunch of 20” CRT monitors that are in excellent shape if anyone is interested…I will make you a deal on one or two or three or…

The HAMfest was great. The new location is better as far as the facilities but some of the older people were complaining about how spread out it was. If you have never been to an event like this I suggest you try one out. Whether you’re into HAM radio or computers you will find a bunch of people with like interests who are just dying to strike up a conversation. Last year I took my Commodore SX64 and a bunch of people stop by to reminisce about their Commodore 64 days. This year my brother took some token-ring switches and had similar results. BTW – neither the SX64 or the token ring gear sold but we did get a lot of traffic to our table because of them.

During the process of setting up the PCs for sale I learned a lot about Linux and in particular Ubuntu Desktop. I’m tempted to set up one of the left over machines in my house just to see if I can make it do all that I typically do on a Windows machine. With a little searching around the web and a bit of under the hood tweaking I believe that this can be a windows alternative. Excluding SolidWorks of course! In fact on the new build of my ‘regular’ desktop machine I installed OpenOffice instead of Microsoft Office. I’m wondering if there is a way to hook the OpenOffice spread sheet into SolidWorks instead of Excel, this will be my next project. I did temporarily install Outlook just to get my contacts imported. Does anyone know of an alternative that can sync your contacts with your pocket PC? I’m not worried about the email since I use Google’s Gmail almost exclusively now since I just found out that I can add my Pop3 accounts to it.

In response to comments made on some of the blog entries I would like to thank the ones who read and responded. The situation concerning the ‘limited user’ status on the CAD machines at Byers has now been lifted with yours truly being responsible for the computers in the CAD department. Whoever said that I should just keep bugging the IT manager about this was right.

Thanks for all the tips on the imported sheet metal part. I foresee someday SolidWorks recognizing a sheet metal part and making the necessary adjustments to the dumb solid on its own. This is what I meant by ‘Smarter SolidWorks’. I do wish that when you comment on the blog that you would leave enough information so that I will know who you are. I removed the requirement that you be logged in to comment to make it easier for all of ya’ll but please in the spirit of community tell me who you are.

Smarter SolidWorks

2008-08-21T13:33:00.009-04:00

It continues to amaze me the problem that Solid Modelers have talking to each other. Okay I can see where the curvy stuff would give problems but sheet metal? Come on guys this is as simple as dirt. I was sent a couple parasolid parts translated from SolidEdge the other day and they were both what I would consider to be simple. One of the parts had seven faulty faces that that SolidWorks could not repair. The whole ordeal makes me have a few questions.

Question #1: How do you get faulty faces in a sheet metal part? It wasn’t due to bad modeling practices since the part was created in the sheet metal module of SolidEdge and I know from experience that SolidEdge makes the user adhere to the same basic sheet metal rules that SolidWorks does such as uniform thickness and such.

Question #2: Why can I import a SolidEdge part file and an assembly file but not the sheet metal (.psm) file? The customer was able to translate it into a part file on his end but it didn’t help the situation anyway.

I even sent this part to my VAR’s application engineer and he wasn’t able to do anything with it other than suggest deleting the bad faces and add it back using the surfacing tools. He went on to say:

" I don't really have any good news for you, but translating 3D cad models is a big separate industry - for a reason. Modeling software file formats don't always like to work together, as you can see here.”

Wow that’s a news flash! Since I’m a little rusty on the whole face/surface thing I fell back to my old standby which is to insert the bad part into an assembly and then build a good part on top of it.

Question #3: Why did the part fail? Was it because there was a hem on the part that actually was closed completely flat against it face to which it was added?

Or was it because of the overlapping flange that does touch the opposing flange?

Or maybe it’s the lance & form that has no relief (which incidentally is how it is in the real world)?

It might be one or all of these that is causing the part to fail. But my point is that if we can’t translate other than by ‘dumb’ solids then some rules need to be followed on both ends. Why can’t all the CAD companies get together on some rules that govern sheet metal parts? Why can’t the importing modeler be a little smarter and recognize the face or even let me tell it that this is a sheet metal part and in turn it would know to adjust so that features can be recognized.

Now just to temper the bad with some good, go check out this video. I hope this works as well on my computer. Solid to Sheet Metal

Friday Fritters

2008-08-15T10:05:00.001-04:00

Okay it’s a strange title but as I start to write today I have no idea where I’m going. So hang on or jump off at any time!

One thing about SW2009 that really interests me is the Custom Properties tab and the ability to customize it. One thing that really irks me is when I have to go behind someone revising his drawings and find that he hasn’t filled in a single custom property. Hopefully this will make it easier to manage thus making him more apt to use them.

What’s going on in my life? I mentioned that we had replaced all the PCs at the company I work for. I struck up a deal with the owner where as I would remove all the old ‘junk’ and take care of a fitting disposal. This process included general cleaning (you’d be surprised at how filthy a PC can get) with 100PSI compressed air and several bottles of Mean Green Cleaner. Then I did a complete wipe of the hard drive using KillDisk and finally a re-install of an operating system. Most of the systems had COAs (certificate of authorization) for one version of Windows or another so they were set up again. I’m only going back as far as Windows 2000 Pro, anything older will get some flavor of Linux installed. So far I have four Dell Optiplex GX150s, two custom built CAD stations with Athlon 64 3400s, Quadro FX500s and 2GB RAM. There are a few more machines with Pentium 4s and then a slew of Microtel machines that have AMD Durons and 256MB RAM. The Microtels were bought with Lindows installed which was replaced with Win98. I’m not sure what to do with these machines. I’ve tried Xubuntu since it is a scaled down version of Ubuntu designed to run on low end hardware but I haven’t had much luck with it yet. I don’t have COAs for Win98 so that’s out of the question. Are there any suggestions from the hardware geeks out there?

I also have 15 20” Dell CRT monitors (anyone need a monitor?) that are stacked in my garage. Yeah it’s been a dirty hard job with late hours and no promise of any monetary reward but it has been fun. I already managed to sell the Optiplexs with monitors. One of the CAD workstations went to my co-worker who helped move all the stuff to my house. Some of the guys here at Byers have expressed interest in a computer and anything that is not sold will be going to the Shelby HAM Fest (which incidentally is being held in Dallas NC this year) on Labor day Weekend. But the sooner I get rid of all this stuff the sooner the wife will be speaking to me again. Wait a minute, let me think about that.

Thrown into the pile-o-junk will be a couple of SpaceNavigator PEs and one of the FX500 video cards so if you have any need for them or a 20” monitor leave a comment with contact information.
From the Wikipedia:
A fritter is any kind of food coated in batter and deep fried. The word comes from the Latin *frīctūra ("frying") by way of Old French and Middle English. It can refer to a dessert, a side dish or a main course food.
I hope you enjoyed your batter coated, deep fried side dish of useless verbage on this fine Friday. The only other question that begs to be asked…was it a desert, a side dish or a main course?

SolidWorks 2009 coming to blog near you soon!

2008-08-14T08:31:00.001-04:00

SolidWorks 2009 coming to blog near you soon!

Because everyone else is blogging constantly all about SW 2009 I’ve been hesitant to add my observations or opinions. In finality you will be the judge of how the new release works for you. But just so you know a little of what to expect in the new release here is a link to a list of links to blogs and youtube videos showing off and or lamenting the highlights of SolidWorks 2009.

http://www.caddigest.com/subjects/solidworks/reviews.htm

I can’t wait to get my grimy little hands on it!

Friday Strangeness

2008-08-01T12:38:00.000-04:00

Here’s a strange one:
I used the assembly feature hole wizard on an sub-assembly this morning. I place two sketch points to locate the holes while in the initial command. I then Ctrl-Tabbed back to the main assembly to make sure I was adding the holes on the correct side of the sub-assembly. Everything looked good so I edit the hole wizard sketch to add three more sketch points for all the holes I needed. No problem adding them but when I update I only see the original two holes I added. I played around with a bit but couldn’t get the remaining holes to appear. I finally gave up and did another hole wizard and included all the points I needed and it worked fine. I’m curious as to whether this is the case always or is it another ‘feature’?

Here’s another question for any config/design table experts out there. I have created a working design table that basically just uses some simple calculations to generate different lengths of tubing for use in another assembly. I don’t do configurations with design tables that often so please excuse my ignorance but I need to add back the custom property “description” to the table so that when inserted into a drawing it is more understandable. Is there a way to force SolidWorks to refresh all the parameters not just the newly added ones? If not can you provide me with the proper syntax to do this? I hope that I’m providing enough information for you to see what I’m trying to do.

Pallet Forming Tools

2008-07-30T10:42:00.002-04:00

An underutilized feature of SolidWorks by me is the “Pallet Forming Tools”. I have modified the ‘standard’ tools that ship with SolidWorks into the tools we have in our shop and in the modification process is where I have difficulty. We did take the available training at our VAR when we first switched over to SolidWorks but of course the current version of SolidWorks was 2001+ and I would suppose that a few changes have been made. But as I said I have modified some of the shipped tools into something we can use. The process is always trial and error. I make the changes I think need to be made and then insert the tool onto a part and see what happens. Here is the part that I have a problem with, if I see I need to make more changes and make them they are not reflected on the tool I already inserted. I have to delete the form tool and then insert it again. Am I wrong on this? Maybe this has been changed or maybe I just don’t know what I’m doing. I would think that somehow they be associated and update as such.

An update for anyone who interested in my weight loss attempt; I am now an official Weight Watcher Lifetime member. I reached my goal weight and maintained it for 6 weeks. Actually I’m having difficulty not losing any more weight… (I never thought I’d be typing that in my lifetime.) Was it worth it? I can say with a resounding YES it was. I feel much better, have more energy and don’t have the need to Lipitor or hypertension medication any longer. People will tell me that I’m looking good and I respond, “No I’m looking thinner…I’m still ugly!”

Am I supposed to be writing for this Blog?

2008-07-29T09:47:00.001-04:00

Am I supposed to be writing for this Blog?

No excuses, no explanation, suffice to say that I’m back now after an extended leave.

What’s bothering me today, the new IT department’s policies concerning administrator rights to my computer. Oops did I say ‘my computer’, I meant the computer that I’m attached to 9-1/2 hours a day five days a week.

A little background information is in order here. We all have shiny new workstations here at Byers. They are built to the hilt Dell machines with 4 GB RAM, fast SATA 2 drives and a mid-level Quadro video card. All this is connected to a ‘real’ Dell server with all the bells and whistles. During the install process I was given the administrator password so that I could get all the CAD/CAM software up and running on the machines in the engineering department. This involved fresh installs of SolidWorks and any other programs that we use in performing our jobs.

Everything was up and running and we were productive again and then I realized that I had forgotten to enable duplex printing on the OkiData printer. When I went to fix this problem I was informed by the computer that I must be logged in as the administrator. I then found out the password for this account had been changed and there was no way this information was going to be given to me.

I understand that there are users on our network who have no business with administrator rights. We’ve been down that road before, virus, malware and spyware being installed at the user’s spontaneous desire to click something in their web browser. But I’ve been an integral part of the migration to technology here. When I first started working here the company had recently acquired their first Numeric Control Punching machine. The programs had to be typed into a machine that punched a paper tape that was loaded into the machine controller. There was no CAD/CAM then. As one of the sheet metal mechanics on the shop floor it was my responsibility to manually draft out sketches of the parts in the flat so that the programmer could write the code on a yellow legal pad which was handed to one of the secretaries so that she could type the code into the paper punch tape machine.

When we finally did get our Applicon Bravo CAD/CAM system I was the one who of 3 persons who went through the training and the only one who actually caught on to the system. Not only did I do all the CAD work back then but I was also responsible for the system maintenance. The system was running VMS on Digital Equipment hardware. VMS makes all flavors of windows look like a piece of cake. I even wrote several programs in DCL (Digital Control Language) that managed the tasks of backups, restores and even file renaming of the DXF files to the 8.3 format which was needed by the machine controls.

I’m saying all this just to say that I really feel as if I’ve been ‘dumbed’ down. Heck, I can’t even delete unused icons on my desktop now! Forget about checking for new SolidWorks releases…I must be an administrator.

Yes, there was a problem here at Byers. There was unlicensed software floating around. The system we had for backing up our precious data was crap! People here were installing everything from NASCAR race day to Print Shop 1.0 with no control and no concern as to what was happening to the actual programs that were needed to perform their jobs. But to blanket all persons with the same restrictions is actually counterproductive to the persons who know how to do their job and how to adapt their computers to do it better and faster.

But if this is company policy then I will live with it. I will continue to do my job to the best of my ability with the equipment and software available to me. Will I be happy about it? I don’t think so…all these icons on my desktop are really bugging me!

Am I being a jerk about this? Let me know what you think. Are any of you trying to work under the same conditions? Let’s get some comments going!

SWUG meeting Thursday

2008-07-07T10:57:00.004-04:00

WNC-Asheville SWUG meeting July 10th
See the website for details.

I’ll be doing a ‘very’ short presentation on FeatureWorks and then the evening becomes what Wes calls ‘Open Mouse Night’. If you have any cool tips or tricks be prepared to show them off. Bring your files on a flash drive or CD-ROM. If you’ve never been to a meeting this would be a good laid back meeting to attend. We always have food (usually pizza) and good conversation. Get to know the people in the Asheville area who are using the same CAD software as you and experiencing the same issues using it. There will be some VARs represented at the meeting but they are banned from making any sort of sales pitch but they do have answers to a lot of the typical questions that come up.

You might have noticed a theme change on the website. It is a work in progress as I’m creating some new graphics to go with the theme. But the good news is that things seem to fit better in the boxes that with the old theme. I’m no website designer by any means and I do it so infrequently that I have to re-train myself every time I do make a change.
Here is the graphic I want to use as the header:

I'm now a CSWA!

2008-06-29T14:10:00.003-04:00

This is a special blog for me…CHECK IT OUT!

I know it’s only the associate exam but I’m still proud of it. I said a quick prayer before I started the test and I told God that if I passed I’d be sure to let everyone know that He is getting the glory. Thank you God for helping me remember, stay calm and stay awake.

If you have a free voucher to take the test remember that it expires tomorrow. Go ahead and take the test, yes it’s is a bit difficult and if I can do it you can too. A couple of pointers:

1. Two computers or at least a dual display, one for the exam and one for SolidWorks.

2. There might be questions on ComosXpress, but if you can build the models and assemblies fairly quickly you do have time to run an analysis and refer to the help to get the answers you need.

3. Note that some questions may require you to build a part or assembly and the part origin is given or it’s arbitrary. Pay attention or you won’t find your answer in the choices given.

That’s about all I can legally tell you about the test.