SolidWorks 2012 Essential Training

SolidWorks 2012 Essential Training

with Gabriel Corbett

 


In this course, author Gabriel Corbett shows how to create manufacturing-ready parts and assemblies in SolidWorks 2012. Beginning with simple 2D sketching and the software’s sketch-editing tools, the course provides step-by-step instruction on building 3D geometry from 2D sketches. The course covers creating complex 3D objects with the Extrude, Revolve, Sweep, and Loft tools and shows building complex assemblies by mating individual parts together into robust assemblies and structures.

The course shows how to cut and revolve holes into parts and use the Hole Wizard tool to generate industry standard holes like counter bores, counter sinks, and taps. Best practice for designing parts is emphasized throughout the course as well as methods for creating parts faster and easier using equations, mirroring, and patterning tools. The course wraps up with generating manufacturing-ready drawings complete with an itemized Bill of Materials. As a bonus feature, Gabriel shows how to photo render a final design. Exercise files are included with the course.
Topics include:
  • Starting a new sketch
  • Adding and removing relationships
  • Dimensioning a sketch for specific size attributes
  • Setting system options, units, and templates
  • Drawing polygons
  • Drawing circles, arcs, and splines
  • Creating offset geometry
  • Moving, copying, and rotating elements
  • Working with planes, axes, and the coordinate system
  • Using Revolve and Loft to create 3D objects
  • Trimming with the Revolve, Loft, and Sweep cuts
  • Creating smooth and angled corners with fillets and chamfers
  • Designing with sketch blocks
  • Working with subassemblies
  • Creating threaded parts
  • Integrating Excel to manage design tables
  • Adding dimension notations to a drawing
  • Rendering an image of a part or assembly

show more

author
Gabriel Corbett
subject
3D + Animation, CAD, Product Design
software
SolidWorks 2012
level
Beginner
duration
7h 2m
released
Mar 07, 2012

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Introduction
Welcome
00:03Hi! I am Gabriel Corbett and welcome to SolidWorks 2012 Essential Training.
00:09In this course, we'll look at the methods and tools for creating
00:13manufacturing-ready parts and assemblies along with detailed drawings and bills of materials.
00:18We'll start with the basic sketch tools to create two-dimensional sketches
00:21that will become the foundation for 3D objects.
00:25Next, we'll look at modeling 3D features by extruding or revolving sketches into 3D parts,
00:30followed by creating more complex objects using the Sweep and Loft tools.
00:35Then we'll create holes and cuts as well as uniform standard hole sizes using the automated Hole Wizard.
00:44We'll explore the best practice for putting parts together into assemblies and building robust structures.
00:50Finally, we'll see how to create drawings to relate the final parts and assemblies to a manufacturer
00:54complete with an itemized bill of materials and drawing notes.
00:59Now, let's get started with SolidWorks 2012 Essential Training.
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Using the exercise files
00:00If you're a Premium member of the lynda.com Online Training Library,
00:04or you're watching this tutorial on a DVD-ROM,
00:07you have access to the Exercise Files used throughout the title.
00:11After you download the files, I would recommend saving them to the Desktop here,
00:15or to any other location that might be easily accessible.
00:18Double-click on that and you can see we have all the chapters laid out by chapter
00:22and I can go and double- click on any one of those
00:24and you see we got a bunch of different files in each chapter.
00:27They're all labeled by the Chapter Title plus the Movie Number;
00:30so Chapter 14, movie number 1 and this is made up for this assembly,
00:35as well as some different parts that go up and make that assembly up.
00:37We're going to use a -1, -2 type of naming convention to categorize these types of files.
00:43I just want to go back to Ch 20 (Chapter 20) here.
00:45In this chapter, we're actually using different folders for each chapter and movie,
00:49and click in here you can see we've got a bunch of different files here as well as we have drawings.
00:53So SLDDRW is a drawing file.
00:56So make sure to pay close attention to what that extension is.
01:00If you're not a premium subscriber to lynda.com, you don't have access to the Exercise Files,
01:05but you can follow along from scratch with your own assets.
01:08So let's get started.
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1. Touring the Interface
Launching SolidWorks for the first time
00:00SolidWorks is the world leader in 3D solid modeling.
00:03The software uses a set of simple building blocks and helpers
00:06to assist you in designing the next great product.
00:09Let's go over the opening of the software and then tour the interface.
00:12I'll highlight the main areas of the interface in the work environment.
00:16Let's get started. On the Desktop, I can see an icon for SolidWorks 2012.
00:21We're using the 64-bit version; double- click that, it opens up the software.
00:25It's the first time running it, so we have the option to activate the product now or we can do it later.
00:29So I'll click on the Later tab and Finish.
00:34That opens up the environment.
00:35On the right-hand side, we have the Resources tab.
00:38We can open new documents, we can go through some of the Tutorials;
00:42the What's New and Introduction to SolidWorks.
00:45On the bottom side here, we can see links to User Groups,
00:49some of the technical alerts and news, what's available,
00:52and what's going on in the world of SolidWorks right now.
00:54This is a fly-out tab, so if I click in the environment, it goes away;
00:58if I click back over here, it'll show up.
01:00If I'd like to continue to keep this out,
01:02I can click on the little pin which will hold it out.
01:05I have tabs here. So the next tab down is the Design Library.
01:09Inside of there, we're going to be able to store snippets of sketches or
01:14parts that are going to be used later in our design.
01:17We have the File Explorer below that and that's going to be very similar to Windows Explorer,
01:21so we can open files on the regular Desktop or anywhere in the file system.
01:26The View palette, we don't really have any views to open right now,
01:28but it's where we would start our drawings from.
01:32Following that would be Appearances and Scenes.
01:34So if we want to render our part or color the part in or change the appearances of the material,
01:39we can do that and drag these into the environment, which we'll cover later.
01:44The final thing here is the Custom Properties.
01:46Inside of there, we're going to have what would be putting our part number,
01:50our revision materials and any documentation we want to put about our part, it'd go in there.
01:56So I'm going to close that little pin.
01:59On the upper left-hand corner of the screen, you notice we have SolidWorks tab
02:02and we have this little fly-out window, if we go over this little icon here.
02:06And if we want to keep that out, I can click on the pin
02:09and that will keep that File > View tab available.
02:11To open a new document, we need to click on either the New icon here
02:15or we can go under File and New or Ctrl+N; click on that.
02:19That opens up our New Document window and we have three available options here
02:24which would the Part, Assembly or Drawing.
02:26If you don't happen to see this, you could be on the Advanced tab,
02:28which is going to have almost the same thing.
02:30Click back on Novice, click on Part, click on OK and that's going to open up our New window.
02:36This is our main drawing environment here.
02:38On the left hand side is going to be our Feature Manager.
02:41Feature Manager is going to hold all the features we create in our part.
02:44We start with three fundamental planes;
02:46Front Plane, Top Plane, Right Plane and notice that as I mouse over each one of those,
02:50they highlight on the screen.
02:51If I'd like to continue to see that plane, I can click
02:55and there is this little icon that pops up called the Show icon.
02:58It looks like a pair of goggles. Click on that and that continues to show,
03:01and notice the icon changes from black-and-white to color.
03:04I can do the same with the others if I wanted to see those.
03:07Turn all three of those on so we can see that.
03:09To move the view around, I can always hold down the middle mouse button and spin that environment.
03:15Same thing if I scroll with my mouse in or out; it'll zoom the view.
03:20On the upper portion of the screen, we have what is called the Ribbon bar
03:24and this is similar to many other softwares out there, and what you'll see is different tabs.
03:29So if I click on the corresponding tab, I get a different ribbon tool palette
03:33that will pop up and I have a variety of like five here,
03:36but I can right-click on any one of them and it will show me the available
03:40tool tabs that I can put up here. So I can quickly add Mold Tools,
03:44or same thing, I can take away Sheet Metal, for instance, to change that around.
03:47So the two we're going to be working with most are going to be the Sketch and Features tabs.
03:53Other than that, if we need to open documents or close documents,
03:56we have a quick shortcut which is on the keyboard.
03:59If we hit the R key, it pops up a little window which is the Recent Documents.
04:03So if we wanted to go and open this part here, for instance,
04:06click on that and now I have that part open.
04:09We have a couple of documents open now.
04:10So if I go up to the Window tab, I've got a few different choices here
04:14as far as how to look at that.
04:15One of my favorites is Tile Horizontally which makes the two documents that are open tile.
04:19Now if I had four, it would put four on the screen and so on.
04:23So if I had 20, it would put 20 on the screen, but they'd become very small,
04:26and it's hard to look at; so keep that in mind.
04:28Then if you want to open any one of these documents, just click on the Maximize;
04:31it brings us back to full screen.
04:33You should now understand where most of the tools and options are located
04:36in the software and how to navigate the 3D environment.
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Accessing and customizing the Ribbon
00:00The Ribbon bar was introduced to SolidWorks several versions back.
00:03It allows the user to have much more screen real estate versus
00:07having all the required toolbars turned on.
00:09It's configurable and dockable.
00:11As I covered in the last movie, we can click on the various tabs below the Ribbon
00:15to change what icons are available to us.
00:17By default, we have these four here.
00:19We can add or remove different tool tabs to the Ribbon.
00:23Click on Weldments, it adds a new tab, so then if I click on Mold Tools,
00:27for instance, it's going to add it there.
00:28That Ribbon bar we can move around the screen if we need to.
00:31By clicking anywhere up here, I can drag it out.
00:34Notice I drag it out, I could just place it in the Desktop if I want,
00:36I can place it on another window if I wanted to or I can dock it.
00:40So I can dock it back to the original location at the top.
00:43I can come over here and I can dock it to the right or dock it to the left, your choice.
00:46If you do that, it just places it there.
00:50You've got the same available tabs.
00:52Drag that back out. I prefer to have it on the top and it docks.
00:57We have a lot of other tool tabs that we can bring out as well, or toolbars.
01:02I can right-click here, anywhere in that gray area and it will bring up these available toolbars.
01:07So one that I happen to like and use a lot is, if you go down here to the Tools tab,
01:12it's going to pop out that little toolbar.
01:14Now sometimes it will drop it here in the middle of the screen,
01:16sometimes it will dock somewhere.
01:18So just kind of look around your screen to maybe where that originally got dropped.
01:22Now I can drag it and dock it over here. I like to put it on the right hand side.
01:26It gives me a little more real estate, and then I have those tools available
01:30and that always stays there.
01:31I can also go ahead and add Tools to any one of these Ribbon bars to customize it to my liking.
01:37So if I click on, for instance, the Sketch tab, if I right-click on it,
01:40at the very bottom, I can say Customize, the CommandManager,
01:44and the first screen that comes up is the Toolbar tab and notice that's exactly what we had before.
01:49So if I want to add or remove toolbars, I can do that here as well.
01:52Under the Commands, we have all the commands that are available in any one of these sketch tabs.
01:59So, like for instance, if I go to Sketch, these are all the sketch tools that are available.
02:04Only a subset of those is available in the actual ribbon.
02:07So if I'd like to add something to that, I can just drag it over.
02:10So, one that I like to use a lot is called Sketch Picture.
02:12I'm just going to click on that and drag it.
02:15Wherever I drag, it's going to drop a little icon on the screen for us to use to quickly get to it.
02:20You can add as many as you want, and the same thing is you can click on one of those and remove it.
02:24So I don't want it.
02:25So I'm going to drop it back there and I can, same thing, reorganize my icons as needed.
02:31Click on that and we're good to go.
02:33The Ribbon bar is a very helpful interface for getting tools quickly and with less clutter on the Desktop.
02:38It can be modified with your favorite tools and dock to one of three locations to suit your layout needs.
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Touring the shortcut bar and identifying essential keys
00:00All the functions and commands to design in SolidWorks are available
00:04in the Ribbon Bar, various menus, and the toolbars.
00:07However there is a group of commands that are used often that can be assigned to the keys on the keyboard.
00:12We should be driving SolidWorks with two hands, the right hand on the mouse,
00:15your left hand on the Escape (Esc) key, the Shift+Option+Command and Spacebar.
00:19Let's go over those.
00:22We haven't totally covered the drawing environment yet, but I am just going to
00:24jump into the Line Command and just throw a couple of lines on the screen.
00:28Notice while I'm drawing a line my icon changes to a little pencil with a line under it.
00:31I can drag things around and then move around in the environment.
00:33As I continue to drag out lines, I stay in that command.
00:36If I want to cancel out of that command, hit the Escape key and I go back to my original pointer.
00:44If I click over the Line Command, notice I have a L showing up in parentheses,
00:48that means there is a shortcut for that command and if I just hit L on the keyboard
00:52it jumps into that command. If I hit L again, it jumps out.
00:55So jump in, draw a line, hit L again, turn it off.
00:58It can also add different commands to the keyboard shortcuts.
01:02To do that I can right-click on any one of these tabs, go down to the Customize Manager again,
01:08and I have a tab at the top called Keyboard, and the one I want to assign is,
01:10notice I have just about every command in SolidWorks available to me.
01:15There is quite a few, but the only one I am looking for is Circle,
01:17so I'm just going to search for it here, which is circle, and my Center Point Circle is
01:22the one I'm looking for, and if I just type-in a C, it's going to give a shortcut to that command.
01:28Now if you have something else that is assigned to that same key it's going to say,
01:32hey, do you want to overwrite this?
01:34And if you do, that's fine. Click OK.
01:36Now if I type C, I jump right in the Circle Command, draw a circle and it stays
01:41in the Circle Command so I can continue to draw circles.
01:43Once I'm done, I can hit C again or the Escape key to get out of that command.
01:47A few other commands here is, if I hit the S key, that's predefined as the Shortcut Bar,
01:53so the same tools I have available up here, I can actually have
01:57have it right there in my screen wherever my tooltip happens to be.
02:00So it's here or here, it just pops up. It's right next to you.
02:03Your tools are available right next to you.
02:04Same thing with right-click, anywhere you are on the screen, I can right-click
02:09and get a full listing of available tools that I can use.
02:13Once again this is also customizable.
02:15You can do so just at the very bottom of the screen, Customize Menu.
02:18The last thing I'm going to cover in this movie is the Option and Tab.
02:22So if I hold down Option and Tab, I can click to the different available screens that I have open.
02:28So if I need to go back to the File Manager to grab something,
02:31I can jump back into SolidWorks quickly.
02:34And we also have the views we can look at and those are under the Spacebar.
02:40If I hit the Spacebar, I get the Orientation, it pops up, notice I get Front,
02:44Back, Side, Isometric, and this allows me to switch between those views.
02:48Before I actually do that, I'm going to jump into a different window which is available
02:53because of the part that I've already designed, and I can spin around
02:55and look at it, but if I want to look at it for instance in the Front view or the Right view,
02:59I can hit the Spacebar and say click Front. Notice it turns to the Front view.
03:04Hit Spacebar to the Back, spins it around. Left.
03:08If I click on the Isometric, it gives it kind of an elevated view from the side
03:13and I get a couple of those Trimetric and Dimetric as well.
03:16Just a couple of different views at different angles and elevations. Okay.
03:21And then the last thing here is the R command which will open up Recent Documents
03:24so you can quickly grab any of the documents that you've been using in the past,
03:28I don't know, eight documents yet opened, we'll just pop up there. You can jump into each one of those.
03:33Learning some of these basic keys will dramatically improve the speed and ease of working with the software.
03:38It's the single best way to do more with less time.
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Saving, renaming, and managing files
00:00Saving your work is essential in all software.
00:02However in SolidWorks it's very important to understand how files interconnect.
00:06Let's take a look at this example.
00:08This is Assembly 1.4 and that's made up of 1.4-1, -2 and -3.
00:14These three files are separate files in the file system,
00:16which are linked together in this top-level Assembly.
00:20Let's take a look at the File Structure.
00:21In the top level here we have a widget.
00:23This is a top-level Assembly in that is made up of two parts,
00:27and then another subassembly and a drawing of that top-level assembly.
00:31This subassembly here is made up of two more parts, another subassembly and a drawing,
00:35and then these two drawings down here represent the drawings for Part3
00:39and for Part4, and we have further structure that goes down here,
00:43and this can be as many files as it takes to make your Assembly. Now look at Part4.
00:48If we were to take that part and change the name without alerting the other
00:52members of the file structure that the part changed, Assembly2 might be looking for Part4.
00:56It wouldn't be able to find it. It can cause a problem.
00:59Same thing with Drawing7. Drawing7 is linking up to that part and looking for that part name or number.
01:05So changing that without alerting everybody else is going to cause a problem for the file structure.
01:09The way it works is this. Files are linked by name.
01:13So if you call a part, Part4, it's always going to be looking for Part4
01:17in the associated path or directory.
01:19So make sure the path is correct and the directory you're saving it in is complete.
01:23If you, for instance though take a copy of the entire directory structure in a folder
01:27and move it to another machine or another folder, it won't look further than that.
01:31It's going to find the folders that are closest to it.
01:34We have an assembly which then links to a part, which then links to a drawing.
01:37If I were to do Save As in the file structure, it's going to change that
01:42directory linking from assembly to the new part name back to the drawing.
01:46Now the problem is, we have a part that's just sitting on the file structure not doing anything.
01:50It's not linked to anything; it's the same part as this one here, it's just no longer linked.
01:56So that's not really the ideal way to change names of files.
01:59A better way is actually to use SolidWorks Explorer.
02:02So let's jump in there.
02:03This is the SolidWorks Explorer and we have that same Assembly opened up here
02:08under just Desktop > Exercise Files > Ch 1 and we are under the Sample folder.
02:12We've got the three files that make up that Assembly.
02:14If I click on each one I can see it, and here is my top-level Assembly.
02:18Now if I wanted to change any one of these names, I can right-click on it and
02:23click on the Rename button.
02:24Notice this file is the 1.4-3 and it goes out and searches the file structure for that Assembly,
02:32or any linked files actually, and the only one it's finding is that Assembly which is the 1.4,
02:37and make sure we have a Checkmark here where it says Update where used.
02:40Now if I click here and I change it to 1.4-4 for instance, click OK.
02:46It's going to give me a little error. It's going to say, hey, there's a problem saving this,
02:49and the reason it is, is because we actually have that part open in the background.
02:52So let's go back to SolidWorks and let's just save these, close them, jump back over here, click OK.
02:59Now let's try it one more time.
03:01This time, no problem. They changed from - 3 to -4 and everything up based just fine.
03:06Now the other way and people will get themselves into trouble is going just to a regular Windows Explorer.
03:12Now under Windows Explorer, I am in the same folder, I jump in that same file here
03:16and I can see those file names.
03:18Now I were to say, click on that and hey, let's just rename it, right?
03:21So if I go and change this one to -5 for instance, and I save that.
03:25It'll allow me to do that, no problem.
03:26The only problem is, is when I go back into SolidWorks, it's not going to know which file is what.
03:31Now SolidWorks does help out a bit and they'll say, hey, I can't find this file,
03:35can you locate it for me?
03:36But that's probably not the best method for going about that.
03:38Okay, let's jump back into SolidWorks and open that file.
03:41So if I click on R on the keyboard, it brings up my Recent Documents.
03:45Here is 1.4. Let's open it up, and notice the files have now updated to 1.4 and -2 and -4.
03:51So there is no longer a -3.
03:52It's been replaced by -4 and we don't have any extra files just floating around in our file system.
03:57So that is a nice little update on that, and it's the best way to change files.
04:02We can also do some saving and backing up in SolidWorks.
04:05If I click on the Options tab on the top of the screen, under the System Options,
04:09about three-quarters of the way down, there is a tab called Backup/Recover.
04:13Now I can automatically recover data for each one of my files if the SolidWorks
04:18were to crash for instance and I can do it in a certain interval.
04:21So 10 minutes seems like a long time, so I'm going to change it to 5
04:24and then wherever I'm saving this at, this is kind of the default and that's fine.
04:29If I go down here to Backup, I can save backup copies of my document.
04:33By default 1, I can change this to 3 for instance, and that's going to save,
04:36the last three times I save that document, it's going to put that in a folder.
04:41I've got a folder called C:\Backup here.
04:44Using that folder, you can change it to anything you'd like.
04:47I'd actually recommend not saving it on your C drive and saving it to a server
04:51or an external backup drive, something along that lines that can make sure that
04:54if this computer were to crash that you'd still have those files.
04:57Just a little housekeeping here is, if you're saving multiple copies of each file,
05:01you can get a lot of files in this one folder.
05:04So automatically every 7 days here this would remove the older backups and
05:08make sure you're not adding too many files to that directory.
05:11And the last thing here is just if you work on a document, you want to have a
05:14reminder telling you every certain amount of minutes to save your work.
05:17It's definitely advisable.
05:18SolidWorks in general is a very amazing software and you can do amazing things with it.
05:23But along the way, just make sure you're saving your work.
05:25Naming files correctly the first time is really the best way to make sure that
05:29you don't get into trouble with losing files and having issues like that,
05:33and it's going to be a lot less clutter and a lot better designs.
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2. Introducing the 3D Workspace
Understanding the 3D world
00:00Sketches are the fundamental building block in all SolidWorks features.
00:04But before we can start sketching, let's learn about the drawing environment and
00:08navigating in the 3D workspace.
00:11All sketches start on a face or a plane.
00:13In the beginning we don't have any faces, so we're stuck with the three fundamental planes.
00:17We have the Front Plane, Top Plane, and the Right Plane.
00:20If I click on any one of these, I can show it by clicking on the little Goggle icon or Show.
00:26Once that's shown, I can also show the other ones if I need to or want to,
00:31and I'm going to spin this user environment around just by holding on
00:34the middle mouse key to spin the environment.
00:36I can also zoom in and zoom out just by scrolling with my mouse.
00:41The Origin is what we want to tie most of our drawings into.
00:45Somehow it links to that center of our part.
00:49And I can move that environment around also down here with this tria,
00:51which is the lower left- hand corner of your screen.
00:53You can double-click on any one of those and spin it around.
00:56I can see this a little better if I open a different part.
00:58So I'm just going to jump into some parts that are open here, open this one up,
01:04and double-clicking that spins that around.
01:06I can see the right side, spin it around this way, spin it around that way,
01:11a bunch of different ways I can look at that environment.
01:13This is very similar to what we learned earlier with the Spacebar.
01:16By clicking the Space, I could get the Orientation up, I'll go to Front,
01:21or Trimetric or Isometric View.
01:23It's a nice way to look at the environment.
01:25On the top of the screen I have several commands that I can use.
01:28The very first one is Zoom to Fit.
01:30Now for instance, I might have had this drawing over here or
01:33somewhere out in the Drawing View that didn't make a lot of sense over here.
01:36If I click on Zoom to Fit, it's going to bring it right into the center of the screen so you can see it.
01:41If there's something I'd like to look a little closer at,
01:43I can use this one here, which is the Zoom to Area,
01:46and then just drag a little box around the area I'd like to look at.
01:49Click OK, it zooms right in.
01:50The next one is Zoom Previous View.
01:54So if I click on that once, it takes me to the last View.
01:56I can continue to click on it to all the different views I've been in.
02:00The next one is very interesting.
02:00It's called the Section View.
02:02I can click this part here.
02:03Click on Section and it's going to slice it in half.
02:06By default using the Front Plane to section that part.
02:10I can also use for instance, the Top Plane and drag things around in it,
02:15or the direction I want to use.
02:16Drag it up here, you can see as you're going through that part, dividing it up in different features.
02:23I can also click on the Right Plane, there it is.
02:25I can also change the angle or the distance from one of the planes
02:29to something else to make it so it doesn't change things.
02:33Once you're happy with what that does, you can click on OK,
02:36and now you've got a nice Section View of that part.
02:39Further along here we've got View Orientation, which is a lot of what we just looked at.
02:43You can look at the top, so just multiple ways you can look at the same things.
02:47Display Style. Right now we're looking at it in a shaded mode, [00:02:510.84] so I'm going to turn that Section View off, and I'm looking at this thing in shaded.
02:54I can go and change it to non-shaded, or non-edges, just wireframe, see-through...
03:01There are a lot of different options here as far as how you want to look at that environment.
03:05Also notice this is in gray. If I want to change the color, I've got this Edit Appearance.
03:11I've got a lot of different materials over here I can use on the right,
03:14so I can assign now a certain material like a glass one with that, or I can just add a color.
03:19So over here if I just say I want this thing to be red, I can click on the red,
03:22click OK and now that material or that color has been added to that part.
03:26You should now understand how to interact with drawing environments
03:28in all the relative planes and the axes.
03:31The three fundamental planes are where all drawings start from, so get started there,
03:35select your plane, start your sketch and build your model.
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The six steps used in almost all modeling features
00:00Modeling in SolidWorks is repetitive.
00:02We use the same six steps over and over and over
00:05to generate the features required to build a model.
00:09These six steps will help you to remember the basic workflow.
00:12Let's take a look at them: The Six steps of Modeling.
00:14First, select a face or plane;
00:16number two, start a sketch on that face or that plane;
00:21draw the geometry you're going to use;
00:23next, tie that geometry into the origin;
00:26add a relationship to control it;
00:27and then create the feature.
00:28Let's go ahead and try these out.
00:31Starting with a new part, when you're first into the environment,
00:34I have to start a sketch on a Face or a Plane.
00:37To do so I have these three fundamental planes here on the left-hand side:
00:42I have the Front, Top or Right.
00:42I'm going to choose the Top Plane here and then go into the Sketch and start a new sketch.
00:48Notice as I click on that, it spins that plane around.
00:51So I'm looking straight at it; that's also considered normal too.
00:54Step two, start a sketch, we're done with that.
00:57Step three, draw the geometry.
00:59I'm going to start with a rectangle. Just draw it out.
01:03The size doesn't matter right now; we're just putting some geometry on the screen.
01:05I'm going to add a couple of holes as well, so I'm going to go in here
01:08and grab the Circle Command and just place a couple of holes on the screen,
01:12location doesn't really matter.
01:14Next is, let's tie all of this geometry into the Origin.
01:17Here is the Origin in the center of the screen.
01:19We want to tie the two circles in the square so they're relational to that center point.
01:24To do that, I'm going to use a little bit of construction geometry.
01:26There's a thing called a Centerline, and I can use that to do that.
01:30I'm going to grab that upper corner here, drag a line down to the bottom right-hand corner there,
01:35and then I'm going to click on that origin,
01:37hold down the Ctrl key and grab that line.
01:40Once I select those two, it gives me the ability to add a midpoint relationship.
01:45Do that and notice it snaps to the center point.
01:46Now I've got these two circles out here that I need to do the same thing too.
01:51I'm going to start another Centerline.
01:53This time, let's start the Centerline off to the left-hand side of the screen here,
01:57and notice as I get in a horizontal-relationship to the origin, it gives me this little helper line.
02:01Click here, drag it across to the other side and snap.
02:04I'm going to select that origin again,
02:07and this time I'm going to hold down Ctrl and select the line.
02:09As soon as I let go of Ctrl, it gives me the option of the Midpoint or Coincident relationship.
02:15I'm going to choose Midpoint which makes that line
02:18so it's always on the midpoint of the origin.
02:21Now I can grab these circles, drag them directly over the points and let go.
02:27Now we've got a relationship that combines these two circles and makes them origin-centric.
02:31I'm going to add one more relationship here that just has this circle here,
02:36that circle there, and they're going to be equal.
02:38Now we're going to get more into relationships and how we add them,
02:41delete them, and change them in future chapters.
02:43I just wanted to give you a quick walkthrough them so you see how they're used.
02:46The last step is creating the Feature.
02:47What we're going to do now is Feature > Extruded Base/Boss. Click OK.
02:51As soon as I do that, it turns it into an Isometric type view,
02:55and gives me this little handle I can drag up or down.
02:58Drag that up. It gives me a representation of what it's going to create.
03:03I can also drag the arrows down to create a feature in another direction as well.
03:08As soon as it looks the way you want, click OK and you have your first feature.
03:13By remembering these basic steps, the modeling process will be easier to understand and more straightforward.
03:18Keep in mind the repetitive nature of all features.
03:21The inputs and outputs will be different, however the steps will be the same.
03:24In conclusion, let's step back and take a look at the Word document with the six steps.
03:30I recommend printing this out, putting it in your cubicle or in your desk
03:33to help you remember the six steps for your next modeling feature.
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Starting a new sketch
00:00Almost all features in SolidWorks start with a sketch.
00:03Sketching correctly and effectively is the key to be a proficient designer.
00:07In the six steps of solid modeling we covered the basics.
00:11However, let's get in a little more depth here.
00:13Let's pick either the Front, Top or Right Plane.
00:15I'm going to choose the Top Plane. Select that Plane, make sure you're in the
00:19correct sketch tab and then click the very first icon there under Sketch.
00:22As soon as I do that, I'm looking at that plane, head-on, and I'm in the Sketch environment.
00:27I'm just going to throw a little sketch up on the screen here.
00:29I'm just going to use the Rectangle Command, I'm just going to draw it out here.
00:32I'm going to use that Centerline we covered earlier,
00:37and then I'm going to click on that origin, hold down the Ctrl key and grab that line.
00:41Once I select those two, it gives me the ability to add a Midpoint relationship.
00:44So I have that first design here, I can still move it around a little bit if I need to.
00:49Once I have my first sketch, I have a couple of options.
00:53If I want to get out of that sketch and go to something else, or delete that sketch,
00:56I have these two icons on the upper right-hand corner.
00:58The first one is called Exit Sketch.
01:00What that's going to do is just going to draw me out of that sketch,
01:03and it's going to drop it over here on the left-hand side of the screen.
01:05The sketch is still there, but now it's grayed out.
01:07So I don't have the ability to edit the sketch at all.
01:09I just have it listed here as Sketch1.
01:12If I want to get back into that sketch, I can just click on it and you'll notice I get
01:15this little in-context menu box that pops up, and the very first thing is Edit Sketch.
01:20Next one is Sketch Plane.
01:21I can suppress the feature.
01:23There's a bunch of things I can do here: Show Edit, Normal To,
01:26but the first one I'm looking for is called Edit Sketch.
01:28Click on that, now I'm back in the environment that I can modify this sketch around.
01:33The second one here is Cancel, and it's just going to delete you out of that,
01:37so most time you want to use the red X because that's going to not save any of your work.
01:40Once you have what you like, what I'm going to do now is,
01:42I'm actually going to turn this into an Extruded Feature.
01:46Now we're going to cover Extruded Features in future chapters.
01:48So I'm just going into the very basic command of extruding a feature,
01:51just to give us the ability to draw on a few more faces.
01:54So I'm just going to drop that Extrude Feature there.
01:57So now we have a block we can start continuing our model on.
02:01I'm going to say Sketch, and this time instead of choosing one of these three planes here,
02:05I'm going to choose the Face.
02:06This time I'm going to choose this face here and I'm going to start a sketch on it.
02:09If I click on the Spacebar, I get the option of Normal To.
02:12That way I can spin it around and look directly on it.
02:14So I'm going to use the Circle Command,
02:17and I'm just going to put a circle right there in the center,
02:19and because I want to be Origin- centric, I'm going to use the Centerline.
02:22I'm going to tie-in from the origin to the centerpoint of that circle.
02:28Once I have that, I have the ability to go ahead and extrude it out again if I wanted to and create a feature.
02:33The Feature Manager is the main interface for controlling your model.
02:36All features and their sketches are listed in order of creation.
02:40By selecting a feature we're able to access the sketch and their properties associated with it.
02:45Each feature is independent of the others,
02:46however many features are built upon and related to the previous features.
02:50Notice the two features here; we have feature 1, our Boss-Extrude1 and Boss-Extrude2.
02:56Under each one of those features is the sketch that created it.
03:00If I want to modify it or change any of these features,
03:03I can either change the sketch that makes it or the feature that drives it.
03:07The sketch itself changes the size or the shape of it.
03:11The feature itself is really the length of the Extrude or the Cut.
03:16There are a few other options that we can put in here and we'll cover those later.
03:19But you think about it as related but independent. The sketch can be anything you want.
03:24So if I go back and I change that sketch and I make it smaller,
03:27the feature doesn't care it's smaller.
03:30Now the feature extrudes the exact same length but the sketch changed.
03:34Same thing if I go back to that same sketch, click on Normal To it,
03:39and I add a little bit to it, put one more circle out here.
03:42Get out of that and then guess what happened?
03:47It just added one more circle to that Extrude feature.
03:51The Feature Manager over here looks exactly the same.
03:53The only thing that changed was that underlying sketch, and we just added one thing to it.
03:56So we can always go back and change or modify each one of those.
03:59To get into that mode, we click on the sketch we want to change,
04:02click on Edit Sketch or click on the Feature itself and change that entire Feature.
04:09The Feature Manager is user's main interface for working with a model.
04:13Understanding the key aspects of the interface is an essential skill
04:17to being proficient in SolidWorks.
04:19However, sketching is the most important aspect of design and the key to a good SolidWorks feature.
04:25Take the time to think through your sketches and develop simple and effective layouts.
04:30Look for symmetry, use construction geometry, and add relations.
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3. Basic Sketching Tools
Sketching lines and center lines
00:00The Line tool is the most common tool in our arsenal of Sketch tools.
00:04It's simple to use and easy to understand.
00:07To get started, let's click on the Sketch tab, make sure we've got a Sketch button up here.
00:11Then, we have to choose a face or a plane.
00:13Notice we don't have any faces, so we must choose one of the planes.
00:15I'm going to choose the Top Plane and click on Sketch.
00:18Once we're in the Sketch environment, we're going to jump in and grab the Line tool.
00:22The Line tools are what we're going to use to create most of geometry in our model.
00:27So we're going to use the click- click method to get started with that.
00:30So I'm going to click once where I want to start,
00:32and then notice as I move my mouse around the screen,
00:35I get this little length indicator, telling me how long that line is.
00:39As I get close to the horizontal here, notice it pops up with an angle of 180 degrees
00:44and if go up here, I get like 135, 90, and then somewhere over here,
00:51we've got a 45, 0 and I've got a length.
00:53If I didn't want any of those, I just figure out where I want to end my line,
00:58click one more time, and it stops.
00:59As soon as I've created my first line though, I get these like helper lines,
01:03the little yellow lines on the screen and I can use those to create geometry
01:07that it's going to automatically add a relationship.
01:09So notice if I click here, I would automatically add the relationship of
01:12being perpendicular to the first line I created.
01:14I don't really want to do that, so I'm just going to click out here.
01:17Once I'm done creating lines with this command, I want to exit out of it.
01:21To do that, I hit Esc. It takes me out and I'm back to my regular selection cursor.
01:26The other thing we might want to use in SolidWorks is Construction Geometry.
01:30Now Construction Geometry is not actually used for creating models.
01:34It's really just for laying things out, so that we have lines and
01:37things that we can use to tie things to the origin or tie objects together
01:41without actually using that geometry to create that feature or that solid.
01:45So, to grab Construction Geometry, we're going to use what's called a Centerline Command.
01:50Now, the Centerline Command and Construction Geometry really is the same thing,
01:55just they're calling it Centerline but we can use it as Construction Geometry.
01:58So I'm going to create a line from this endpoint by clicking there.
02:02Click again on the other side.
02:03I've got my first Construction Line. Hit Esc, and turn off that command.
02:08Clicking on that line, notice over here on the left-hand pane is the Line Properties.
02:13One of the things that is turned on is for construction; I'm using that line for construction.
02:17If I were to turn that off, it would turn it back into a regular line.
02:21Same thing as I click on a regular line. I can go back, and turn that one to the construction.
02:25So I have the ability to switch between one and the other.
02:27Keep in mind though, only the real lines are actually going to be used;
02:31construction lines are only there just as these helper lines
02:33to help things lay out in the correct fashion.
02:36We have the ability to move these lines around.
02:38If I select the center of the line, I can drag that line in and out
02:42to change the shape, but notice the orientation doesn't change.
02:45If I want to change the orientation, I click on the endpoints of any of the lines.
02:48That way, I can drag those points around to change that shape; so click on the endpoints.
02:53Grab the line, I will grab the end point.
02:55I'm going to jump back in the Line command right now and I'm going to start a new line here at the top.
03:01So I'm going to click once, and once I drag it out here, I'm just going to drag it on the horizontal.
03:04If I were to drop this line right here, it's going to create
03:08what's called a horizontal line, an auto-relationship.
03:09Let's go ahead and do that.
03:12As soon as I do that, it drops this little green box right below that line.
03:15That means it's attached to that line.
03:17If I mouse over it, it highlights the line and it shows
03:20this is a horizontal line and now it has that relationship, saying so.
03:23If I didn't want that there, I can click on just the green box and I can hit the Delete key. It drops it out.
03:28If I wanted it again, I can always go back, and I can add that in again.
03:32We're going to cover relationships more in the future, but just so you know that
03:36if you're drawing, that's one of the things that's going to pop up over and over again.
03:40Coming back here, grabbing another line here, same thing with the helper lines.
03:45We've got the same option with the vertical.
03:46If I go and create other lines here somewhere, those helper lines are always going to pop up
03:51and allow me to continue to draw at right angles and
03:54it's going to start adding horizontal or vertical relationships as I go.
03:59The Line tool is the basis for most sketches in SolidWorks.
04:02Although, it's simple to use, it's also one of the most powerful building blocks
04:05in the SolidWorks tool library.
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Using the Circle tool
00:00The Circle tool takes us to the next stage in sketching.
00:03From the Circle tool, we also get the basis for arcs.
00:06There are several methods for creating circles in SolidWorks
00:09and the most basic is the Center Point Circle.
00:11To get started, click on the Sketch tab, start a new sketch, and let's pick a plane.
00:15I can go up here, and grab the Circle command, and notice there's a little dropdown next to it.
00:21So I have two options; I have the Perimeter Circle or the Center Point Circle.
00:23Let's pick the first one.
00:25I'm going to go ahead and click right on the origin, and then drag this out.
00:29Notice a little heads-up radius button I can see there.
00:32It tells us exactly what size that circle is going to be creating.
00:34Now, my second click is going to drop that on the screen.
00:37Notice my cursor is still the Circle command.
00:40So anywhere I drag-and-drop a circle or a two-point click,
00:44I'm just going to continue creating circles.
00:45To get out of that, go ahead and hit Esc, and change back to my regular cursor.
00:49If I want to move these circles around the screen.
00:51I can click on the center point of that circle to drag it around the screen,
00:56or I can click on the perimeter of it to change its size.
00:59Go over here, I can drag this one around, change this one's perimeter.
01:04The circle in the center though has got this relationship that was added.
01:07So if I try to grab that center point and drag it around, it won't let me.
01:10It says cannot drag.
01:12And the reason is, we have this coincident relationship that's locking us to that origin.
01:16If I don't want that, I can always click on that, hit Delete.
01:20Now, I have the ability to drag that around the screen.
01:22If I want to add that back in, I can click on that center point of the circle.
01:26I can hold down Ctrl, select the origin, and I can re-add that relationship, bring it back there.
01:32We're going to get more into relationship in the next chapter.
01:34However, I just want to make you were understanding what was actually happening there.
01:38If I don't like a circle, I can always click on it, and hit the Delete key. Take it away.
01:43If I want to add it back, I can just grab it up here, drag it out again.
01:46Drag one of these circles and I drag it over on top of the other circle.
01:50Notice as I get close to it, it highlights the circle it's going to drop it on,
01:53and it also says, a proposed relationship it's going to add.
01:57So notice if I drop it on here, it's going to add a coincident relationship to that circle.
02:01Let go, notice it adds that relationship; there it is!
02:04What that means is now I'm locked onto the outside of that circle.
02:07I can spin it around, I can drag it out, drag it in, but it's locked onto the base circle.
02:12This circle over here, grab. I can drag it around. Same thing as I highlight over that.
02:17But notice there are these four little points around that circle.
02:20So if I actually snap this on one of those points,
02:24not only does it add a coincident relationship, but also a horizontal relationship.
02:28So now there are two.
02:30Now, I cannot spin that one at all, but I can drag it in and out.
02:33So I have a relationship added to both of those circles.
02:37If I don't like any one of those, I can always click on it,
02:39I can right-click on it if I want to and I can say Delete,
02:41or I can just click on the circle itself, hit Delete, get rid of it.
02:45I have the ability to move these things around.
02:48The next type of circle is the Perimeter Circle, and I'm going to go up here and grab that circle.
02:53What that's created from is a series of three points.
02:56So I already have some points I can kind of pull out of the sketch that we already have.
03:00So I can click on like the point here, I can click on a point here, and maybe like the origin;
03:05those three points and it creates a circle through those three points.
03:08If I just want to place three points out here in the Sketch environment,
03:13I can also create a circle through those.
03:15Grab the Perimeter Circle, click here, click there, and click there,
03:20and it creates a circle through those three.
03:21That's a Perimeter Circle and by changing any one of these points, [00:03:265.73] and dragging it around, I can also affect how that circle looks and shapes.
03:29Notice it gives me those three automatic relationship thing;
03:32that circle is linked to those three points.
03:34The Circle tool and the Line command are the two sketch entities needed
03:37to build almost all geometry in SolidWorks.
03:40Mastery of these tools is essential to being proficient in SoildWorks.
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Adding and removing relationships
00:00Relations are what take simple sketch entities to the next level.
00:04Relations can control size, location, and equality between sketch elements.
00:09Relations are a core function of SolidWorks and understanding how they work is essential.
00:14Let's take a look at these four lines on the screen.
00:16You think about what creates a rectangle or what creates a square?
00:19Is this a square or a rectangle? Probably not.
00:22So let's take a look and see how we can convert this to being a rectangle or a square.
00:26We're going to do so using relationships.
00:30If I click on this first line here, notice it highlights.
00:33If I hold down the Ctrl key, I have the ability to select the adjacent line.
00:37As soon as I release the Ctrl key, I get this little pop-up window here giving me a bunch of options:
00:43Horizontal, Vertical, Collinear, Perpendicular, Parallel, Equal, or Fixed.
00:51These are a bunch of relationships that I can add to these two lines to control how they interact.
00:57Notice, I also have those exact same Relationships over here on the left-hand side.
01:01So to create this into a rectangle, we probably want to add a relationship
01:05that has a perpendicularity between those two.
01:08Click on this first one and notice what happens, it changes the way they interact,
01:11and it's given us this little Relationship Indicator showing
01:14there's a perpendicular relationship between these two.
01:16Now if I highlight over that little green box, notice the two related lines highlight.
01:22But we still don't quite have a rectangle, do we?
01:24So let's try again on the other side.
01:26So let's click on this first line here, hold down Ctrl, select the next line and
01:31add that same Perpendicular Relationship.
01:33Well, it's getting closer, but it's still not quite right.
01:37So the third one we're going to add is going to actually turn this into a rectangle.
01:40So I'm going to click here, hold down Ctrl, select the next line, and go ahead and say Perpendicular.
01:46Now we've got a rectangle, we can drag it out, we can move it around;
01:49we can play with this rectangle.
01:51But it's not horizontal; it's not a horizontal rotation.
01:54It's kind of rotated out in some angle here.
01:56So I can then add one more relationship here to the top.
01:59I can say this line here is Horizontal, and now I've got a rectangle that's quite controlled.
02:04We don't quite have it linked to the origin yet; that would be the next step,
02:08but we can obviously go ahead and add up one more line here,
02:12which would be a construction line, which is not used for the geometry, just to help us lay it out.
02:16I'm going to add another relationship here as far as this line.
02:19I'm going to hold down the Ctrl, select the origin,
02:21and this time I'm going to say, I want this to be right in the Midpoint of that line.
02:26Now as I drag this rectangle around, it's linked to the origin and all these
02:31relationships are constantly active controlling the shape of the object.
02:37If I don't like one of these relationships, I can always just click on that relationship and hit Delete.
02:42Notice if I delete the relationship, the lines don't move, they stay exactly where they were.
02:47However, if I click on this line now, I have the ability to start wiggling this
02:51thing around and it's going to start violating this being a nice rectangle.
02:55So if I want to fix it again, I go back here, add that relationship one more time,
02:59and I'm back to where I was.
03:01Sometimes when you're looking at these drawings, you can see a lot of these relationships.
03:05It makes it hard to kind of see what's going on, or you might be not seeing them at all.
03:09To show or hide these, you can go into the View Command, click on View and
03:13go down here to Sketch Relations. Hide them, and you can back and you can say Show them.
03:19Adding and using relations can be a huge time saver
03:21and make your sketches easier to update and simpler to understand.
03:25Relationships are used throughout SolidWorks and an understanding of how they work
03:29is the most important thing in SolidWorks.
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Understanding relationship types
00:00We've covered some of the basic relationships, now we're going to go a little more in-depth
00:04and cover all of the relationships that we can possibly add to sketch entities.
00:09To get started, we're going to start with Coincident.
00:11Coincident is probably your most common of the sketch relations, and what that means is
00:16it's going to have one point just touching another or one line touching another line.
00:20So the origin is here, if I would like to make a Coincident Relationship between the two,
00:24I click on the point, hold down Ctrl, select the other point that I would like to make that related to.
00:30As soon as I let go, it gives me the three options that would be available,
00:34the three relationships that would make sense in that situation.
00:38So the first one would be either Horizontal, Vertical, or Coincident.
00:42So Coincident, and that just moves down there and locks on to that origin.
00:46It gives us this little reminder box in green showing that the relationship has been added.
00:50Now I can move that line around.
00:53So one side of it is connected but the other side is still free.
00:55I could connect this point and this point in the same manner,
01:00but instead of holding down Ctrl and selecting the two points,
01:03I can just click on that and just drag it over.
01:05As I drag it over, notice it snaps on to that point,
01:09which produces the same type of relationship and locks those together.
01:13So that's a Coincident Relationship again, but notice it doesn't
01:17give us the little green box, because it's an implied relationship this time,
01:20because I was just saying these two points are not connected.
01:22So Connected and Coincident are very similar.
01:25This line over here, I can drag around.
01:30So we're going to look at a few different of the other relationships we can add to this.
01:34First one would be just Horizontal.
01:36So I'm going to actually drag this down a little bit easier here so you can see.
01:41So if I were to just make this line straight on the Horizontal,
01:46it would automatically snap to the Horizontal,
01:49but not necessarily give you that Horizontal Relationship.
01:51Notice it gives a white box, means it's implying a Horizontal,
01:54but it's not actually going to add that relationship.
01:56If I do want to add a relationship to make this Horizontal,
01:59just click on the line and say Horizontal.
02:01Now it adds a green box with a Horizontal Relationship
02:05and now this line can't do anything besides be Horizontal.
02:07I'm going to draw another line here.
02:09Notice, if I draw it correctly in the Vertical, it adds that Vertical Relationship.
02:16If I draw another line kind of off at an angle here, and I want it to be Vertical,
02:19I can select the line and then just select Vertical; it does the same thing.
02:25Notice here, this also added a relationship.
02:28Notice the 1 following the relationship; that mean it's just a pair.
02:33So you're just looking for 1 matches 1, 2 matches 2, 3 matches 3 and so on.
02:37So if I highlight that relationship, the two pairs match up.
02:42And notice, what it's saying is the endpoint of this line here is Coincident to this line,
02:47even though they're actually not touching. So let's move it around.
02:50The next one we're looking at is Perpendicular; we covered this a little earlier.
02:54But say these two lines here, we can say select one of the lines,
02:58hold down Ctrl, select the other line,
03:00now we have a whole bunch of options we can use.
03:02So I'm going to pick the Perpendicular one and that just adds that right angle to that corner.
03:06I could still spin it around, but it continues to maintain that relationship.
03:10Parallel is the next one, I'm just going to add one more line over here.
03:14To add Parallel Relationship I'm just going to select the pair by holding on Ctrl,
03:18selecting the two objects, and clicking on Make Parallel.
03:21And no matter what I do, I can move these things around, those are always going to be parallel.
03:27Equal is the next one, so I'm going to use this pair of lines here,
03:30select this line here, hold down Ctrl, select that line there,
03:33add the Equal Relationship; now they are the same length.
03:35If I move these things around, I can notice these little helper lines will pop up
03:39if I want to arrange these in some manner, if I'm going to create some kind of an object
03:44or a sketch to be extruded or turn it into some kind of geometry.
03:48The last one is Fixed, and Fixed is very useful if you want to kind of constrain a point or a whole line.
03:54So if I just want this whole line here, if I add this little anchor to it
03:57that says Make Fixed, it just means this line can't really move.
04:00I can still drag the ends of it, but the line itself, it can't move.
04:04I can't move this line up and down and I can't drag it.
04:06But I can change the length of it still.
04:08If I got rid of that one and I just added that Fixed Relationship to the end,
04:15then just that side of the line won't move, so I can't grab this one.
04:18The same thing if I created another line here, just off in space;
04:23actually get rid of that, add a Fixed Relationship just at the end of it.
04:27Now I have something that I can drag around, but it's going to be fixed at one end.
04:32Learn and use relationships in your designs.
04:34They make for simpler sketches with parametric attributes.
04:38They are a fundamental part of SolidWorks and give the designer
04:40the added power beyond basic pen and ink sketching.
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Dimensioning a sketch to define specific size attributes
00:00Now that we've learned the Line and the Circle Command,
00:03let's go ahead and create a part using those and we'll learn also
00:06how to dimension that part and put it all together.
00:09So to get started, let's just start a sketch.
00:11I'm going to choose the Top Plane.
00:13We're going to make a little bolt link in this Part,
00:15so it's going to start off with a Centerline,
00:17so we obviously want to tie everything to the origin.
00:19So I'm just going to start a line here, snap it across here,
00:22and then I just want to make sure it's centered on the origin,
00:24so I'm going to select the origin, hold down Ctrl, select the line,
00:28and I'm going to say I want this to be Midpoint.
00:31Then I'm going to grab the Circle command, which we already learned, center point circle,
00:35I'm just going to snap it to the endpoint here, click once, drag it out, click again.
00:39Same thing down here, click on the point, drag it out, click again.
00:42Now these are not the exact same size, so let's go ahead and add a relationship,
00:46which we just learned about, so let's click on the top circle,
00:49hold down Ctrl, select the other circle and let's say these are Equal.
00:52Now we're going to make the outside of the link.
00:55So that's going to be made up of two more circles and two lines.
00:59So I'm going to grab that circle again, click on the endpoint, drag it out,
01:03and do the same thing down here, click on the center point, drag it out.
01:06Same thing; let's make these both equal.
01:09Now use a couple of lines to connect these two together.
01:12I'm going to snap to that quadrant here, drag a line down here to the quadrant here,
01:17hit Esc; it ends that one segment.
01:19Grab that line again, up here, grab that quadrant,
01:23drag down here to the next quadrant and end.
01:25Now we can get out of that line command by either hitting Esc or double-clicking.
01:29One thing we haven't covered yet but we will in the next chapter,
01:32I'm going to give you a preview of, is the Trim command.
01:34Now, the Trim command is just going to allow us to trim out
01:36these extra parts of the circle that we don't want.
01:38So I'm going to grab the Trim and I'm just going to trim out through these,
01:42through these, through these, and through those. So now we have what we call as the link.
01:47Notice I can drag this around to change size, both in and out of here.
01:51Notice there is no dimensions though, so now we're going to learn about dimensioning a Part.
01:54My hole to hole center here should be 4 inches.
01:58So I'm going to add the dimension.
02:00Click on the Smart Dimension tab, come over here, our cursor turns into a dimensioning icon.
02:04Now I can grab that line, drag it out, and click the end where I want to place that dimension at, click here.
02:11Notice it gives me the name of the dimension automatically and then the length.
02:14If I want to change that I can change it here, Length, and notice now it says the Length@Sketch1.
02:19Now I could make that anything I really wanted to and just keep something that's descriptive.
02:25Type in 4.0 here in this box, click on the green check mark.
02:28It says accepting the dimension, and now it modifies the size and shape of that
02:32and gives us that 4-inch dimension.
02:34I can drag this around just by clicking it and dragging it, and let's tie it together now.
02:37I can still move the other parts of this, but I can't change that length.
02:43A couple more dimensions we want to add, so go back up here, grab the Smart Dimension Tool.
02:47We can either click on the Radius here or this distance from here to here, so let's just do that.
02:51So I'm going to click on the first item, notice it gives me the 4.00,
02:54and then drag over here and select the second item we want to dimension to,
02:57which now gives a dimension between those two items.
03:00Over here I'm going to say 2.0.
03:03That brings that in a little bit and now these circles need to be adjusted.
03:07I can always drag these in and out to get them close to the right size,
03:11and then I'm going to go ahead and add a dimension there.
03:12So I'm just going to click on that circle, anywhere on the diameter of it,
03:16drag out a dimension, just click wherever I want to place that dimension,
03:19and I'm just going to say 0.75.
03:23Notice the lines have been changing color.
03:26When we first had the lines drawn, they were all blue,
03:28which means they are under- defined or undefined sketches.
03:31As they turn black, that means they are fully defined.
03:34So notice all the lines in the sketch are now black.
03:37That means they are fully defined, they know exactly what they are,
03:39and I can click on any one of these things and try to drag it around,
03:41nothing is going to move, it's a fully defined sketch.
03:44Now if I were to cause a problem, for instance I went up here and I add an additional dimension,
03:51it says, do we want to leave this driving? So I'm going to say Yes.
03:54Notice what it does to our sketch, it turns it all yellow and says,
03:58we have Conflicts, the whole sketch is conflicting here, because I'm defining it twice.
04:03I'm saying down here it's 2 inches across and then I'm saying up here the Radius is 1 inch.
04:08So SolidWorks actually doesn't know which one to use.
04:11So it says, these two conflict, and it highlights everything in yellow that's causing a problem.
04:16Notice the two circles in here are still black, they're not in violation.
04:19So I can either delete this or I can delete this, either one of them will solve the problem.
04:24This is fully defined and it's back.
04:25Now if you do something that turns everything red, which is a major violation,
04:30it means that not only is it a conflicting dimension,
04:32but it's also actually causing the sketch to fail, that's when you're really in trouble.
04:36And the same thing happens is, it's going to highlight all the items in red
04:40who might be causing the trouble, so you need to delete or change those items
04:43to get back to a state of having a fully defined sketch in black.
04:48The next step here is to turn that into a 3D Part,
04:50and we're just going to skip ahead and give a Preview of the Extrude command.
04:53I'm going to drag this out a little bit, we're going to make it a half-inch thick,
04:57just type in 0.5 over here, click on OK.
05:00This movie combined the Line, Circle, and Centerline commands.
05:04We also learned and used relationships together to create a usable part.
05:08We also got a first look at the Trim and Extrude commands.
05:12Dimensioning is very important in SolidWorks and make sure to fully define your sketches
05:16with no blue lines, no yellow lines, and definitely no red lines.
05:20Now we have a complete Part and this Part will be used later in the course.
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Setting system options, units, and templates
00:00Understanding how to modify basic system options is essential to getting the correct results out of the software.
00:06Templates are the starting point for parts, assemblies, and drawings.
00:10We're going to create our own template to use in the rest of the course.
00:13Right now I have a new part, there's nothing in it quite yet,
00:16and we want to go in and change some of the options around.
00:19So each part we start with always has a starting template it uses.
00:24On the top of the screen, we've got a couple of things up here;
00:27the very end one is called Options.
00:29If I click on that, get this window that pops up.
00:31I have my General options here, I have Drawing options as far as
00:34how I want to look at things, a lot of things you can go through here;
00:38some of the colors of the background, the sketch, the displays.
00:41But this is more system-wide options, this gives more document property.
00:45So click on this other tab here, that's going to give us Drafting Standards:
00:48How we want to look at that? Arrows, the Fonts, the Leaders, the Dimensions.
00:53How we want these to show up when I start drawing these on screen? How's that going to look?
00:57Detailing, What do we want to actually show on our parts? Do we want to show a grid?
01:02Units is one we're going to probably use a lot.
01:04Do we want to input our dimensions in millimeters or in inches or centimeters or meters or miles or however
01:11we want to use or input those dimensions and then how many decimal points do we actually want to use.
01:16So I'm right at, you see there is two, I could enter three or four depending on what I want to change that to.
01:22If I change these things, it actually was based upon a standard, so that's an ANSI standard.
01:28Now I'm changing this to an ANSI-MODIFIED standard because I'm changing the tolerance of those inputs.
01:33That's fine depending on what kind of design you're working with;
01:36you might need more or less precision.
01:38A couple of other things down here, we can look at like Image Quality,
01:43just how you want to see those things on the screen.
01:45Once you have everything kind of set up exactly the way you are,
01:47you just click OK and that goes away.
01:50Now we have Part7, which is an open Part.
01:52I want to save out these changes I made though to this template
01:56to be my starting point for every new part I'm going to get started with.
02:00I don't want to have to go up there and change it for millimeters to inches each time.
02:03So to do that, I'm going to go to the File menu . Under File menu, I'm just going to Save As.
02:08When we Save As, by default, it says Save As type Part which is here.
02:14But I don't want to save this as a part, I actually want to save this as a part template,
02:18which is the third one down Part template. So it's prtdot.
02:20Once I've got a Part template I can name it out,
02:25I'm going to name my Part template here, lynda2.
02:30And then where do we want to save these Part templates at?
02:31Now you can save this anywhere you would like.
02:34I have a folder on my C drive which is called SolidWorks Data and you probably have one similar.
02:39I'm going to click in here and I already have one template, I'm just going to have one more,
02:42so one of two, and you can have as many templates as you want.
02:45So you can turn things on and off, change units, change features,
02:49change the look of your start point and just save those out
02:53as a variety pack of different templates you might be using.
02:54So click on Save, that just saves it as a template.
02:57Now there's one more thing we need to do to kind of hook this up.
02:59When we start our files off it actually goes and finds that template that I want to use.
03:03So I'll go back up here to Options, and this time we're going to be in the System Options tab.
03:08We want to go down here to file locations.
03:11Click on File locations and document templates that's what it's asking for,
03:14where are these templates stored at right now.
03:17We need to add a path to wherever that folder is we just saved our template at.
03:21So click on Add, go ahead to C drive which is where I saved this at,
03:27and I saved it in SolidWorks data and that's all I need.
03:30You notice it adds C:\SolidWorks Data as a path to our template.
03:33Once we're happy with that, click on OK, it saves that out.
03:38Now when I go start a new Part, I'm going to go to New,
03:42and notice we're in what's called the Novice window here.
03:44There's a basic part that's being used each time.
03:48When I click on the Advanced tab, I actually have a few more options as far as where I want to start my Part from.
03:54So here is the basic Templates here installed with SolidWorks,
03:57and then each of these new tabs up here are the paths that I'm going to add.
04:01So notice I added that last path here; SolidWorks data.
04:03Here's lynda1 and lynda2, my two user- defined templates that I can start from.
04:07I'm going to pick lynda2, click OK and that starts up my new Part.
04:10So this has all the changes that we've already made. I'd just like to go back up here, take a look.
04:15So we can change the inches, we could put three place decimal.
04:18Those units or option changes will automatically propagate through.
04:21Creating a template configured with all the options that you want to use in your design
04:26will save you time and help you focus on the design,
04:28versus constantly having to modify system options on a Part-by-Part basis.
04:32Create templates in all your most common Part types.
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4. Relationships and Sketching Tools
Sketching rectangles
00:01The Rectangle command is nothing more than four line segments and some relationships auto-created by SolidWorks.
00:06There are several types of rectangles preloaded into SolidWorks tools.
00:10We can use them or we can create our own.
00:13Depending on the tool we use, the relationships are added differently.
00:16The Rectangle is a nonessential command since it can be created with just four line segments,
00:21however it's a huge time saver.
00:23Let's jump into SolidWorks and create some rectangles.
00:26I'm going to go into the Sketch tab, start a new sketch
00:29and we're going to select the Top Plane to start sketching on.
00:34So if I click on the Rectangle tab, there's a bunch of options here.
00:38There are five different types of rectangles on the little dropdown arrow.
00:41The very first one is the Corner Rectangle.
00:43Let's go ahead and check that one.
00:44Corner Rectangle is created by creating a start point and then an end point.
00:49So we're going to start at the origin.
00:50Click once, drag it out, and notice as I'm dragging,
00:53I get this little heads-up display of the X and Y size of that rectangle.
00:58Get to the size I want, click again to place the second part of that rectangle.
01:02Notice as I created that rectangle, SolidWorks automatically adds some relationships for us.
01:08We've got a vertical, a vertical, and a horizontal and a horizontal relationship
01:12that have been pre-added by SolidWorks that defines those lines.
01:16Now I can just add a couple of dimensions to define the shape.
01:20So I'm going to type in 12 there and for the dimension from this line to this line, I'm going to type in 10.
01:27Now I have a fully-defined rectangle that's a two-point Corner Rectangle.
01:30Now, if I'm looking in SolidWorks and I'd like to get rid of whatever I'm drawing on or working with,
01:34I can drag a rectangle over a section, highlight the whole thing,
01:39and then hit Delete to get rid of it.
01:40The next one is going to be the Center Point Rectangle. So, click on that.
01:44Center Point Rectangle is created much the same way but this time it's going to start
01:48at the origin and when I drag it out notice it's located now on the center point
01:52where I clicked and then I'm grabbing that upper right-hand corner.
01:56Same thing, it's giving me a heads-up display of exactly the size I'm using.
01:59So click there somewhere.
02:00Now, we've got a nice rectangle. I can drag it around to change its size.
02:04It's very similar to the first rectangle we created,
02:08in that it's got a vertical, vertical, horizontal, horizontal, auto-relations,
02:12but we've also got these two center lines that were added and
02:15we've got some coincident points saying that these lines are in the center points
02:20or the coincident point to that origin locking it on there in the center.
02:24I can drag this around and I'm going to go ahead and add a couple more dimensions.
02:29Click there, click there and the third click is going to be where you want to place the dimension.
02:33Type in 30 and go over here and click again.
02:36This time I'm going to type in 18, click OK.
02:40There's our fully- defined Center Point Rectangle.
02:42I'm going to highlight this.
02:43One other thing as far as highlighting is if I highlight from the upper left-hand corner
02:47and drag it onto the right-hand corner, what that does is it's a selective highlight.
02:51See nothing is actually highlighted because I haven't fully gone around that line.
02:55As I drag a little further down, still nothing.
02:59However, if I come from the bottom right to the upper left, anything it touches will automatically highlight.
03:04So it's a little option there as far as how you want to highlight.
03:07If I select everything it automatically works. Let's get down.
03:10The next one is 3 Points Corner Rectangle.
03:12I'm going to start at the origin again, and by the way, I don't need to start at the origin,
03:16I'm just doing that because I always want my designs to be origin-centric.
03:20So I'm going to click at the origin. This time I'm going to drag out a line.
03:23It gives me that dimension and also the angle that I'm pulling that out at.
03:27Click here and then my third click is going to define the width of the rectangle there.
03:34And notice the relationships that were added here.
03:36So I've got a perpendicular. I've got a parallel relationship.
03:40Notice the 4 and 4 mean those are a pair.
03:43I've also got another perpendicular down here and then a coincident meaning that rectangle is locked on to origin.
03:49If I didn't want it locked on the origin, I can just click on that coincident, delete it,
03:53and now I have the ability to drag that around and move it around somewhere else if I wanted to.
03:57That's the 3 Point Rectangle. Let's delete that.
04:00The next one we're going to grab is the 3 Point Center Rectangle, which is very similar.
04:06This time I'm going to click on the origin again, drag out at the angle,
04:09and this time it's very similar to the Center Rectangle but this time it's at an angle.
04:15And notice the relationships that were added are different now.
04:18I've got the ability to now spin this, which we didn't have before.
04:22Now if I want to define the angle this is at, I'm going to add a construction line from the origin
04:28just kind of out here and notice I'm adding in it as a horizontal line, so it's defined.
04:33Notice, it's horizontal.
04:34Now I'm going to add a relationship that says from that horizontal line to
04:39some other line on the rectangle, which I'm using that bottom line.
04:42I can define that angle now. I'm just going to type in 35 degrees.
04:45It defines that rotation.
04:47Now we're going to go and add a few more dimensions to define that shape.
04:51So I'm going to click on the far side here to this side here and then place that dimension.
04:55This time I'm going to type in 100 as far as the length and the same thing on the width.
05:01Click on this line, click on that line, third click is me placing it,
05:0545 and there we go, fully defined rectangle at an angle.
05:09Now, if I wanted to change any one of these dimensions,
05:12I would just double-click on it, type in a new dimension and it automatically updates.
05:16Same thing with the length.
05:17Change this to 80, click OK and there it is.
05:21Select all of that, delete, and we're going to jump onto our last Parallelogram.
05:26I'm going to start at the origin again, drag out a line.
05:30This time, I have the option to change the angle and the height. Place it here.
05:34Now I'm going to define this angle here between these two lines.
05:38So I'm going to click on the first line, go over here,
05:41click on the second line and place the dimension.
05:44I'm going to type in 50 degrees for that one.
05:46Now I'm going to define a couple of dimensions and notice I've got a few options here.
05:51I'm going to dimension either from the top to the bottom,
05:53which would be a hard dimension, or I could dimension from aligned at an angle.
05:59As I move that dimension around, it keeps following me around.
06:03So either I have the direct height here or if I go aligned with this edge, it'll give me that dimension.
06:09So depending where you place these dimensions, it will define the shape a little bit better.
06:13And then same thing over here, I've got still one degree of freedom here.
06:17If I click on this bottom line here, I get 77, but if I didn't want that type of dimension,
06:23I could dimension, for instance, from this point here to that point there.
06:27Now, this is an option that if I have it here, it's going to give me this overall length.
06:31However, if I start moving it this way, now I've got the kind of unaligned dimension,
06:36or if I get over here, I'm going to give a height again and I've got a lot of different options
06:38of where I'm going to place that dimension to define the length of that part.
06:41I'm going to type in 100 and click OK.
06:44We've got a fully defined part.
06:46Rectangles can be created in many different ways.
06:48However, any way you create them, they're still just four lines and several relationships.
06:53Use them to save time and learn from the way the SolidWorks applies
06:57those relationships to use in your other designs.
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Creating arcs in a sketch
00:00Arcs are a segment of a circle and can be created in much the same way.
00:04Arcs do need more information than a circle, because you need to define where
00:08the beginning and ending points are, in addition to the center location and the radius.
00:12Let's jump into SolidWorks and create some arcs.
00:16The Arc command is directly below the Circle command, and if I click on the
00:19arrow next to the Arc icon I get the three options here;
00:22I've got the Centerpoint Arc, the Tangent Arc, and the 3 Point.
00:25So let's just go through those in order.
00:26So Centerpoint Arc is very similar to a Centerpoint Circle.
00:30I'm just going to click on the centerpoint to start off.
00:33Define the radius of that circle or the defining circle,
00:37and then wherever I start my click at is where I'm going to start that arc at.
00:40Notice I can drag this around to define that shape.
00:44So as I move around that circle or move on the other direction, I get that shape,
00:49and it has a couple of helper lines that will pop-up and snap to the horizontal for instance,
00:53or something else like that, depending on how we want to define it.
00:56So I'm just going to go over here and click here.
00:58The problem with an arc is it's just floating out in space, right?
01:01I can grab these endpoints, I can drag it around a little bit.
01:04So I don't really have a good way to define everything about this arc.
01:08So if I put a Dimension on here, I know the radius of it, okay, that's fine.
01:11So I can type in a 75, for instance, great.
01:15But still the endpoints are just floating around.
01:17We know it's tied to the centerpoint, which is great.
01:19Those are the two pieces of information that we'd define a circle with.
01:22Now we need to go ahead and tie these ends in.
01:24So my favorite way to do this would be to use some centerlines.
01:27So I'm going to go from the origin out to one of those arcs, double-click, and start one more.
01:33Now I've get kind of a definitive attachment to the centerpoint.
01:37And now I can put some dimensioning in here, so I'll dimension from line to line
01:41and I can define how many degrees I want that arc to go through.
01:44For instance, I'm going to type in 130 and there it is.
01:47But notice they're still undefined, or I can still spin this thing around.
01:51So I could say something like this line I want to be Horizontal,
01:54so I'm using those relationships again to define it.
01:57Now I look at everything here, it's a fully-defined sketch,
02:00everything has got a number or dimension or angle.
02:02So if we want to change any one of these things, we can obviously just type in a new number.
02:07It's going to change, but it's fully- defined at this point. Okay.
02:09Let's delete that and jump on to our next arc. This is the Tangent Arc.
02:15Now Tangent Arc is a special condition that needs to start from a straight line.
02:20It needs to be tangent to something.
02:21So before I actually can get into this command, I'm going to hit Esc,
02:24get out of that, and I'm going to create a line.
02:26So I can either use our regular line or a Centerline,
02:29so I'm going to use the Centerline here, start from the origin, drag it out,
02:32and I once have the line defined, now I can use that Tangent Arc to start from that,
02:37and now it's tangent to that line segment, so I can drag it out,
02:41move it around any way I want, get to the point I like.
02:44Notice it gives me some helper lines as far as the angle and the radius, drop that on there.
02:49And notice I stay in that command, depending on where I go.
02:52And I can continue with that Tangent Arc from another arc.
02:55So if I click on the endpoint here, I can still be tangent to that first arc and continue on,
03:00but the thing about Tangent Arcs is that we always need to start from some other type of item to be tangent to.
03:06I can define this a little better by giving it a dimension, as far as a radius.
03:11I'll type in 100 inches here, and now we're going to need to some more information.
03:16We need to have a dimension here, I'll type in 140.
03:18Now we have a fully-defined arc besides that endpoint, right?
03:21So we don't know how far this is going up here, so we need to define that.
03:26And I'm going to use that same method I used before, just using the centerline,
03:30snapping it to that endpoint, now I have the ability to kind of drag that around.
03:34Now, I can define this in multiple different ways.
03:37I can add a Relationship or a Horizontal, or I can it give it an Angle if I wanted to.
03:42So say like 20 degrees from the Horizontal, and that'll define that arc for us, that's a Tangent Arc.
03:47Okay, let's delete that.
03:49The last arc here is a 3 Point Arc, quite simple.
03:54We're going to pick on the centerpoint again,
03:57and my second place is going to be what I want to snap to, so I'm going to snap up here.
04:01Notice it's just giving me a length at this point in time.
04:04Then my third click is defining how much that's going to arc out,
04:07and now I'm getting some more helper lines as far as the angle that I'm at
04:10and the radius that I'm at as far as that shape.
04:12So that third placement is going to drop it here.
04:16Now, I can define this a lot of different ways.
04:17I can move the arc itself or the endpoint or either one of the endpoints or the centerpoint.
04:23So we have a lot of control with this one.
04:25But it's also a lot of degrees of freedom, and I need to tie down to make this a fully-defined sketch.
04:30So to get that point, I need to get the Centerline.
04:33There's a lot of different ways to do this, I'm just doing one of the ways.
04:36I'm just going to click on the origin and I'm going to snap to the endpoint here.
04:39I'm going to throw a dimension on there, so I'm going to type in say 380.
04:44I'm just going to define the length of that it least.
04:46Now, I still have the option to move this arc around, so I need to add a radius.
04:50So I'm going to say 280 on that one.
04:52Now, it's got its width across and its radius defined, but we need to still define as far as maybe an angle.
05:01So to do that we can just grab just another Centerline and just use this as a line,
05:06that's a horizontal line here to place a dimension between the two.
05:10Let's give it 25 degrees, for instance.
05:13Now that defines the angle that it's at, the radius and the width between the two points.
05:19Now, if I didn't want that one here, I could have defined this as from this point to this point
05:23and a Vertical Relationship as well, say like 340, and that would work as well.
05:27So a lot of different ways to define these shapes, we just need to make sure we're tying those two edges together.
05:32I'm going to do one more last thing here as far as a way to lay things out.
05:37So I can actually use circles.
05:38I'm going to start with a circle here and I'm going to start with a circle here.
05:41I'm going to make these circles touch.
05:44So I'm going to say this circle and that circle,
05:49and I'm going to add a Tangent Relationship where they touch.
05:52So I can actually use these as helpers though.
05:54I select both of those, I'm going to turn these into For construction geometry,
05:58and then I can actually place some arcs on those.
06:02I can say from this part of that circle here to this part of that circle here.
06:06I'm using those construction circles as kind of my guides for creating my arcs
06:12and the construction circles will not be used.
06:15I'm only going to be using that arc right there.
06:17I'll do a couple more just to illustrate it.
06:19So I'll click on this point here and I'll click on that point there,
06:23and then I'll snap to that circle diameter, so that I can use these as a placement
06:28or a starting point for the other creation of geometry.
06:32I'll start with that guy, Tangent Arc here, and then I can snap to this point here
06:35and possibly make this arc here, hold down Ctrl to that arc there, and make that Tangent Arc as well.
06:42So now that's going to flow into here.
06:44Now let's add one more 3 Point Arc to go and connect these two together and then snap to that.
06:50So now I have a nice guide curve just dependent upon these two circles.
06:55If I go ahead and I define some sizes here of like 240 for this one, 200 for that one,
07:02and we need one more thing that's going to tie these together as far as where the location is,
07:07so I'm going to use my friendly construction geometry in two more dimensions here.
07:13So on this line here 200 and this line here.
07:17Uh-oh, this is what we don't want to have, right?
07:19So if we said we have a dimension, we're saying we're having conflicting sizes,
07:23that's actually already been defined, because we gave it a Horizontal, and so therefore we're fully-defined.
07:29We used these two construction circles to actually lay out a series of arcs.
07:33We used 3 Point Arcs and one Tangent Arc to lay that out.
07:36Arcs are helpful for creating smooth flowing shapes and appealing aesthetics.
07:40They are just segments of a circle and sometimes starting with a circle
07:43is a good way to define location for completing arcs.
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Drawing splines in a sketch
00:00Splines are the ultimate free-form curve tool.
00:03Smooth flowing shape and wild curves are the result.
00:07However, be careful. Splines are very difficult to relay on drawings
00:12and manufacturing is more of an issue.
00:13Sometimes the best choice is to use a spline as a layout sketch for traditional arcs
00:18to get the best of both worlds.
00:20Let's jump into SolidWorks and create some splines.
00:23The Spline Tool here, click on that.
00:24Now splines are created through a series of points.
00:27So if I click on the origin, for instance, my very next point is going to be
00:31where my curve is going to bend, so I'm going to click here.
00:35Notice as I now control the endpoint of that, and if I'm close or far,
00:40depending on how far away I am, that shape is going to change,
00:44so it's going to be defined through a series of points.
00:46Generally, my finding is that, if you put less points, it makes it better.
00:50So I'm going to put a point down here, and notice as I change that, the entire shape changes.
00:56As I drag that through, it's controlling not only the point that I'm dragging,
01:01but also the rest of the curve and that shape.
01:04And then further away from it, it does a lot of different motion changes and stuff like that.
01:09As I get closer to it, I make a more sharp curve at the end,
01:12and one more click down here.
01:13It's going to continue that way as I click and drag points.
01:17As soon as I hit Esc, it stops that last segment of the line.
01:20Now I can click on any one of these points to define that curve.
01:24So I can click on this endpoint here and drag it around if I wanted to,
01:27same thing over here, you can click on that point and drag that around, drag this one around.
01:32Now notice as I'm dragging these around, I get these couple of arrows that kind of pop-up right here.
01:35Now these are control handles, so I can drag these out a little further,
01:41I can push them in, I can twist, change the shape using these controls,
01:46and I can pull them in and out or go to the other side.
01:48Notice I have one of those at each one of my starting points,
01:53so this is a direction vector, and how much it influences.
01:57So the longer that arrow is, the more influence it has on that curve;
01:59the shorter it is, the less, and the same thing with the angle or the vector that's starting it.
02:04So that's the control points.
02:07If I select this entire spline, under the Tools Palette, up here,
02:12I can go down and I have a whole bunch of tools that I can use to control that spline.
02:16So I can add Tangency, I can have Curvature, I can insert Points,
02:21I can Simplify, a lot of times you have too many points.
02:24I can actually get rid of some of those points and make it a little bit smoother curve.
02:27I can show the Curves, I can show a Control Polygon.
02:30I'm not going to go through all of these . A couple of them I am going to show.
02:33I'm going to show this Polygon.
02:34That's the shape that now I can drag this around more as like a Polygonal shape
02:38that I can grab these control points here and move these things around to define it inside of those.
02:43And the same thing, now these vectors are kind of attached at the beginning and end
02:48along that polygon and through these points, so each one of those points that we have there.
02:53Same thing if I want to go select that line, and I can go to the Spline Tools,
02:57and go in here and I can insert another point.
03:00So if I wanted a point right here, for instance, now I have a little bit more control
03:03to drag that part of that spline around.
03:07If I take this spline and I try to go manufacture a part from this or use this out to dimension it,
03:13you can think about it, it would be very difficult to define where this,
03:17and I could try to put some dimensions on here.
03:19I can dimension maybe from this point to that point, which would be fine.
03:22But how do I define the shape out here, how do I define this section of that curve?
03:28Those are going to be very difficult to relay on a drawing to anybody else.
03:32And same thing, if it goes out to manufacturing, you're trying to machine this part
03:36or bend this part or something like that, that's going to be very difficult to relay.
03:39So the last thing I'm going to show here is an overlay of regular arcs.
03:43I'm going to place this originally as a construction.
03:47It's going to be our Helper Spline.
03:49So I'm going to take a 3 Point Arc now.
03:52I'm going to start here, and I'm just going to kind of drag this out.
03:55Then I'm going to use my little 3 Point Arc to define that shape a little bit
03:58or get close to that shape if I wanted to.
04:01If this is not the right shape, which looks like it's not really right here,
04:04I can actually start with a line here, start with a line, and then we'll use more of like a Tangent Arc.
04:11So here's my arc and I'm going to place that along that line.
04:14Then I can continue placing those arcs along that spline and then use it kind of as a helper.
04:21Now, it's not going to be exactly the same, but we can make a bunch of short arcs
04:26that are going to be very, very similar to that spline shape.
04:30As you can see, I've got kind of a curve here, and then I can go in here
04:34and fine-tune those a little bit, and I can drag them closer to the line or I do like a best fit.
04:39So you're not going to get exactly the same shape as a spline,
04:41but depending on how much time you want to spend on it,
04:43and how you want to move those little curves around to define that shape,
04:46you can get a pretty nice shape to define your spline, and then each one of those arcs
04:51can be defined with a radius, a centerpoint, and a starting and endpoint.
04:56Splines have many great features and are wonderful for smooth curves and complex shapes.
05:00However, use them with caution.
05:02Dimensioning, defining, and building parts that were designed with splines can be very complicated.
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Sketching polygons
00:00Polygons are any shape with three or more sides.
00:03The Polygon tool allows you to choose the quantity of sides and the method used to define the shape.
00:09Let's jump into SolidWorks and get the Polygon tool.
00:12The Polygon tool is directly below the Arc tool.
00:15As soon as I turn at tool on, I get an option over here on the left-hand side.
00:19First off, I can create this just for construction if I wanted to.
00:22How many sides do I want on my shape, and do I want an inscribed or
00:26circumscribed circle to define that shape, which we'll cover in a second,
00:29and then my XY location of the center point, the diameter of that circle, and the angle.
00:34I'm just going to start right here at the origin.
00:37Click once, drag it out.
00:38Notice I get the diameter of the inscribed circle and I get the angle that it's going to be built at.
00:43So I'm going to drag it right over here, I'm going to drop it.
00:47Notice, SolidWorks adds a lot of relationship directly to that shape as soon as I create it,
00:52but it doesn't define the angle or the size.
00:54If I want to do that, I need to add may be a centerline here or a construction line,
00:59and I'm going to snap that endpoint, we'll then control to the midpoint of this line,
01:05which then defines that shape so it can't spin.
01:07Now I can just still make it bigger or smaller.
01:09Now I need to define that shape.
01:11I can do it two ways; one I can define the size of the circle,
01:14or I can just dimension from any one of these points or faces.
01:18So I'm just going to define from this side to that side, and type in 8.0.
01:24Now I've got a fully-defined octagon that has all the relationships that are pre-added.
01:29Now if I wanted to create that same shape, but using just line segments, it's quite a bit of work.
01:33I need to make them all the same length, or I have to define the angles,
01:36or I have to do some type of a patterning feature like they've done here.
01:40It's going to be a lot of work.
01:41So the Polygon feature does save us a lot of time.
01:43Let's go ahead and delete that and create a couple more.
01:47Jump back into Polygon tool. This time I'm going to try not an eight-sided,
01:50but let's do a six-sided and this time, we're going to do a circumscribed circle
01:55and I'm just going to place it out here.
01:56As soon as I place it, notice, I still have the control over here on the left,
02:01so I can change its XY locations, its diameter, its angle.
02:06I have the ability to move all these around while I'm still in that Edit Polygon mode.
02:14Notice now we have a circumscribed circle.
02:18We have this circle in the outside that's defining that shape.
02:21So if I now place that circle, I can drag it around outside,
02:24and I can also define that size of that outside circle.
02:29Just type in 8.0, change that around, and I can drag this thing around now.
02:33I can spin it around and if I wanted to place like a relationship,
02:37maybe fix that center point, I can spin that around somewhere I want it to go,
02:40or I could make some dimensions that would define this shape.
02:43Just like all things in SolidWorks, we always want to make it not just floating in space;
02:47we want to tie it into something; where is it?
02:50So I'm going to use that Centerline.
02:52I'm going to come out here and maybe use some rectangular coordinates to that point.
02:56So now I have two dimensions that I can put in there to define
03:00how far it is from the center point or the origin and how high above it.
03:06Type in a couple of those and the last thing we need to do is define its rotation.
03:11So we can do that in multiple ways and one of the easiest ways, which would be like a bottom edge here,
03:15I can say this is horizontal and notice now everything turns black.
03:19It's fully-defined and notice exactly where it is.
03:21I can pull some of these dimensions around just to make it a little bit more clear
03:24where we're at and of course, I can always change any of these things to move that shape around.
03:30Now if I had this shape fully-defined and I wanted to actually change that shape,
03:35I can click on it or actually right-click and I can come down here to Edit Polygon.
03:39As soon as I do that, I could have the ability to change how many sides are on that shape,
03:44change it to a bunch of different things, maybe a triangle this time.
03:47Click OK and now I have a triangle with all the same dimensions,
03:50so I can go back and edit and modify those things as needed.
03:55The Polygon tool is easy to use and saves a lot of time over creating shapes with just the Line command.
04:01It also allows the user to later edit the polygon without changing
04:05and re-adding relationships and/or dimensions.
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5. Sketch-Editing Tools
Trimming and extending portions of a sketch
00:00The Trim and Extend tools allow the creation of complex shapes in building geometry that combines with other shapes.
00:07The Trim tool has various modes that it can operate it.
00:10The most powerful of those is the Power Trim Command.
00:13This should be your Go-To tool for modifying sketch elements.
00:16Let's jump over to SolidWorks and start up the Trim command. Trim is here.
00:20If I click on the dropdown arrow here, I also have the option to get Extend Entities. Click on Trim.
00:26Power Trim is my favorite. But we're going to come back to that one.
00:29So we're going to start here with Corner Trim. Select that one.
00:32Corner Trim is going to keep the two items you click on, and trim off the other ones in that corner.
00:37So this time, I'm going to click, just a regular left mouse click.
00:40Selecting the first item, you then come over here and select this second item,
00:44and notice it's going to trim off those two legs that were hanging off.
00:49Continue down here, do it one more time.
00:50Click on the first line, click on the second line and it's going to
00:53trim off entities that are hanging beyond that.
00:56Trim Away Inside; I'm going to pick the two bounds that we're going to trim too.
01:00So I'm going to pick this side here, that side there,
01:04and then all you do is just go and click on the items we want to remove.
01:06So I'm going to click here, here and here.
01:08Notice as I'm doing that it's adding those relationships,
01:12that's making this point coincident to that one.
01:14Trim Away Outside is very similar. I'm going to pick the two bounds,
01:18this one and this one, and now we're going to start trimming these outside lines,
01:23and notice as I trim one, it trims the other side as well.
01:30Then Trim To Closest is going to trim away legs that kind of extend past something.
01:34So I have this line here that's cutting through that circle and I just want to trim that away.
01:39So I just cut that and slice it off.
01:41Same thing over here, I might want to cut off any dangling lines or
01:44something like that that might be going past your part, it's a great way to do that.
01:48Then my favorite one is a Power Trim, click on that.
01:50Now Power Trim is a little bit harder to understand how actually it works, but it's quite powerful.
01:54Power Trim starts with the line.
01:55So we don't actually want to start on top of any one of these other lines or entities.
02:00We want to kind of start off here in the space where there is just pure white space.
02:03So I'm going to start down here.
02:04I'm going to start drawing, and notice as I start drawing, it creates a kind of little sketch line of where I'm drawing.
02:09Anything that little sketch line actually cuts across, it's going to trim to,
02:14so watch I'm going to trim this little first entity here and trims it away.
02:16Come over here, it's going to trim off the end there.
02:20Come up here, go around I can trim off the top, trim off the bottom.
02:24I come through here, I can trim these out.
02:26As long as I continue to hold that left mouse button down, I can continue to trim
02:29and you can see the path of where I've gone through to trim out entities.
02:33As soon as I'll let go, it hides, that trim path I was using,
02:36and all those entities have been trimmed.
02:37At the Top here I'm going to go back to Extend Entities.
02:40Now Extend takes a line and continues it on to the next thing that's going to hit.
02:46So if there's nothing for it to hit, it doesn't run the command.
02:48Let's click on this line here. As I go over it gives me a little preview.
02:53If I extended that line, what would it actually do?
02:54It would extend it to the next thing it's going to run into.
02:57Same thing over here, it's going to extend that line out through over here where it would hit.
03:01Click on over here, you can extend that one out, click on anyone of these and
03:03you can see what's going to happen, when I extend it out.
03:06It even works on arcs. So we click on here, it's going to continue that arc down.
03:09So we'll just click here, extend it out, now it touches here.
03:12Click on this one, it extends it out over there; click on this one, it extends it out over here, very similar.
03:16Same thing over here, and we can keep doing this many different ways
03:19to connect to these lines together to build a part.
03:22The Trim tool is an essential tool for building complex shapes in the sketch environment.
03:27By leveraging the Trim and Extend commands,
03:39we can rapidly modify existing geometry and take your sketches to the next level.
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Creating offset geometry
00:00By offsetting geometry, we can save a huge amount of time
00:03and have the ability to create slots and rectangular holes, with a simple line sketch.
00:09In SolidWorks, I have a rectangular box on the screen and if we want to draw another box around that
00:14for instance, we could go ahead and use the Rectangle command and draw it out and dimension it.
00:20We actually have a much easier way to do that.
00:22I just select anyone of the entities or the line segments that make up that shape.
00:26Click up here and I'm going to use this thing called the Offset Entities.
00:30What that's going to do is, it's going to take that line segment, and it gives me a couple of previews.
00:34This is a two-way, so I'm going to turn that off.
00:36This is just a one-way and you notice, if I type in that number here,
00:41I can adjust how far I want to offset that geometry.
00:45Now I can use one line segments or all the line segments and that's where you can choose it here; Select Chain.
00:51So if I only chose just that one, I can also change the Direction,
00:54so I can move it either inside or outside of the box.
00:56I could select the entire chain or do the entire box.
00:59I can choose Bi-directional to bring it inside as well, so you've got a lot of options here.
01:03So I'm just going to choose the one side, I'm going to type in 0.4 and click OK.
01:07Notice it creates a new box. It made the base construction if I want it to,
01:11that's one of the options that we had there.
01:13Then it gives me this dimension here.
01:15So if I change that dimension, it adjusts the entire box.
01:20So when I change it to 0.1, it changes that dimension all the way round.
01:23So it's using this base geometry to create a new box.
01:27Now we can do this in a lot of different ways.
01:29We can do it with circles as well, I can create like a base circle.
01:32I can go in here to Offset Geometry, it creates an offset.
01:36Type in, do we want a base construction this time? No.
01:39Then I've got the two circles and I can just control with that one dimension here, it makes it really handy.
01:44Now if we wanted to create a slot for instance, I'm going to delete these two.
01:48I'm going to jump just right over here to that Centerline command.
01:52I'm going to drop a centerline here just by clicking.
01:55Then I'm going to add one relation to it saying the center point of that
01:59is that midpoint, there it is.
02:00So now as I drag this up and down, I can control it.
02:04Now we're going to actually remake a part we made it earlier,
02:07which is a link part, and so we're going to do that.
02:09Instead of creating a circle on the top or a circle on the bottom, and connecting the two lines,
02:13I can actually use the Offset command to do that.
02:15So I'm going to select that line, and I'm going to click on Offset.
02:17So notice it gives me just a way offset right now.
02:20I can say it's Bi-directional, now it's going to both ways.
02:22Notice I have this Cap ends thing here checked on.
02:25So I can either cap them with Arcs or Lines, my choice.
02:28So I'm going to use the Arcs, and then I'm going to give it a dimension here of 1.0.
02:33So now that gives us that nice shape that we had before.
02:37Instead of creating a circle, a circle and two line segments,
02:40and then trimming them out, I got everything in one shot.
02:42I'm going to add two circles here, one, two.
02:48Add a relationship between the two by Holding down Ctrl, selecting the pair, say they're Equal.
02:53Add a couple of dimensions. I think we had a 0.75 in this one from before, 0.75.
02:58Notice they both changed because they're equal.
03:00Add a dimension here, which is 4 inches, 4.0.
03:02We have fully-defined sketch with only three dimensions on it,
03:06which is exactly the same part we did before but quite a bit easier.
03:10The Offset command is a quick way to use existing geometry to create secondary sketch entities.
03:15This is a perfect choice for quick slots and basic clearance sketches.
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Moving, copying, and rotating elements
00:01SolidWorks provides nice set of tools to deal with modifying sketches.
00:04We can select the whole sketch so we can move, copy to a new sketch, or rotate around a point.
00:10These tools are very handy, if you're using imported sketch elements like a block or doing sketch-wide changes.
00:16In the SolidWorks window, we've got a toolbar called Move Entities,
00:21that allows me to select the entire object, get that window, pop it back out here,
00:27and then I'm going to say Start Point, I'm going to start from here,
00:31and then it just attached to my Tool tip now and I can drag this around anywhere I want.
00:35So maybe I just want to snap that on to the origin, and there it goes.
00:38Now notice when I do snap onto the origin, it actually doesn't add a relationship.
00:43So we need to go and do that ourselves if we want that to be locked on here.
00:45You might say, well, why would I want to use the Move Entities versus just dragging this thing around on my own?
00:51The reason for that is it treats it as a one complete object.
00:55So if I grab something, it actually changes the object shape or size.
00:59If I just want to move this thing as a whole, that's where you might want to use Move Entities Command.
01:06The next one there is Copy Entities. So I can just select everything I have here.
01:09Start Point must be there and then copy is going to take exact copy of that and I can drag it around.
01:14And once again it's attached to my tool tip, so wherever my point of my cursor is
01:19is where I'm going that one corner of that part.
01:22So I can copy those and I can continue to do that if I wanted to.
01:25I can select both of those items for instance.
01:27Go up here and do Copy Entities.
01:30Take a point from where I want it.
01:31Drag it from that, and I'm copying two at the same time.
01:33So you can do that multiple times.
01:35I'm going to go ahead and undo that a couple of times, back to my original one.
01:39Now I'm going to go ahead down here to Rotate Entities.
01:42So with Rotate, I'm going to do the same thing.
01:44I'll select everything there, and then a Point of Rotation.
01:47So I'm going to pick this upper corner here.
01:50And then what I can do is I can drag this around or I click on the Angles to adjust that.
01:56So if I'm happy with that, I click Ok and there it is.
01:59Once again it created all those entities and treated them all as one whole there.
02:03Let's go back and then Scale Entities, select everything by moving over it.
02:10Scale about a point.
02:11I'll pick this lower corner here and then notice it just scales that shape.
02:14For now I'm giving it a 0.5 Scale Factor.
02:17I can continue to just bump that up and make it twice the size,
02:19or twice as small depending on what you want to do.
02:21You could even copy it. So if I want to copy it, it's going to keep the original
02:24and make a scale copy of this. So your choice there.
02:27Once you're done say OK and there's your new shape.
02:30I'm going to go back again just using Undo command and the last one here is Stretch Entities.
02:36What that allows us to do is take a portion of the thing, and kind of stretch it out.
02:39So by doing that I'm going select some Entities to stretch.
02:42I'm going to pick this one, that one and that one.
02:45Stretch it to about. I'm going to say this point here.
02:47If I hold down that left mouse button, I can drag this around and kind of
02:52change the shape by stretching it out if I wanted to.
02:55As soon as I'm happy with this I will just click again and let go and it just stretches that out.
02:59These tools focus on working with an existing sketch and making Sketch-wide changes.
03:04If modifying individual elements, it's probably better to just work with
03:08constraining relationships to get the shape you're looking for.
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Erasing, undoing, and redoing actions
00:00The all-powerful Eraser.
00:02Sometimes it's better to start with a clean sketch or to remove selections of the sketch.
00:07We already know how to erase a single element, by selecting the element and pressing Erase,
00:13or selecting it from the Feature Manager and hitting Erase.
00:16However, what if we want to select multiple entities?
00:19We've two circles on the screen here.
00:20We have couple of ways to do so.
00:23I can select any one of these entities just by clicking on it, hitting Delete and it's gone.
00:27I'm going to bring that back by hitting Undo.
00:31Or I can also click on that entity and then right- click and click on Delete. That got rid of it as well.
00:36Bring it back. Next what if I want to select these two entities together?
00:41What if I have more than two? What if I have two hundred or two thousand?
00:45I could select each one, hold on the Ctrl and select the next one, and multiple select that way.
00:50But if we have several hundred or more items to do, that's not going to be very feasible.
00:55So we can use the Window select, and there are two ways to do that.
00:58If I go from the upper left-hand corner to the bottom right-hand corner,
01:01everything I'm going to select in there will be highlighted.
01:05Notice the two objects turn to a light blue color showing you're highlighted.
01:08Then over here on the left-hand side, it says the Select Entities are Arc3 and 4,
01:12and we have some relations that we could add to those if we wanted to.
01:15If I wanted to just select one of these items though, I can mouse over from the left to right over the first one,
01:23and that highlights the object, because it's fully contained by that.
01:25However, if wanted to select anything that touches my box, I can go from the lower right corner to the upper left corner.
01:34That would go around those and it would select it.
01:36Notice they both are selected even though I only caught that bottom corner of the top circle.
01:41So that changes the way the selection property works.
01:44We also have a thing called a Selection Filter and I can turn that tool palette on
01:49by clicking anywhere up in the right -hand corner, if I click on right,
01:52go down here, and I'm going to grab a thing called the Selection Filter, which is right there.
02:01Notice that has turned on a toolbar I have on the bottom of my screen here.
02:05So if I have a lot of entities that I'm looking to select or find,
02:09I can Filter them out using the Selection Filter.
02:12So I can say only Vertices, only Lines or Edges, only Faces, or only surfaces,
02:17a lot of these things we don't have in here quite yet but only axes or planes or points.
02:22So you've got a lot of choices here.
02:24But one of the thing happens to be Circles, or Center marks. A lot of things we can select by.
02:29So if we had a point here, I'm going to put a bunch of points on the screen, for instance,
02:36and I put the Selection Filter on.
02:38I say here I'm just going to select Points, and then I go ahead and I select things.
02:43The Circles are not selected at all, it's only the points that are selected.
02:46So that's Selection Filter for you. Now Undo.
02:49We want to undo what we did, and get rid of those circles here.
02:52I have the ability to undo things here.
02:54I also can look here and I can go back in time all the different things that I had.
02:58So I can go back here and Undo all four of those points at one shot by just going back four clicks on my mouse.
03:05Also there's a limitation on the undo, so you can only undo a certain amount of actions back.
03:10So you can't take it all way back to the beginning.
03:13You've got a limit of a certain amount that's feasible at least,
03:15and if you exit the sketch it's going to not allow you to go back into it to change it.
03:20Getting back where we were, if I'm going to turn that Selection Filter Off, to where I was.
03:24If I exit that sketch, I also have the ability to work with that sketch as a whole over here in the Feature Manager.
03:29So if I didn't want that entire sketch I could just click on it and hit Delete.
03:31That's going to take off the entire sketch and I could just operate on it as a whole in that same environment.
03:37Sketching is the fundamental building block in SolidWorks,
03:40and removing sketch elements is almost as useful as creating them in the first place.
03:45Simple sketches are best and multiple sketches across multiple features,
03:49oftentimes make for a design much easier to work with.
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Mirroring part of a sketch
00:01Mirroring in the sketch environment is very powerful.
00:03However, you should try to limit sketch mirroring to a second resort to mirroring actual features.
00:09The Mirror command needs to know two things.
00:12Number 1, what do you want to mirror?
00:14Number 2, what line do you want to mirror these entities around?
00:18We start by making a centerline.
00:19In SolidWorks, you can see I have three centerlines already created
00:23and I have a little triangle that we're going to mirror around.
00:26The Mirror command is right up here; Mirror Entities.
00:29As soon as I click on that, it asks me two things.
00:31Whenever I see a box like this that's highlighted in blue,
00:34it's asking me what are the entities that I'd like to mirror?
00:37I want to go ahead here and select that entire triangle and
00:40notice it says it breaks it down by lines, so line 2, 3 and 4,
00:44and then what do I want a mirror about?
00:46You'll notice there's little check mark here; it's the copy.
00:48So I can either copy it or just completely move it.
00:51So Mirror about. I'm going to choose this item here and notice it gives me
00:56a mirrored kind of representation of what's going to happen.
00:58So if I say, ok, that item is now going to be copied to that side,
01:02if I turn this one off, this will no longer be there, it'll now just be on left-hand side.
01:07So let's try that, click OK, and we have two items.
01:10Now these are mirrored copies of each other.
01:13So if I move one, the other one moves, right there. They're mirrors of each other.
01:18So anything I do to one, it's going to always happen to the other one as a pair.
01:22Let's make it a little more complicated this time, let's do mirror again, click on Mirror.
01:25What do we want to mirror?
01:25I want to mirror these items here, which is the original triangle we did.
01:31I want a mirror about this; I want to mirror over here.
01:34It's going to drop that same triangle down that here at around this axis versus that axis.
01:40Click OK and same thing.
01:43Now what's interesting about this is if I change one they all change, because it's mirrored twice.
01:48This item here is mirrored across this way and this was mirrored again over here.
01:52Let's make it really fun, and let's Mirror one more time.
01:55Mirror Entities, and this time I'm going to choose all these entities here,
02:00and this time I'm going to copy those or mirror those around this centerline here.
02:03It's going to drop all these down here another time.
02:07Click OK and now I have a pretty complicated mirror situation here.
02:11As I move one, they're all going to move around, so you can really get yourself
02:14a pretty complicated sketch going on here using the Mirror command.
02:17It's a very powerful command.
02:18The problem is I generally try to keep my sketches extremely simple
02:22and do more of the mirroring in the Feature Manager and the features themselves,
02:27than making it very complicated sketch that is then harder to deal with in the future.
02:31But it is a very powerful command;
02:32if you need to, it's definitely available to use.
02:35Like I said earlier, try to keep your sketches simple and use feature mirrors as a first.
02:40However, the Mirror command has some nice time -saving benefits in the creation of sketches.
02:46
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Creating repeating patterns in a sketch
00:00Much like the Mirror command, preference should to be given to using
00:03Feature Level Patterning versus using the Patterning tool in sketches.
00:08However, the tools work much in the same way.
00:11We have three main questions to answer.
00:13Number one is, what do we want to pattern?
00:16Number two is, which direction do we want a pattern in and at what angle?
00:20And number three is, if we want a pattern in a secondary direction, which direction and at what angle?
00:26Let's jump over into SolidWorks.
00:29We've got a rectangle here and up here we have a Linear Sketch Pattern tool.
00:33We also have to dropdown with the Circular Pattern, which we'll do in a second here.
00:36So let's select Linear Sketch Pattern, and predefined here,
00:40I already have my X and Y axes selected by SolidWorks.
00:44So what I need it to go to is at the bottom of the screen here,
00:47I can click on the Entities to Pattern link and select those items.
00:50I'm going to select those four sides of that rectangular shape there,
00:55and then I'm going to jump over here to the Spacing.
00:57Right now it's only 0.1. I'm going to change it to 2.0.
01:00As soon as I do that it spaces this out, and then I'm also going to give it a few more of these patterns.
01:04So I'm going to do five this way.
01:06I also have the ability to change the angle these are patterning at, so I can keep changing this up and down.
01:12Notice the Orientation of the boxes don't change; just the patterning direction does.
01:18If I want to go in another direction, notice this is all grayed out at this point in time.
01:22The only thing that is not is it has a 1 in there.
01:24As soon as I change that to a 2, these all become real entry boxes here,
01:29so I can go and change the spacing between the two of those.
01:31I can add a few more if wanted to.
01:34And then I can also change the angle to control how that pattern works.
01:40I'm going to space them out, just a little bit more and click Ok and now we've got that pattern.
01:45Now these are all patterned off this original seed part here.
01:48So if I were to change this part, they all change together.
01:52It's kind of like the Mirror command, if I change one, they all change.
01:54It's a pattern of this original seed.
01:57Now I'm going to just undo this whole pattern and go back to original
01:59and then we're going to do the Circular Pattern.
02:01So the Circular Pattern is, we have a couple of questions to answer as well.
02:05What do we want to pattern? That is going to be this rectangular box.
02:07Where do we want a circle or, rotate it around? That is going to be this point here,
02:12so jump down here, pick on Circular Pattern.
02:16The first question is what is our center of rotation? Click right there.
02:21Point 21 is where we're going to rotate around.
02:22I'm going to jump down here to the Entities to Pattern,
02:25and I'm going to pick these four parts of that box.
02:30You could see a little preview of what it's going to be doing.
02:32Now I have other questions to answer over here. Where is the center point of this?
02:36What are the XY coordinates?
02:37How many degrees do you want to circularly rotate this thing around?
02:40By default, it's giving a 360 with an equal spacing.
02:43I could change that to 180 and only go halfway around.
02:46So I've got four of these and half of a circle patterned around.
02:51I could change that to 90 if I wanted to and you can see
02:54how that is changing around there and I can continue to add more and more.
02:59So I can continue to kind a put a lot of pieces in there or just a few, depending on what I want to do.
03:04Same thing with Equal Spacing. I could change that. I can change the spacing between them.
03:08I can put a radius in there.
03:09I can change the diameter that I'm spacing these thing out on.
03:13I can start pushing this thing out a little further if I needed to, or the angle I'm going to go through.
03:17So a lot of options here for a circular pattern.
03:19Once you're done and have enough items that you want in there, click OK and there's your circular pattern.
03:25Following along with the simple sketch methodology, we don't really want to overuse this tool.
03:31However, in certain situations, it does come in very handy.
03:33The steps to follow are simple as selecting the objects, choosing the directions,
03:38or the center point of rotation.
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Using construction lines to place features with precision
00:00Effective use of construction lines and construction geometry
00:03is the key to being an effective and efficient designer.
00:07Many times sketches can be fully- defined without even a single dimension.
00:12By tying your sketch geometry into existing geometry, we build powerful sketches that are dynamic.
00:18Let's consider the case of two holes that need to be equally distanced from the centerline of a part.
00:24Let's take a look.
00:25This part here we want to add a hole on either side of the existing part.
00:28So what I'm going to do is I'm going to click on the top face here,
00:31I'm going to click on Sketch, I'm going to start a brand new sketch,
00:33and then I'm going to hit the Spacebar so I'm going to get the Orientation window and click on Normal To.
00:37Now I'm looking directly down on that part.
00:39Now I want a hole here and I want a hole here.
00:42Before I do that, I'm going to draw a few lines.
00:44Now we have not covered the Extruding command yet,
00:49but we'll be just giving a brief demo of how that's going to work.
00:52So to start off, I want to click on the origin, I'm going to drag a line up,
00:55make sure it's got a vertical orientation, click here, double-click,
00:58and then I'm going to create one more line right above it.
01:00Make sure that one has got the horizontal relationship. Now I'm going to click on this line,
01:06hold down Ctrl, select that endpoint, and then I'm going to say I make this mid point.
01:11So now I have a line that's connected and on the center.
01:15Now I can go ahead and I want these holes to be kind of in the center of these ears here.
01:21To do that, what I can do is add another construction line from the upper corner here in the upper right
01:27to this little point here and then I can drag this line here to the midpoint of that line.
01:33Now notice these lines are now fully defined, I can't drag this one or anything else.
01:37They're all tied together with purely construction lines.
01:40Now let's go ahead and put the circles in there.
01:42So I'm going to go click on here, click on the midpoint of that, draw the circle.
01:47Click on this point here, draw out a circle, and let's just go ahead
01:50and add an equal relationship between the two, so they're the same size.
01:53The last thing we need to do is add a dimension just to define the size of the circle,
01:58I'm going to go to 0.75, and there's our two circles fully-defined,
02:03and they're defining context of the other parts and the other geometry around them.
02:06Now what makes the sketch geometry so powerful is that if this base part changes,
02:11these holes will automatically adjusted the correct locations. Let's take a look.
02:14I'm going to go ahead and show you a little bit of a head here and do an extruded cut for a hole.
02:20So this is very similar to an extrude, but extrude cut which we'll be doing in a few chapters.
02:24I'm going to go ahead and click line, I'm going to say Through All, so it cuts the entire part.
02:29I'll OK and there is my two holes, it goes through the part.
02:32Now what we want to do is we actually want to go and change this base part.
02:36So you notice, we have two features, here and here.
02:39I might look at the sketch underlying the Boss feature which is Sketch1.
02:42Click on that, and let's say Edit Sketch.
02:45Now looking at this, it's undefined;
02:47all the sketches are blue, we don't have any dimensions at all.
02:49So let's go ahead and add some dimensions to it.
02:51I'm going to click and click from here to here, add a dimension of 12 from the top,
02:56add a dimension from here this bottom line, add dimension of 4, click OK
03:03and I add another dimension here of 4, click OK, and then the last thing we need to do
03:07is from the bottom of that to the bottom of here and we're going to say 4 as well.
03:11So now we have a fully- defined sketch that's changed.
03:15So as soon as I exit out of this, guess what?
03:19The holes are in the perfect location, we didn't change any of the dimensions.
03:22If I go back and I look at the sketch to define where they were, it's because those centerlines,
03:27or those construction geometry, automatically scale and move to the right size,
03:31because they're tied in to the sketch that was based below it.
03:34Building good construction geometry is the single best way to make better sketches
03:39and to leverage the power of the dynamic capabilities of SolidWorks.
03:43Always try to think through how your sketch will behave and try to minimize excess dimensions.
03:49
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6. Reference Geometry
Working with planes
00:00When a new SolidWorks Part is opened, we have three predefined planes to start building our model.
00:05To start a sketch we need to choose a face or a plane.
00:09So what happens when we need a plane other than the ones that are located at the origin?
00:13Lucky for us, SolidWorks has given us the ability to create planes where we want.
00:18Planes are infinite and in all directions, so there are no perimeter boundaries.
00:23In order to create a plane we need a series of three points, or a line and a point,
00:27or an existing plane and a distance.
00:30I have this Top Plane highlighted here . I can highlight it by just clicking
00:34on the goggles and toggle that on and off.
00:36So that's the first plane and we're going to create a plane directly above this plane.
00:40New planes are created under the Reference Geometry tab here.
00:43If I click on the Down Arrow, I've got options of Plane, Axis, Coordinate System,
00:46and we're just going to pick that first one, Plane.
00:49As soon as I start a plane, notice over here I've got a bunch of options;
00:54I have a First Reference, Second, and Third Reference.
00:56If I pick another plane like this existing plane here, I don't need any other references;
01:01all I need is that plane and then a distance away from it.
01:04These planes extend infinite directions; there are no boundaries at all.
01:08What I see here is this little box, it's just representation.
01:11I can actually drag the planes to make them bigger or smaller.
01:14So if I select this first plane here to create,
01:17notice if I spin the world around a little bit here in my environment,
01:20I can see that here is my beginning plane and then here is my existing plane.
01:24I can change the distance by just typing this in.
01:28So above that Top Plane I'm creating a new plane.
01:31That looks kind of like a sheet of plywood or a big rectangle here.
01:34As far as bringing up above the height, I'm saying 2 inches above,
01:37and I can also just flip that to the bottom side if I wanted to.
01:40And I can ask how many planes I want.
01:42I can add multiple planes if I wanted; they're all spaced off at 2 inches at a time.
01:46I'm just going to create the first one, choose Mid Plane and flip it.
01:50Flip it a different direction. I can do a lot of different things.
01:52I could play around with that. But we just want the distance.
01:57Notice Second and Third References are not included in this one.
02:00As soon as I click OK, it gives me this new Plane here.
02:03If I click on that Plane, notice I've got these little handles all around the outside, little balls around the corners.
02:09I can grab any one of these things and just drag it around to make the plane bigger.
02:12This really means nothing; it's just there for us to see the plane easier.
02:17This plane really does extend in all directions and into infinity.
02:20So we can have the plane as big as we want or as small as we want,
02:23it doesn't really matter, just we can drag it around or move it around in our environment,
02:26just to make it some more visually appealing and easy to work with,
02:30to find where that plane is, that's all those guys are.
02:33So that is the first type of plane, which is an offset plane from an existing plane.
02:37I'm going to flip over here to my second example, which is pretty much the same thing.
02:41I've got the Top Plane turned on, and this time I've actually got a sketch here, so I've got Sketch1.
02:47Inside that sketch I have just this one line, so I will open up that sketch,
02:51take a look, it's just a sketch, it's an undefined line, with a dimension from the origin.
02:57And then on my second sketch here, I've got another construction line.
03:02So those are two things I have, just to kind of lay things out.
03:04Now, I don't necessarily need to use these.
03:07I could be making a plane from other geometry that might be having my model,
03:11but since I don't have any, I've just created those two to define this plane,
03:15so I'm going to click on Plane.
03:16For my First Reference this time, I'm going to choose that line, there it is.
03:19Notice as soon as I pick that line, look what I get, I get this plane kind of coming up here,
03:24at a little bit of an angle, it doesn't actually know where it is.
03:27So to find this thing I've got to kind of spin it around so it touches another point,
03:31and here is a point I'm going to use that's at the very top of this thing.
03:34So I pick that, now that plane is defined through that line and through that point,
03:39so that's all I actually need to define that plane here.
03:42And I don't need the Third Reference, because I'm actually picking up three points,
03:45because I'm getting two from that one existing line.
03:48As soon as I choose that, click OK and we're good to go.
03:51Next we're going to add a plane through three points.
03:54So the points we're going to use are going to be slightly different than what we had before.
03:58So I'm going to click here and create another plane on top of this existing plane.
04:02So I'm going to say Reference Geometry > Plane.
04:05This time instead of picking Lines or Planes, I'm actually going to pick just Points.
04:09So I'm going to pick a point here, I'll pick a point here, pick a point here,
04:12and now I have a new plane off at an angle created off of that existing Plane.
04:19Now I could have just chosen that entire line if I wanted to, or a point,
04:22but sometimes you just have like vertices you might be using to pick points,
04:25so now I'm using all three of those References and they are all coincident to that point.
04:30Click OK, and I've got a next reference there.
04:32Those are the three different ways to create Planes.
04:34So then here's an example of how we can use planes and we're going to be doing a lot more
04:38with planes later, but this is a quick example of just showing how they can be used.
04:42This part here has got a couple of holes that we've added to it at angles that are nonstandard,
04:47and we've created three different planes here to go ahead and to create that.
04:51The very first plane is actually just a Top Plane and I'm showing that there.
04:55So what I'm going to do is I'm going to use the History Bar and I'm going roll this way back
04:58to the very beginning, and I'm going to see just the Top Plane.
05:01On that Top Plane I went ahead and created this Boss-Extrude.
05:04Now obviously we're going to cover Extrude in more depth in the future,
05:08however, the underlying sketch is just a simple rectangle.
05:12Then, I create a sketch down here;
05:14I can highlight it showing just a line on that same Top Plane.
05:19Then I create one more sketch with a vertical line here.
05:24What I want to do here is I want to create a plane through that line and through that point.
05:28Now we saw that a little bit earlier as far as how to create that plane.
05:31So what that's going to do is going to create that plane there, off at this angle.
05:35And that's defined if I were to change the height of this line here,
05:39it would obviously change the angle of that plane and how it intersects to the block.
05:44You can see it's also cutting through that block a little bit too.
05:47My first cut is just going to be a sketch cut at an angle here.
05:50So what that's created by is creating a circle on that plane.
05:54If I hit the Spacebar, I can look at Normal To it.
05:56So I'm looking straight down that block; it's a perfect Circle here.
06:01It's being cut into that part through it.
06:05And it's undefined right now, so it's just going to be cutting through there.
06:08I can always go ahead and define that later with some dimensions.
06:13And then next we're going to do another plane and then do another cut here.
06:15So I'm going roll forward again . I'm creating a plane this time
06:19off of this corner of the base block and this line here.
06:24So we've got a plane that aligns between those two, as you can see.
06:27And then on that plane I create a sketch and a cut at an angle,
06:31so that sketch is just another circle, cutting across that part,
06:35right in that kind of the middle of that block.
06:37And what we're doing is a cut there and I'm using a special part of the Cut feature,
06:42which is called the Mid Plane Cut, and I'm just extruding it to make sure it cuts through everything,
06:49just a little bit past the ends there, so it's a Mid Plane Cut,
06:52which we're going to be covering in Chapter 7.
06:54Clearly a lot of these tools we have not covered yet,
06:56I just want to give you the value of planes and give you a glimpse of
06:59some of the new tools I'm going to be covering, like the Boss-Extrude, Extrude Cut,
07:03and some of the other plane features you might be using in the future.
07:05Planes are the foundation for sketches, and in order to build complex features
07:10or higher-level features like lofts and sweeps,
07:12we need to understand the basics for creating new planes.
07:15There are up to three reference values used for creating planes;
07:18however, you can use as little as one, depending if you're choosing Points, Lines or Planes.
07:23For instance, a line already has two endpoints, so that counts as two references.
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Placing and using axes
00:00Anytime we're building revolved or rotated geometry, we need an axis of rotation.
00:05We can create an axis by selecting intersecting planes, lines or points.
00:10Axes are also very useful for building assemblies.
00:13The first one I'd like to create is actually between these two planes.
00:16So I'm going to click on the Axis command, and the one I'm going to choose is Two Planes.
00:21Pick that one and notice I see already a dashed line here where the two planes intersect
00:26and that's exactly where that axis is going to go.
00:29So I'm going to pick Front Plane and the Right Plane
00:32and right there it generates a preview, click OK and we've got axes;
00:36the first axis there which I'm calling axis number 6.
00:41Okay, the next axis we're going to go ahead and create is going to be
00:43between these two points here, and I've already laid those out as a sketch.
00:47So if I take a look at that sketch here, it's just on the right plane,
00:52and I really just put two points on that plane.
00:55So we'll go back up here to Axis.
00:56This time I'm going to pick two points, pick that point, pick that point,
01:02and pretty easily we've got another axis. There it is.
01:04This one's called Axis7.
01:08Okay, continuing on, we've got it one more time here;
01:12on line or edge. I've got these rectangular blocks over here
01:16and I'm just going to pick any one of these edges to create another axis.
01:18So I'm just going to pick this one here, and it just drops that axis just along that edge.
01:23Click OK, there it is.
01:27Okay, one more time, we're going to grab one more;
01:30Cylindrical or Conical Face, click on that.
01:32This has already got a nice cylinder on the outside.
01:35So, if I just click on that, it just will automatically drop an axis in the center of it.
01:39But actually, before I do that, I'm going to cancel that.
01:40Anytime you have a revolved or even a round feature,
01:44SolidWorks actually adds an axis in the center there for you.
01:47So if I go up here to View, and say Temporary Axes,
01:50I can actually see there's already an axis in there, and those would be very useful
01:54especially if you have holes or something like that in your trial line.
01:56But if I didn't use that, or didn't want to use that, I can hide that and
02:00use that Reference Geometry > Axis > Cylindrical Face, click on the outside face,
02:04and there is my axis. There it is.
02:07And the very last one would be Point with a Face or a Plane
02:12and I'm going to go ahead and turn on one of these planes first.
02:16So the Top Plane, I'm going to show, so I can see it.
02:19Now I'm going to use that plane and this point here just to create another axis.
02:23So I'm going to come up here to Axis, select on Point and Face/Plane
02:27and the plane I'm going to choose is this one,
02:30and the point I'm going to choose is this one right here, and there it is.
02:32So it's just making a vertical axis that's normal to this plane through that point.
02:37So those are all the different types of axes that we can create.
02:41The ability to create axes allows us to define the center line of rotated features
02:45and aids in constructing assemblies.
02:48Leverage axes to define the center of your design and to help build complex revolved geometry.
02:53We'll be seeing more of axes in Chapter 7 when we do Revolves,
02:57as well as in Chapter 11 when we start building assemblies.
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Working with the coordinate system and individual points
00:00Sometimes we need to work with our model using a different coordinate system that was defined.
00:05It is very useful for measuring the center of mass or for other physical properties.
00:10Coordinate systems can also be very useful for assembling parts.
00:12We're also going to learn about applying points to models, and how to define them.
00:17Looking at this part, we've actually looked at this part in previous movies,
00:21and I'm going to use this to define some points in our new coordinate system.
00:23First off, let's click on Reference Geometry, let's click on Coordinate System.
00:26Now, by default, our coordinate system is based right at the origin.
00:31But, if I want to place a new coordinate system, I can just click on Point to define that.
00:35Notice I've got an X, Y, and a Z, and I can align any one of these axes to that.
00:39So with X axis, I'm going to just place it along a line.
00:41So you can use any line that happens to be close to where you're drawing from.
00:45So I'm going to use the X axis. Now that's pointing in that direction.
00:47I can also flop and rotate it to the side if I needed to.
00:51And for the Y axis, that same thing, I can go in and say, I want the Y going in this direction,
00:55or I can change the direction there.
00:56Then Z is going to kind of always be the third.
00:59We don't really need to define it, but if we wanted to, we could add that in there as well.
01:03Once I have that defined, it shows up there.
01:06I've got the axes there, and then I can go over,
01:08and under the Tools palette, which if you don't have it, you can just click up here,
01:12right-click anywhere and show the Tools palette just down here.
01:15Tools, I already have it showing, so I don't need to turn that on.
01:18Here is the Tool, and the first one here is like a little balance, and that's the Mass Properties.
01:22So I click on that, and this little window here is going to show me some of the mass properties of this.
01:27Now over here I don't have any material defined, so that's probably what we would need to do first.
01:30So I'm going to cancel that.
01:32I'm going to go over here and I'm going to define our material real quick,
01:33and you can do that just by clicking on it, with your right-click actually,
01:37and let's just change this to Plain Carbon Steel.
01:40Select that, and that's going to change this material,
01:43and the look and feel of this part to being a steel part.
01:47It changes the visual appearance as well as all the physical properties.
01:50And then I come over here to Mass Properties, and this is all based upon the real density of steel,
01:56the mass, and I also get the center of mass based upon this part with a bunch of things here.
02:02Now I can go up here to default and I can change which coordinate system I'm working with.
02:06So if I click to Coordinate System3, I get a center of mass here and here.
02:10If I click on the default, notice this goes back to like x = 0, z = 0
02:16because it's right there at the origin.
02:17So I'm allowing myself to calculate the center of mass, the moments of inertia from a different point.
02:24Okay, let's spin it around. I'm actually going to change this from Carbon Steel
02:30to maybe ABS, or we can change it to Brass for instance.
02:35So you can see how you change that around and it also changes a lot of the physical and visual properties.
02:40I'm also going to delete this Coordinate System right now, because we're not going to be using it.
02:43Now we're going to go ahead and put some points on this.
02:47So under Reference Geometry, I can select Point. There are a couple of different ways to do this.
02:50So the first one is called Center of the Arc, so I'm going to select that.
02:54Now I have a couple of arcs to use.
02:55I'm going to say I like this one right here.
02:57If I select that, it just drops a point right there in the center.
03:00Pretty handy, so there's a new point.
03:02One more, I'm going to go up here to Reference Geometry, click Point,
03:06and this is going to be Center of Face.
03:08Pick that one, grab a face, for instance this face over here, pick that face,
03:12it drops it right in the center of that face and now we've got Point17.
03:15Pretty nice. Add a few more, this time with the Point > Intersection.
03:20Now you need two curves to use this one.
03:22So I drew two little lines up here at the top, and notice I have a curve one, and I have curve two.
03:27As soon as I do that, click, it drops a point right at the intersection.
03:31And a little further, do Point > Projection.
03:34This means we're going to project from an existing point down to a face or a plain.
03:39I'm going to pick maybe this point here, and I'll pick like this face here.
03:43That's going to project that point all the way down here.
03:46It's actually inside of that cylinder a little bit,
03:49but you might have some occasion, you might need a point in there, and there it is.
03:53Okay, and then the very last one here is under Reference Geometry > Point, and it's a series of points.
04:01So you can lay out a bunch of points along one edge.
04:03So for instance, I'm going to use this edge here.
04:06Actually I'm going to get rid of this, and I'm going to pick this edge here.
04:11Notice I've got a bunch of points now evenly distributed across that edge,
04:17where I can put them at a certain distance that it's going to be going through,
04:20like we'll make that distance longer or shorter.
04:22I can adjust that. I can change the distribution or the percentage.
04:25There's a lot of different things I can do here to lay out those points and how I want them.
04:29So I want them evenly distributed and I can change how many I'm putting on there;
04:33click OK and those are my new points.
04:35SolidWorks provides a nice feature to redefine the local coordinate system used in our model.
04:42In fact, you can assign multiple coordinate systems based upon your needs and switch between them at will.
04:47The Points are very handy little helpers. They'll allow you to define sketches as well as build assemblies.
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7. Building 3D Geometry
Extruding a sketch into a 3D object
00:00Let's get into the solid aspects of SolidWorks.
00:03Until now we've learned how to create sketches and to work with sketch geometry.
00:08Now it's time to take those sketches and turn them into a 3D solid.
00:11The first of these commands is the Extrude command.
00:14The requirements are a close sketch region on a Face or Plane and then selecting the Extrude Feature.
00:20In SolidWorks I have a rectangular shape and a circle just drawn out here.
00:25Notice there are no dimensions on them quite yet.
00:27But we're just going to use them to demonstrate the Extrude command.
00:30So, so far with this Sketch I'm going to jump up here to Features tab,
00:34Click on Extrude Boss/Base.
00:35As soon as I do that, I get this little arrow that pops up here,
00:40and I can drag this up or down actually to find that shape.
00:44I get this little ruler there showing me exactly how long that is.
00:48It's kind of a rough estimation.
00:49It's better to actually type in over here on the left-hand side the exact length we want.
00:54We have a few options as far as how we want to extrude this shape.
00:58The first one here is where do we want to start from?
01:01By default it's going to pick right where you drew that sketch at on that plane.
01:04Alright, we have a plane shown here under the Top Plane,
01:07I'll just highlight it there, so it's showing us right where we drew it.
01:10But I can also start from a Surface or from a Vertex or from an Offset.
01:15So we don't have any surfaces or vertexes right now, but we'll click on the Offset.
01:19As soon as I do that I can just type in a number here,
01:22and notice how that block kind of moves up a little bit.
01:24I can also flip the direction of offsetting.
01:28So I can flip it between the two and change that number around a little bit.
01:33So that's Offset, but I'm going to change it back to the regular Sketch Plane.
01:36For Direction, by default it's Blind, so that whatever number we type in here,
01:39as far as 8 inches, it's just going to go those 8 inches up.
01:43I also have a few options here.
01:45Up To Vertex, if I had a point somewhere, if I wanted to just extrude it
01:48up to that point, that's the option I would choose.
01:51Same thing, if I had a surface that I wanted to extrude this thing up to,
01:54it would continue to go until it hit that surface.
01:56Offset From Surface is the same thing.
01:58So if wanted to be up to the surface, but a certain distance away, that's what I would choose.
02:03Up To Body, if there was another body in my model, we could actually do that
02:08and we're going to do a few of these in a few minutes here,
02:09and then Mid Plane, Mid Plane actually would put that Sketch Plane right in the center of my block,
02:16and then as I change that, it expands in both directions.
02:18We have the option to add draft to our features.
02:21So notice if I click on a Draft here, it drafts it in both directions from the Sketch Plane.
02:27If I had only Blind going in one direction, it would just draft it in that direction.
02:31Then I can change the Draft angle, I can draft it outwards if I wanted to or inwards,
02:36a bunch of things I can do there.
02:37Direction 2, if I click on that, just allows me to expand that block in the secondary direction.
02:44I can draft just that one side if I wanted to, draft both sides if I wanted to.
02:48I could change different angles if I wanted to, a bunch of things there.
02:51I'm going to turn Direction 2 off.
02:53Thin Feature turns this into more like a Sheet Metal part.
02:56So instead of actually filling it in, it actually uses to create two different shapes here,
03:01and I can change the thickness of how much I want to do that.
03:05So now I have kind of like just the profiles, and I even have the option to cap the ends of it
03:10to create like a block, and I can fill this in now, so I've got this kind of a solid filled block.
03:18The Select Contours is the last option down here.
03:21Now if I didn't want to extrude all this stuff, I just wanted a portion of it,
03:25you know I wanted maybe just one half of this block, I could select that and it would just extrude
03:30that one-half with a little half circle cutout of it, that's a real handy feature.
03:35And also if you didn't have a fully-enclosed sketch and there were some extra lines in there
03:40and SolidWorks didn't actually understand what you wanted to extrude,
03:44it would automatically go into the Selected Contours Mode and say what of these things do we actually want to extrude out?
03:50For right now, we're just going to turn off the Thin Feature
03:52and we're just going to turn this into a regular block, then we click OK,
03:55and there is our first official 3D solid.
03:59The 3D solid is made up of two things ; one is the Extrude Feature itself.
04:03So if I want to go back and change how much we extruded or add draft or
04:06something like that, I would go and click here under the Edit Feature.
04:10There it is, so I can go back and change it, so instead of 9 inches, maybe I want 8 inches.
04:14Click OK, it's going to drop it down a little bit and there we are, okay.
04:16But if I actually wanted to change the shape, I'd actually have to click on this
04:20little Plus (+) sign here and that is going to open up the underlying sketch.
04:24Now the sketch geometry is where the shape is defined.
04:27Click on that and then in the in- context window here, I click on Edit Sketch.
04:30I'm going to hit the Spacebar and click on Normal To so I'm looking straight at it.
04:35I can move these things around, so if I drag this around, I change the shape a little bit, make a long rectangle.
04:40As soon as I exit out of the Sketch, the shape changes, but the Extrude is exactly the same.
04:46It just took whatever shape I had and extrudes it 8 inches.
04:50Let's go back to the Sketch again, this time let's play with it a little bit and
04:56actually take this rectangular block here and let's take this circle and pull it to the outside.
05:00Alright, let's see what happens. A completely different shape, look at that, because the
05:06circle is now the exterior boundary and the square rectangle is now the interior boundary.
05:11So it just changed it around.
05:12Now I can also go back to this sketch and start adding some things if I wanted to.
05:16I'm going to happen to add just four circles around the perimeter here,
05:21and I'm just throwing them in there just to illustrate this.
05:23Of course if we were making this for real, we would like to fully-define those sketches
05:28to not have any blue and all fully-defined sketches.
05:32From there we're going to click OK, and notice what happens here.
05:37It automatically just adds those four holes to our design.
05:40We're going to continue on with this block here.
05:43I'm going to click on this inside face here.
05:45I'm going to create a new extrude.
05:46So I'm going to click on the Sketch, draw a little sketch.
05:50We're going to pull this circle over here in the corner, there he is.
05:53Then I'm going to click on the Features > Extrude tab and it's going to extrude it out a little bit.
05:58So by default, we can extrude a certain amount of inches, so we've got 9 inches in here.
06:02Let's go through a few of these other options here.
06:04Through All, click on that and notice it goes all the way up to the end of the part, there it is,
06:09but it's sticking through a little bit and it's aligned with the end of that feature.
06:13If I go to Up To Next, it's going to go the very next thing it finds,
06:18so it finds the inside of this rectangular shape, so it's going to go up to that.
06:22Now if I were to change that size of that rectangular hole,
06:24it would automatically update and go to the next face it found.
06:29Up To Vertex, if I have any point or line or intersection, I can select,
06:34I can pick like a corner from here or here.
06:36I can even go in and turn on other sketches.
06:40If I want to click over here and show that sketch, so here is the underlying sketch we had before,
06:45and maybe I'll go up to like the center point, see that with center point there,
06:49snap to that and now I've got a shape that's going to go up to the center point,
06:53that's the vertex I'm choosing.
06:55I'm going to go Up To Surface. This one's kind of cool. Pick that surface.
07:03So now it's extruding up to that surface.
07:05Now it wouldn't make a lot of sense here because we already have that filled in,
07:09but the next one here is Offset From Surface and now I can actually pick that surface
07:15and pick how much I want to offset from it and I'm just going to type in like 0.1 for instance there,
07:23and let's flip the direction, and now I can just expand that out a little bit.
07:28And now notice it follows that same shape of the outside of this part
07:31and I'm extruding a little bit past there and you can just do that a little bit with your Reverse Offset
07:36and then how much you want to offset, so it just keeps that same shape.
07:39And then the next one here is Up To Body.
07:42We don't have any other bodies because it's a single body part right now,
07:45so we can't do that, but it will do exactly the same thing as Up To Next,
07:49so we just go up there and find it.
07:50Then Mid Plane we've already done; we're just going to go kind of in both directions there.
07:54Let's go back to Blind, Through All, a couple of different options.
08:02Of the four main solid Features, Extrude is the most common and easiest to use.
08:07The Feature itself is very simple; however, it builds on the complexity of the underlying sketch.
08:12There are a variety of end constraints that you can assign to the features that affect how it builds its shape.
08:17The Extrude command is the building block that is the most used for model creation.
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Using Revolve to create 3D parts around a circular axis
00:00Much like the Extrude command, the Revolve Feature creates geometry from a sketch.
00:05However the Revolve requires one more ingredient, the axis of rotation.
00:09Once you have a sketch, the next element is a centerline, an axis or an internal line of the sketch.
00:14This is the feature we're going to create; it's a revolved bottle,
00:19and to create that shape we need a sketch and a centerline and then the Revolve Feature.
00:23So I'm going to jump over here to another sketch I have open.
00:26This is kind of a sketch of the profile of bottle.
00:29Notice it's one enclosed perimeter and the way I created that was just
00:34a series of lines and arcs with some tangency relationships added to them.
00:38So I'm just going to show you how to create that real quick.
00:40Jump over here, create a line, come up here to the tangent arc.
00:47Click up here to line. Now I could easily use the Shortcut Bar if I wanted to,
00:53but I'm just showing you by going up to the simple mouse icons,
01:01and I'm just going to continue these.
01:02Notice as I am creating the shapes, it's automatically adding some tangency.
01:07Notice that it didn't add it here though, that's a problem.
01:09So it's still like not working the way I want it to.
01:11So I just click on the pairs, and hold down Ctrl, select the two items, and say Tangent.
01:17So now if I move this around that tangency stays.
01:21I can move any of these things around to get that shape that I want, I can move it in and out.
01:25So as long as I have that tangency, then I have a nice fluid motion that
01:29I can move these lines around and contour that shape to however I want.
01:33So that's how you'd kind of go ahead and create that shape and just continue around,
01:36with just a bunch of series of lines and arcs and we could probably come in here
01:40and start defining that with dimensions or some construction geometry.
01:43I'll delete that for right now.
01:45So here is our shape and we're just going to revolve that around.
01:50Notice I have a little centerline down here which it's going to revolve around
01:53or I can actually use just the centerline of the part.
01:55So I'm going to click on Features and Revolve, and the very first question,
02:01notice it gives this little arrow, it says, what do I want to revolve this thing around?
02:05And there is my centerline of the part or I can use this little Revolve axis,
02:09click on that, and notice it just spins it right around for us
02:13and we go down here to Direction1 and it says, how do we want to spin this thing around?
02:17By default it's giving you just a blind, so blindly it's going to spin this thing around in 360 degrees.
02:21I could change that if I wanted to, say like, 45 degrees,
02:25and then my profile just shows it only revolving it for 45.
02:28There are some other options in here.
02:30If I had a Vertex Up To, I could spin this around until it actually hit that point,
02:33same thing if I had a surface, I could spin it around until it actually
02:37encountered that surface, or even offset from that surface.
02:40Mid Plane is the last one here and that will just put the sketch right in the center of that extrude.
02:45As I expand that out, it expands it equally in both directions.
02:48I'm going to go back to Blind for a second here.
02:51I also have a Direction2.
02:52If I click on that, now it's also going to go in the other direction in the same way.
02:56So I've got 60 both ways, but if I wanted to change the angle,
02:59it went through on one side more than the other side, I have that ability to do that.
03:03And same thing I can change one way to go Blind and the other one to maybe go up to a Vertex
03:07or a Surface or something like that, so a lot of different options here I can use.
03:12The Thin Feature, if I wanted to make this like a hollow shape,
03:14I could go ahead and turn Thin Feature on and go through some of the options in here
03:19and pick up the thickness I wanted to use.
03:21You might have a little bit of an issue with a part like this, especially when you have small curves,
03:24if you try to turn out Thin Feature on, you have to make sure that the thinness of your feature
03:27is actually smaller than the curve you're going to be using.
03:30And then the last thing here is Selected Contours . So right now we only have one enclosed shape.
03:38So if we wanted to break this into sections or maybe just do like the top section
03:43or the lower section, I have to go back to that sketch and modify that, so let's go try that out.
03:47So I'm just going to cancel this for right now.
03:50Click on Spacebar, click on Normal To, so I'm looking straight at it.
03:53I'm just going to go back to the Sketch tab here and I'm just going to say, add a couple lines.
03:56So I'm going to section this off here and one more line up here.
04:04So now I have three independent close boundaries, that one, that one and that one.
04:09Now I go back to the Revolve command.
04:12Notice as soon as I get into Revolve command, it doesn't actually know which boundary I want to use,
04:16so it goes ahead and turns the Selection Filter on.
04:19Notice my icon has that little Selection Filter icon next to it.
04:22So as I move over each one of these, it highlights the area that's the enclosed boundary.
04:27So I can choose any of these or all of these or any combination.
04:31So I'm just going to pick the very top one here and I'm going to go pick
04:35that axis of rotation that's right here and click OK and then I'm just going to
04:39give that very top piece a little Hershey's kiss look and shape
04:44and you can always go back and edit this feature again and continue adding on.
04:47So you might say, I'd like to add the next section of it and there is a little bit taller one,
04:53or you can go back here and continue and add the whole shape just by selecting any one of these things
04:59or I can just remove one of these just by selecting it here and hitting Delete and getting rid of it.
05:03There is my whole shape, defined out as a Revolve Feature with the Selected Contour Option.
05:10The Rotate command is one of my favorites, and more than likely will be one of yours.
05:14With a simple sketch and an axis of rotation, we can build elaborate shapes with just a few clicks of the mouse.
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Using Loft to create a complex shape
00:00The Loft command again builds on all the other features then it needs the sketch.
00:04However, the Loft command actually needs at least two sketches and can have many more.
00:08All the heavy-lifting in creating lofts is spent setting up the correct planes and sketches.
00:13If that was not enough, we can even add guide curves that are independent sketches.
00:17The Loft command is one of the most powerful modeling tools in SolidWorks.
00:21If you need to create complex shapes in one feature, this would be the command of choice.
00:26In this video we're going to cover the basics of this command.
00:29However, if you're working with complex shapes, this command might require a little further study.
00:33In SolidWorks I have a rectangle here with rounded out corners and it's created on the Top Plane.
00:39So you should be fairly comfortable with creating that.
00:41Now what I want to do is I want to add another plane up above this.
00:45So I'm going to click on the Reference Geometry, click on Plane.
00:47Now my first reference is just going to be this Top Plane here.
00:50So I'm going to click on that and it's going to give me a distance
00:54and I'm going to just type in a distance here of 3.0.
00:55It's going to move that plane up here, I'm going to move it around so you can see
00:59it's just placing another plane up above, click OK and there is my Plane.
01:04Now I want to create a sketch on this new plane.
01:06That's why we put it there.
01:08Click on that Plane, click on Sketch, start a new sketch.
01:11Instead of doing that, I'm actually going to just draw a little circle right there on the top.
01:14I can always click on the Spacebar to go to Normal To that if I wanted to, drag it out.
01:19I can add some dimensions if I wanted to, but I'm just going to leave it as is for right now.
01:23I'm going to exit out of that sketch now, so now I have two independent sketches:
01:26Sketch1, Sketch3, and then I have this Plane that I created that sketch on.
01:31Now if I wanted to move this sketch up or down, I actually move that plane up or down,
01:36and that would affect where it lies.
01:38To create the loft, what we're going to do is just go over here to Features and go to Loft.
01:43So we've got a couple of choices here in the beginning, so profiles are the two shapes we're going to use.
01:47So we've got this rectangle and this circle.
01:50So instead of choosing them from the actual window here, it's better to actually choose the sketches as a whole.
01:57I have the top level expansion bar here.
01:59So I can click on this little Plus (+) and it expands out my tree.
02:03So I'm going to pick my first Sketch1 to be the bottom, and then Sketch3 is going to be the top,
02:08and notice as soon as I do that, it actually creates the Loft Feature for me between the two.
02:12Pretty nice, click OK and there's my first loft.
02:15Now I'm going to hide that sketch here, so it just makes a little cleaner looking.
02:20Here is my shape.
02:23Now I have the ability to kind of go back and change this around a little bit,
02:26so let's go back into that Loft and notice that the two sketches now are underneath that Loft Feature.
02:33So I can change either one of those or I can go back and change the Loft itself.
02:36Okay, so below this is the Start/End Constraints, so I can click on that
02:41and when I start my loft off, which we start on the bottom piece here,
02:45I'm going to click on and I can either do a Direction Vector or a Normal To Profile.
02:48So Normal To Profile actually will make this so it's facing straight up when it comes off that sketch
02:54and then it starts curving in to hit the other sketcher.
02:57So if I click OK, I get a nice kind of more organic shape, it flows nicely there,
03:03and if I do it again, I go back in here and I add the Normal Constraint to the End Constraint here.
03:11So I go back to Normal To Profile, then I get a shape like this.
03:15I also have the option to use a Direction Vector and I would have to go ahead
03:20and put which direction I'd like to actually move this in,
03:24so I'm going to just use the Normal To Profile, but if I did need to contour
03:27that shape a little further, I could do that.
03:29So that's Start/End Constraint, I'll click OK, so you can see how my shape is
03:33kind of evolving here as I want to change it around, I can go back to that one more time.
03:37We have got a few different things down here as far as options,
03:42as far as showing the preview, merging the resulting if I was working with adding a loft
03:46to another part of this right there, I can choose either merge together
03:49or just keep it as separate features and separate bodies and closing out the Loft,
03:53Show preview and then Merge tangent faces,
03:56these are all just kinds of things you can turn on and off to define that.
03:59The next big thing here is going to be guide curves and it's how we can actually contour that shape.
04:04Right now the shape is defined just by these Direction Vectors.
04:07But if we wanted to kind of smooth this to a different direction
04:10or work with something else, we could use the guide curves.
04:13Now we're going to be going through guide curves in the next movie, so stay tuned for that.
04:18Click on OK. We're going to end out that feature and there it is.
04:21The Loft command is definitely one of the most powerful commands in SolidWorks
04:25and the creation process can be time-consuming.
04:27However, the concept is fairly straightforward and the complexity really lies in
04:32building the appropriate sketches and trying out the shape.
04:35Lofts can be very simple to extremely complex.
04:39Make sure to review the sketching and plane movies to really feel comfortable with the Loft command.
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Refining a loft shape with guide curves
00:00Now that we have learned the basics of creating Loft commands features,
00:04we're going to go ahead and take these things to the next level.
00:07We're going to use this starting sketch here as our layout for creating
00:11a mouse-like shape or about half of a mouse-looking profile.
00:15And we have got a few things to lay this out with.
00:18We've got a basic layout on the bottom which is a sketch, that's just created on the Top Plane,
00:24had to show that so I just drew that out, and I go inside of that sketch.
00:27I can see that we did a couple, both lines here and overall, and it's not fully-defined yet,
00:36cause we're still working with that curve and that shape, but we're just kind of
00:39laying out some of these spaces and putting in some of these construction lines.
00:42Okay, once I have that shape, I'm going to go ahead and build a couple of planes at the two ends.
00:49So to do that, I just start a plane, an Offset Plane from the Front Plane,
00:54and I just snapped it to this point here, and the same thing on the other side,
00:57I just snapped it to the point here to create these two planes.
01:00The STARTING_POINT of this thing is just a single point.
01:03If I open that sketch, it really is just one point.
01:05I've just gone up here to point, dropped it right there and that was it.
01:11Get out of that sketch.
01:12The END_POINT, same-same, it's just a single point.
01:15The PROFILE is a sketch that's just created on the Front Plane
01:20and that just controls the shape of the mouse.
01:24I can move things around if I wanted to, but notice it just starts at the origin,
01:27comes out here and it snaps to that layout sketch
01:30and then it comes up with whatever shape we want up to the top here.
01:33So that's the PROFILE, the END_POINT;
01:38now the LOWER_GUIDE is just a straight line that's going to control the shape,
01:42so it just flows along the bottom edge,
01:45and then the UPPER_GUIDE is the shape of mouse over we're going to contour.
01:48And the last Guide Curve we're going to use is actually the original layout here
01:52and that's going to be controlling the bottom profile on the outside edge.
01:56So let's go ahead and see if we can't - and by the way the LOWER_GUIDE here
02:03as well as the UPPER_GUIDE were both created on the Right Plane, so if I show that,
02:07you can just see how I started on the Right Plane and did both of those sketches on that.
02:10So I'm just going to hide that for right now.
02:12Okay, so let's jump into the Loft command in our Profiles.
02:18So we're going to start on this side and we're going to progress this way,
02:23and so my very first sketch I'm going to use is actually starting right here
02:26and instead of picking it from the Graphics window, I'm going to go ahead
02:29and expand out the tree and I'm going to use this one called STARTING_POINT.
02:34Now I renamed my sketches and you can just click on sketches
02:37and rename them to anything you want; same thing with planes.
02:39So we just made it a little easier to look at.
02:41So STARTING_POINT is my very first, followed by PROFILE and notice as soon as I
02:46pick those two, there they are, it shows me a preview of what I' ll actually get here.
02:50So I'm just going to start with a small point and then go to that PROFILE.
02:56Now I have an END_POINT, coming at the back to the end and notice as I
03:00add an END_POINT, now that shape changed a little bit more, a little more curvy.
03:03It's not quite what we're looking for, right?
03:05We kind of want this to be more smoothed down and flowing better.
03:10So that's where we want to use those Guide Curves.
03:12Now I just want to point this out as well is if you have a profile in the wrong order,
03:15that's why you have these little arrows here, so you could change the END_POINT
03:18to move it up or down depending if you got these in the wrong order.
03:22In the Guide Curves, we're going to start with LOWER_GUIDE, that's just going to constrain that,
03:27so that, it pulls that shape along that bottom edge,
03:31make sure it's a nice sharp edge and then our UPPER_GUIDE is just going to change
03:36the shape so it flows along that upper shape, so we're going to take a look at that there.
03:40As soon as I click on that UPPER_GUIDE it drags the shape out to flow along that Guide Curve.
03:45And then the last curve is just going to be one here where we're going to drag the
03:48bottom edge of that out to that outside guide, and that one is the original layout sketch we use.
03:53As soon as we do that, it brings it out and we've got a nice shape that kind of
03:59flows very nicely and ends these two little points.
04:03Once we have that, we have pretty much a complete shape, looking pretty good.
04:07Click on OK and there it is. Pretty nice!
04:12Now I was going to show a couple of things that will help us to analyze our shapes,
04:18And we click up here under View, we can click into the Display and we get these things
04:24called Curvature, Zebra Stripes, and we can use either one of these things to actually
04:28look at what that shape looks like and see how much curvature is actually being applied here.
04:33As the color changes, you can see it's a little Sharper Curve or a Smoother Curve.
04:37I can turn either one of those one or both on at the same time,
04:41turn the Curvature off. I'm going to turn on Display and Zebra Stripes, same thing.
04:46So if you had something that was a sharp line or a cut or something like that,
04:50the stripes wouldn't be as smooth, so you can kind of just analyze what kind of shape
04:54you've created and how much curvature, things like that you have applied to it.
04:59So there's just couple of things that you can to analyze your shape
05:02and just to smooth it out a little bit, make sure it's looking well.
05:06Okay, now that I have the shape complete, I'm just going to continue this off.
05:10I'm going to jump ahead a little bit.
05:11I'm going to teach you guys just a little about the Mirror command.
05:14So I'm going choose the Mirror.
05:15It's just going to be a solid mirror, and I'm going to pick the Mirror Face
05:17which is going to be this face here and I'm going to mirror that entire feature over.
05:21Click OK and that finishes out that shape so we get it complete now.
05:25As you can see this is kind of the start of a computer mouse
05:32and we might want to maybe add a few more curves in there,
05:34something like that to change that shape a little more to get a little bit smoother,
05:37but overall it's looking like a good start.
05:40As you can see lofts can be very complicated and can be made from many planes and sketches.
05:45Each Guide Curve and Shape must be on its own sketch.
05:48So laying them out is what takes all the time.
05:51However, once you have it complete, you have the opportunity to build something amazing.
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Using Sweep to create wire and pipe shapes
00:00Sweeps allow for the creation of tubes, hoses, wires or any other object
00:05that has a constant profile formed into a shape.
00:08Think of a wire hanger.
00:10The wire size stays the same, however we can form it into any desired shape.
00:14The requirements are a profile and a path.
00:18The profile is a shape that is constant.
00:20For a hanger, the profile is just a simple circle.
00:23The path is the final shape that we want to build.
00:26This requires two separate sketches defining both the profile and the path.
00:29In SolidWorks I have a finished hanger here, that's already defined as one Sweep.
00:35To build that, it starts from two sketches.
00:37So let's jump over here, here is the beginning sketch.
00:40So here is our Sketch1 just created on the Front Plane and we define out the shape
00:44of what that is, and we should know how to use most of these commands here.
00:48We're just using arcs, lines, arc, lines, and just lay it out with construction geometry.
00:54From there we want to create a profile.
00:56Now the profile, we need to have it aligned to the endpoints of one of these,
01:01this endpoint here or this endpoint here. So I can create a plane at the end of one of these points.
01:07I'm going to choose this one here.
01:08By using the Reference Geometry, create a plane, and my reference here is just going to be that endpoint.
01:14I want the plane touching that point, and then my second reference is actually just going to be that line.
01:18So pick that line and now I have a plane that's perpendicular to that endpoint
01:26and perfectly aligned with it, a nice way to create a little plane.
01:30Click OK and there it is.
01:32Click on Sketch, start new Sketch, and we're going to choose that plane to draw our sketch on.
01:36And we just want a simple circle right here at the end of that.
01:39There is our circle, just draw it out and we can add a dimension.
01:44So I'm going to pick like .25, like one of those plastic hangers.
01:50Click OK and exit out of that sketch.
01:52I'm going to hide this plane just to make it easy to see.
01:55So now we have two separate sketches ; Sketch1 is actually the path and
01:59Sketch2 is the profile. There it is.
02:02That's everything we need to create a Sweep.
02:05So let's go in here under Features and click Swept Base/Boss.
02:10The first question, notice the available icons here and it shows the profile
02:14which it just basically shows a little circle which just makes it handy
02:17that we happen to have one, there it is.
02:19So we're going to pick that out of the tree.
02:20It's always better to pick things from the tree than from the actual Sketch environment.
02:26And secondly, is going to be the path, and that's going to that Sketch1.
02:29As soon as I click on those two it gives me a preview
02:32of what it's going to generate and how we want to go though there.
02:35We've got some other options that we can click on down here too if we wanted to
02:37as far following the path or twisting along the path,
02:40a bunch of things that we can do to make this a little more wild.
02:43We can also use Guide Curves similar to Lofts to actually change that shape
02:46if we wanted to not keep it going exactly the same profile as I went through that shape.
02:51You can get quite complicated doing that, but it's done much the same way.
02:54Start/End Tangency, same thing, so right now we're starting with None,
02:58but we can make it follow the path or tangent to the path,
03:00if we wanted to, just change the shape a little bit as far as how it's actually
03:05going to be dragging that one profile along that path.
03:08And then the last thing here is, we could turn that into a Thin Feature,
03:10but we've got to make sure we get fairly thin wall,
03:15and that would make it a very thin tube here.
03:18So if we wanted to create like a thin tube to or a hose or something like that,
03:22we could use the Thin Feature to create that, very simple way to do that.
03:25Right now we're not going to do that.
03:26I'm just going to click on OK, and there we go.
03:31Wire hanger, quickly create it with the Sweep.
03:34Now Sweeps can be used to create wires, like these hoses, this is just obviously a 2D shape,
03:40but we could actually jump into 3D and create a 3D sketch if we needed to,
03:44to have a wire or a tube going in all kinds of different directions if we needed to,
03:48or spinning around in a helix if we needed to,
03:51and we'll learn how to make a helix in the next few chapters.
03:54Swept shapes are easy to create as long as you have the correctly defined profile and path.
03:59The complexity of this feature is based upon laying out the sketches correctly.
04:04Spend the time to think through how you want the shape to be created
04:08and the best way to build planes and their corresponding sketches.
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8. Removing Material
Using Extruded Cut to trim parts of a 3D object
00:00Extrude Cut command is basically the same as the Extrude command,
00:04except now, we're cutting with the feature.
00:07The requirements are a closed sketch region on a Face or Plane, and something to cut through.
00:12Let's start by selecting a face and drawing a simple sketch.
00:15In SolidWorks here I've got a simple block that we're using kind of as our layout,
00:19and demonstrating to cut through, and I've created a sketch on that plane here.
00:24So I'll pick the end of the part, click on Sketch,
00:27and I just have a real simple circle that I drew.
00:31Now, we could draw a lot of other things on here if we wanted to,
00:33but there is our sketch on that face, click OK.
00:35Once I've got that sketch drawn out, I'm going to use this sketch here,
00:39so Sketch2 is what we're going to use to cut through things.
00:42Extruded Cut icon is right here; click on that.
00:46Much like the Extrude Command, the first thing is where do I want to start cutting from?
00:50So Sketch Plane, wherever I drew that shape originally is where my default;
00:55I can also push it off to another surface, I can pick a vertex, or we can offset it.
00:59So if I wanted to, I'm going to start cutting somewhere inside of the part here or something like that.
01:06So I didn't actually start here, I kind of started in the middle here.
01:08That would make a nice little offset.
01:10But, we don't quite want that right now.
01:12So let's go back to the Sketch Plane.
01:14So by default, we just start with Blind, so it's just blindly cut.
01:17So it's going to put 3.9 inches.
01:19That's how far we're going to cut.
01:20So click OK, and there it is.
01:22There is our cut feature; it just starts at the circle, just cuts it through and it cuts 3.9 inches.
01:27If I want to go in here and measure that, I can say measure from this face here
01:31to that face there, and there it is, normal distance is 3.9.
01:33So that's my cut distance I cut.
01:36I can obviously just section this in two, to show you how it would look.
01:39I'm going to go in and look at that part.
01:41Let's go back to that feature.
01:44Instead of Blind, we can say, Through All.
01:47So if we want a hole, it just automatically cuts through everything there
01:49that's in front of it, click on that.
01:50That's going to give us that nice hole through everything.
01:53Okay, go back again; instead of Through All, Up To Next.
01:59Now Up To Next is just going to find the next face that completely
02:02cuts off that sketch region and end there.
02:05So no matter how thick the section was here, it's always going to cut all the way through it.
02:08Click OK, and we've got a nice little hole.
02:10Okay come back here, Up To Vertex.
02:16Now I can pick any point or vertex to stop the cut.
02:22So I'm going to pick like this point here,
02:24and notice that point is aligned with the end of the sketch, click OK.
02:27That's actually only going to cut a little half-moon section up here,
02:30because it only goes up to this point here when it does that cut.
02:32I'm going to go back to it, Up To Vertex; next one will be Up To Surface.
02:39Up To Surface, I could say I want to cut up to this surface here, or this surface here.
02:43It's going to cut all the way up to there, and not through the next one.
02:47Alright. So it's a nice way to cut up to there.
02:52Over here, we're going to go to Offset From Surface.
02:54This is kind of a neat one, so I can pick, I can face like this as my surface,
02:58and put in something like a 0.25.
03:03What that's going to do is going to bring from this surface
03:05we're going to move a quarter-inch back from it.
03:08But it's continued to cut using that surface. So click on OK.
03:11If we look down in that hole, you can see it's at an angle.
03:14I'm going to section it just so we can see it a little easier.
03:16So you can see it actually followed the contour of that original face here or the surface,
03:21and then just brought it back a quarter-of-an-inch; really handy.
03:27Up to Body; we don't have any other bodies.
03:29We only have the one body we're cutting through at this point in time.
03:32But if we had another body, we could actually have it cutting through this body up
03:34until it encountered the next body, and then Mid Plane is the last one here,
03:38and you can see as it cuts both directions,
03:41now we have nothing over here to cut, so it doesn't really make a lot of sense in this application.
03:45But you can see we can cut in both directions and it's just fine, we have got a hole at the end.
03:49So that is the Extrude command.
03:52Now, we have a couple of other options here.
03:55I'm just going to go back to Blind.
03:56We can go in obviously two directions if we wanted to if we had something else over here,
04:00and we also have Selected Contours.
04:03So right now, we only have that one shape, but just like we did in the past is if we wanted
04:06to cut something else, we could totally do that, and I'll just give you an example of that.
04:10If I cut this away and I say Through All, it ends up with just those sections inside of there, kind of a cool thing.
04:18So it's cutting where everything else besides the sketch we had
04:22and it's actually cutting and creating three separate pieces and now we've kept all three of those bodies.
04:25I'm going to go back, so we don't have that, and then the other thing here was we can add draft.
04:31So if I put Blind, I can add some Draft to it and as we go through these parts
04:36or select Through All, you can see how that draft is creating a drafted hole,
04:42that starts big and get smaller as it goes.
04:45Much like the Extrude command, the Extruded Cut is straightforward and easy to use.
04:50It is one of the most used commands, and there is a variety pack of options
04:53that make this a very handy feature.
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Trimming with the revolve cut
00:00Creating a revolved cut is exactly the same as creating a basic revolve.
00:05However, this time we need something to cut and the features act a little differently.
00:09This command also builds on plane creation and sketching skills.
00:13So make sure you're up to speed.
00:14In SolidWorks here we've got a piece of hexagonal stock that we created already
00:18and we're going to take this profile here and we're going to
00:22spin and rotate this around and cut the end section of this off.
00:26This would be very similar to something we would do in a like a lathe or
00:30turning operation in a machine shop to actually prepare this maybe for threading.
00:35So let's take a look at the features it go in here.
00:38The original piece of hex stock I'm going to hide just for a second,
00:41so we can just look directly at that sketch.
00:43So here is the sketch profile, it's really just a bunch of lines,
00:47and we've tied to the outside of that hex stock, came in here with a 45,
00:50straight section, a little thread relief and come back out here.
00:55We have a centerline we're going to rotate around.
00:56Go back and I'm going to show this hex stock again and let's go take a look at that Sketch2.
01:02So here's our sketch, and I'm going to hide that block one more time, so we don't see it.
01:06So there're the inputs we've put in there to define that shape.
01:10Now this could be anything; it's just basic straight lines that just create this shape,
01:13but we have added a bunch of angles and distances to define where they're all going to go to
01:18and you can see we have some Perpendicular Relationships here and some Coincidents,
01:21so we're kind of snapping onto the outside of that hex stock on this upper corner.
01:26We're snapping again to that outside of that hex stock over here.
01:29And then we're using what's called double dimensions up here.
01:33Double dimensions are created by going over a centerline.
01:35So I'm going to delete this dimension here and I'm going to create one for you.
01:39So I'm going to select this line here and I'm going to click on the centerline.
01:44And as soon as I do that watch what happens.
01:46As long as I'm on this side of it, it stays a single dimension.
01:50But as soon as I go over that centerline, it doubles and turns into a double dimension.
01:55See that? As I go over that centerline ; it has to have a centerline to work.
01:59So a line to a line won't work; it always has to go to a centerline or a construction line.
02:03So as long as I put that in there that just allows us to input values
02:08as a diameter versus putting them as a radius.
02:11Once I have my sketch looking good, click OK.
02:13Now I've got that sketch, which I want to revolve around.
02:16I go up here to Revolved Cut, click on that.
02:18The first question it's going to say which axis of rotation we'd like to go around
02:24and we're going to pick that centerline.
02:25Notice as I spin that around it's going to do a cut, click OK and there's my new shape.
02:30I'm going to Hide that sketch and there it is.
02:34So we've taken kind of the end of this piece of hex stock and created it in a revolve shape.
02:39And the next stage here we might do a threading portion, something like that, to finish that end.
02:45Let's go back to the Revolve Cut.
02:49We have a few other options that we can look at.
02:51By default we're just doing Blind, which is going to give us full rotation of 360 degrees.
02:56I can always just do like half of that for instance and I'll get half of it revolved away.
03:00That's kind of showing you how that looks.
03:04And then also, go back in there,
03:06I've got the options that we saw on the original revolve as Up To Vertex,
03:10so if we had a point that we wanted to revolve Up To a Surface,
03:13Offset From a Surface or Mid Plane, so we can just do a Mid Plane cut
03:17from that original sketch both directions, however many degrees you wanted to cut something from.
03:22Make sure we have a few points here, so we can say Up To Vertex,
03:27I can select a point and it would go around there to cut that vertex.
03:31So it makes a lot of sense, you'd be able to do things like that.
03:33Same thing with Direction 2, if I wanted to cut in one direction and the other direction,
03:38I can setup a certain amount of degrees that I would like to come from one or the other,
03:43and you can see how that preview is changing.
03:45And then the same thing with Selected Contours, if I had more than one shape there,
03:49there where it's divided up, I could choose which part of it I wanted to use to cut.
03:52And that's exactly the same as we've done in some of the previous features.
03:56Once you have that, we go back to Blind.
03:58We're just going to go on to one direction and we'll going to change it back to 360.
04:05And there's our feature. Revolve features can do a lot with only a very simple input.
04:09The basics are choose or build a sketch and choose an axis of rotation.
04:14Then select the degrees of rotation and select OK.
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Trimming with the loft cut
00:00The Lofted Cut command is very similar to Standard Loft.
00:04It can be fairly easy to extremely complex.
00:07In SolidWorks here, I have a base block that's been created
00:10and I've created a sketch on the front and back faces of this block;
00:14my front sketch here and my back sketch here on the backside here, and there it is.
00:19To create a lofted cut, I'll just jump up here to Lofted Cut, click on that.
00:26And for my Profiles, as we've been doing in the past, instead of choosing it from
00:30the actual graphics window here, let's use the tree and select the first sketch.
00:34So Sketch2 would be my first sketch and my second sketch would be Sketch3.
00:39As soon as I do that, it gives me a nice little preview of what it's going to do as far as creating that loft.
00:45If I click on OK, as simple as that, I've created a lofted cut through that block.
00:50As you can see it looks pretty good, spin it around, select Cut, and now we'll slice it in half.
00:57So we can take a look and see what that shape looks like.
01:01From there, let's go back to that Lofted Cut feature.
01:06And notice as I create the loft, both of those sketches are now underlying that.
01:10So if I were to change either one of those, so let's say I went here and
01:14I changed this from 1.875 to 0.5, click on OK, it updates and the loft updates as well.
01:20If I want to change the loft itself, I've got a bunch of different options here.
01:27Just like with the original loft, we can change the way that the constraints start and end.
01:32So I can put a constraint here as far as Normal To Profile, which will then start coming out here,
01:38click on OK and see how that changed the profile a little bit,
01:43more of like a funnel going down there and then same thing with the End Constraint.
01:49So I can say Normal To Profile and now it changes it to be more like a horn or an hourglass type of shape.
01:57So I'll slice that in half, showing me how that profile looks,
02:03just by changing the start and end constraints.
02:06Let's go back to that.
02:09We also have the option for Guide Curves.
02:11So just like we did in the original loft, we can lay out some curves here to modify that shape,
02:17and how we want that profile to change as we go from one to the next.
02:20We can have it bulge out here a little bit or something like that,
02:24by adding some Guide Curves, and all that would be doing is just maybe starting on
02:27like the right plane here and drawing a curve or you can use the Top Plane to
02:31draw some curves or you can add some other planes in there to draw those out
02:34as we came along here as far as guiding that curve from one to the next.
02:38A couple of other options here as far as closing it off, showing the preview;
02:41so I'm going to turn that one off and see what it's going to look like when we get it completed.
02:45We can also base things off of our centerline, if we want it to get a little more complex,
02:49we have that option as well.
02:51The Lofted Cut shares most of the same options as the original loft.
02:55Keep in mind; you'll need a minimum of two separate sketches.
03:00Plan out the shape and think through the process before you get started.
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Trimming with the sweep cut
00:00A Swept Cut allows for a tool or a profile to be used to cut along a path.
00:05The creation process is almost the same as with a regular sweep,
00:09with the addition of needing something to cut through.
00:12On the screen, we can see we have a rectangular block with rounded corners and
00:17I've got two sketches here.
00:18The first sketch is the profile of what I want to cut, and the second one is
00:22just the path of that edge around the top of that shape.
00:24I want to take this cut.
00:26This would be very similar to using like a router bit to cut a top of
00:30a piece of wood or metal or something like that to come up with some certain profile.
00:34We can also use sweeps for creating holes or things like that where
00:38it would be cut through channels in a part ; a lot of different options there. Okay.
00:41So let's go and take a look at a couple of these things here.
00:44The first sketch here, I'm going to edit that sketch and I'm going to go over and look at it.
00:49I'm going to just zoom in here, and I'm going to turn it to wireframe, so we can see it a little easier.
00:52So basically, I've just got some dimensions here.
00:54You should be very comfortable with all these things here, those basic lines and arcs,
00:59go ahead and create this and some addition of some relationships showing where
01:04and how we created these things here.
01:06So we're snapping to the edge of the part here with a Coincident relationship.
01:10We've got a vertical, a horizontal. We've got a tangency relationship on this arc here.
01:15We've got radius, a vertical, horizontal vertical, a tangency and
01:19they're snapping to the top of that part there with a couple of dimensions.
01:23So this profile could be really anything we wanted to, that's just where we're starting with, click OK.
01:30Then up here, we just basically pick the top surface, choose back to Shaded Mode.
01:37I'm just picking the top surface there, and starting a sketch.
01:40So there's my Sketch here and on the top there, I basically create the lines that
01:46are going to go all the way round that arc, click in the wireframe.
01:49What I'm using here is actually if I pick that top face, I use this one called Convert Entities,
01:55and that brings those and just copies those edges and we're going to cover that in a future chapter.
01:59But we could also just lay out using lines and arcs to go around that,
02:03so they just snap off the outside edges.
02:07So there is our profile, there is our path.
02:09Let's go ahead and create that shape.
02:11We're going to do a Swept Cut and our Profile Sweep, we're going to pick for our profile,
02:19it's going to be that first sketch right here, and for our path, it's that one there.
02:24You can see it gives us a nice example of what it's going to look like.
02:29Everything looks okay, click OK, and there we go.
02:32You can see how that part looks, you get that nice rounded corner here,
02:39a couple of other things, a nice decorative part.
02:40This might be like a nice piece to start as a metal part for the base of
02:45some machinery or some thing you might be creating. Looks pretty nice.
02:48Underneath the Swept Cut, let's take a look;, we've got a few options here.
02:53We've got Follow Path, as far as how you want to use that.
02:55We've got a bunch of other options here.
02:57We can have other curves, and Guide Curves and stuff that we want
03:01to twist things along the path if we needed to.
03:03So some more complex things we can look at.
03:06Same thing with Twisting, direction vectors; we can change things along here.
03:10The Guide Curves also, we can add-in more curves if we want to,
03:14to control how that shape might change as it goes through the different paths.
03:18And same thing with Start and End Tangency; this is how we're going to start from that part.
03:23Now we're starting on a flat surface, or starting like on that front plane.
03:26So that's not going to have much effect on this one, but we could adjust the tangency here
03:31if we needed to, just turn it off and on, or Path Tangent.
03:35But those are two options here, but it's not really going to change anything.
03:37Other than that, that's pretty much the Sweep command.
03:41The Swept Cut command can be very useful and is great for creating special features.
03:46To create a swept cut, we need a profile and a path.
03:50These two sketches cannot be on the same plane,
03:52and have to have an orientation that allows the shape to be built.
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9. Refining Geometry
Using fillets and chamfers to create smooth or angled corners
00:00Rounding or beveling of sharp corners is used extensively in product design and
00:05SolidWorks has provided an easy-to- use interface for applying either one.
00:09Rounding is called adding a fillet and beveling is called adding a chamfer.
00:14The most basic type of fillet is called the Edge Fillet and
00:17is created by selecting one or more edges and choosing the desired radius.
00:21In SolidWorks here we have a part we're going to add a bunch of different fillets and chamfers too.
00:27So I'm going to jump up here to Fillet and notice there is a dropdown that adds a chamfer.
00:30Fillets and Chamfers are added almost exactly the same way.
00:32So on a Fillet, I'm going to start with Constant radius.
00:36My very first fillet I'm going to add is just right here at this edge.
00:38So I'm going to select that edge, and I can put in whatever radius I want.
00:43I'm going to leave it at 0.375, and click on OK.
00:46I'm going to say Full Preview, showing me exactly what that's going to actually do for us.
00:51Click on OK, and that's my first fillet. Pretty simple.
00:54I'm going to try that again.
00:57This time I'm going to change it to 0.25 radius, and continue to use the Constant radius,
01:02and so I'm going to use an inside of a hole,
01:06and there's a nice little fillet of that hole.
01:08So you can see how that works.
01:11Going back to Fillet, I'm going to click on the Variable radius one, which is the next one.
01:16And on the bottom of the part here, I've got this edge I'm going to fillet,
01:19and the Variable radius allows me to start at one side of the fillet edge with a bigger radius,
01:25and I can change it to a smaller radius on the other side.
01:26So I'm going to click in this box here; I'm going to type in 0.375.
01:32I'm going to click in this box here to 0 .05, so I'll make it a little smaller.
01:36As soon as I click out of that, it should give me a preview of what I'm going to see.
01:40Click OK, and there's that Fillet.
01:41I also have the option of going back to that one and changing,
01:45do I either want a Smooth transition or do I want a Straight transition?
01:48Clicking on that gives me a nice little straight conversion from big to small.
01:55On the Fillets here, we're going to continue on with a Face Fillet.
01:58I'm going to spin that part around and take a look at the other side here.
02:00There it is, and I want a nice fillet in this edge here.
02:04So I'm going to pick a series of faces.
02:06So the face that I'm going to use is this face here and that face there and that one.
02:10And then for the bottom face I'm going to pick this one. Click OK.
02:13That's a nice little fillet in that corner for us. Looks pretty good.
02:17Jump into Fillets some more, and this is going to be the Full round fillet.
02:21That's a combination of three faces.
02:23So I'm going to use this edge of the part here for creating that.
02:25I'm going to pick this as my first face, jump into the next box,
02:29this box, and the bottom one, I'm going to pick the bottom face.
02:32It gives me a preview of what's going to happen, Click OK, and that's the Full round fillet.
02:37Now, instead of creating fillets in the solid form,
02:42we can also go back and add fillets into the sketch.
02:44I have a sketch kind of laid out here.
02:46I'm going to open up that sketch and click on Normal To.
02:51So I also have a fillet command I could add to this sketch.
02:54I'm going to jump into the sketch window and grab Fillet.
02:57I'm just going to put in 0.25 and then just pick the corners, or you can pick a pair of faces.
03:02I'm going to pick the corner first, and then I'll pick the pair over here.
03:05So either way, it allows you to fillet out those corners.
03:08As soon as you're happy with what it looks like click on OK,
03:10and then I have filleted corners here, so when I go ahead and extrude that,
03:18you can see that though the edges were already filleted before that,
03:21we could add them before in the sketch or during the sort portion of it.
03:25I'm going to switch over to the Chamfer Mode now.
03:28So I'm going to click on Chamfer, and Chamfer is almost exactly the same.
03:31It just allows you to use an angle or distance.
03:3445 is kind of the default here.
03:36So I can either pick an edge itself to Chamfer, or I can pick something like a whole face.
03:41That's a Chamfer of the entire face; all the outside edges of something like that.
03:47And it works the same thing with the Fillet command.
03:49So if I wanted to Fillet or Chamfer something,
03:52I can either pick an edge or a whole face.
03:53So if I go up here to Chamfer and I pick this Face,
03:57it will chamfer all these inside edges as well as the outside edges.
04:02So all edges of that outside face will be chamfered or filleted,
04:05depending on how we pick up and use those options.
04:09As you can see, that's pretty much what we've got as far as our options under the Fillet.
04:13And jump out of that, and same thing with the Chamfer, we've covered most of the things here.
04:18The only thing we might want to look at now is if I wanted to change the angle here.
04:22So if I change that to like a 30 degree angle, for instance, 30 degrees,
04:27makes something like this, like the top of that part, and it changes the angle,
04:30so it's a little bit steeper going around that part.
04:33We can also always go back and change any one of these features to make it a little bit bigger.
04:41Fillets are used extensively in many designs
04:44and many times make up the majority of the features in the design tree.
04:48This is especially true with molded plastic parts.
04:51Fillets are easy to apply.
04:52However, keep track of how you apply the Fillets to get the optimal design, look and feel.
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Creating repeating rectangular patterns
00:00Patterning is one of the most efficient and powerful commands in SolidWorks.
00:05Features, Bodies or Surfaces can be patterned and there's no limit on the number of instances.
00:11To get started, we need to select the features and/or set of features we would like to pattern.
00:16Next we need to select the First Direction and the Number of Instances of that pattern, then the spacing.
00:22If we want a pattern in one direction we're ready to go.
00:25However, if we'd like a Grid pattern, like a set of holes or a vent for instance,
00:29we need to select a second direction.
00:33Directions are chosen by selecting any edge or line that goes in the direction that we'd like to pattern in.
00:38On the screen here I've got a plate, with a Boss-Extrude and
00:42I've got one Cut feature in there and that Cut feature is what we want to pattern along here.
00:47So I'm going to go up here to Linear Pattern,
00:49click on OK and my first direction I want to pattern in is,
00:53you know I can pick any edge that's going to be going in that direction,
00:56so like this edge up here or that edge or this edge or any of those edges,
01:00I could use or can actually draw a line here, if there's some other direction I wanted to go.
01:05But I'm just going to go along this edge here.
01:06So I'm going to click on that edge and there it is, so that's Direction 1 and
01:11it's giving me a Spacing of 0. 10 which is probably too small.
01:14So I'll give it like a, 1 inch Spacing, so 1.0 (1.00in) and then how many do I want?
01:18So I want to go, make sure that we're going the right way and I'm going to make sure
01:26we turned the Preview On of what we're actually going to see here, okay.
01:32The next thing we need to do is actually select what thing we want to pattern.
01:35So the feature that we want to pattern is that hole.
01:37So go up here, click in the Features to Pattern and grab that hole.
01:40Now you can see I've got three of those, make sure that I pattern one direction,
01:46I can change the Spacing, I can change the Quantity.
01:49Click on OK and there's our first pattern.
01:51Now if we wanted to go in another direction, I can go back to that Pattern
01:55and Edit it and I can go into Direction 2 now.
01:59Direction 2, I just pick any other Vector or a Line, so these two lines might be good,
02:03either one I could choose.
02:05Pick that and then I want to make sure we're in the right box here.
02:10So pick that line and as our direction vector.
02:13And how many Instances we'd like?
02:14We want two, and then notice as I change that, it keeps moving out,
02:19so I get a nice little pattern of parts here.
02:23I can continue to add more of those Instances across there.
02:29Click on OK and there it is, just that simple, a linear pattern.
02:33Now if I wanted to add something to this, I could go ahead and like click on the top of this.
02:36Double-click and I'm going to go add, just a simple sketch of like a hole.
02:42I'll put a hole just right next to this one.
02:45There's our hole, it's a little bit hard to see but there it is and
02:50I could define it if I want to, but I'm just going to exit out of that sketch right now.
02:53So there's my little hole pattern and I'm going to go ahead and make a cut.
02:57So I'm going to cut through that, Extruded Cut and we'll say Through All. Click OK.
03:02So now I have a hole next to my other hole and if I wanted to add that to the Pattern,
03:06it's just as simple as going to this pattern.
03:09The problem that we have here is the pattern's first and then there's the hole.
03:12Alright so, we actually have the ability to reorder these items,
03:15just by grabbing that and dragging up a little bit above it.
03:18So now the hole is before the pattern and that's called a Parent-Child Relationship.
03:23So this hole needs to be before what's going to be using it in that tree.
03:27So we have the ability to reorder these items here.
03:29Now I'm going to go to the Pattern here and I'll say Add and
03:32go down to the Features and just click on that hole.
03:35We're going to add that hole to it and notice just like that we added something
03:39to the pattern and it patterns it all the way across.
03:42Patterning can be a huge timesaver and the Pattern Features can be easily adjusted.
03:46Patterning can be done in the Sketch-mode;
03:49however that creates large complicated sketch, that's much harder to work with.
03:54I always recommend keeping your sketches as simple as possible and patterning
03:58and mirroring on the bodies and features rather than sketches.
04:01The results will be the same and there are no rules.
04:04However, Feature Level Patterns are much easier to work with.
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Creating repeating circular patterns
00:00The Circular Pattern is much like the Rectangular Pattern.
00:03However, we need an axis rotation versus a direction.
00:07We can choose features or bodies, the number of instances and the angle between them.
00:12On the screen here, you see we've got a pipe with a piece of flange
00:16maybe welded on there; we want to add some bolt holes to that flange.
00:20So I've already created a sketch here to lay out my first hole.
00:23I'm going to jump into that sketch and show you how it's created.
00:26I'm just using a 8.25 diameter for this layout circle.
00:31I've got it tied into the origin so that was directly vertical above the origin and I've got a size.
00:37From there, I'm going to go ahead and extrude cut that out through that flange
00:42and I'm going to say Up To Next.
00:43Let's make sure it goes all the way through and there it is.
00:46Now we want to take this feature we just did and cut and we'll revolve it around that face.
00:51So to do so, I need an axis of rotation and that feature.
00:55So let's go under Linear Pattern, there's a Circular Pattern, click on that.
00:59Okay and Circular Pattern, I need to choose something to spin around.
01:03I can actually click up here under View and say show Temporary Axes and
01:08notice I get an axis in the center, and I also get a little one in the center of that hole.
01:11So my rotation axis is going to be this.
01:14As soon as I click on that, notice it gives me a pattern going around there.
01:17Now this is going through 360 degrees and there are eight of them.
01:20Now I could change that if I wanted to.
01:22I could say like 180 and that way it will only pattern half way around it or
01:26I could do 60 degrees if I wanted to, change that around as much as I wanted and
01:31change how many of them there are.
01:34We do want 360 for this example, and I do want 8. There's my 8.
01:39And the other thing I have is Equal Spacing.
01:41So if I didn't have Equal Spacing, I could change the degree between each one
01:45and however many I wanted.
01:46So if I change the degrees, I keep going around and around here.
01:49But for this one, we're going to use Equal Spacing.
01:52Here's the features to pattern, so inside of there we already have that feature selected but
01:56if we had multiple features that we wanted to continue to pattern around here, we can choose those there.
02:00We also have the option to Pattern Faces or even Bodies, but we're not going to that in this example.
02:06Instances to Skip, if I wanted to remove one of these,
02:10I could just click on one of these little purple dots to remove those from the pattern
02:15and notice they show up here as far as 2 or 3.
02:17We want to bring it back to select it here and hit Delete,
02:20which will take it out of that box and bring it back to the screen.
02:23Okay, it gives a nice example of what we want to do.
02:27Click up here, close that up and click OK and there's our pattern.
02:31Now the pattern is quite easy to change as well.
02:34I can just click back on it.
02:36I can add more holes, remove holes, or whatever I need to do.
02:40So it's very easy to go back and change and also I can go back and change that original sketch.
02:45If I change that size from 1 inch to .875, make it a little smaller.
02:47It doesn't matter, the pattern continues to use whatever that original feature was to pattern it around.
02:58The Circular Pattern, by far, is my favorite feature in SolidWorks.
03:00It is simple to use and the results are awesome.
03:04Play around with the various combinations of instances, angles,
03:08or either simple bolt holes or wild creative patterns.
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Mirroring objects
00:00Mirroring is the best way to double or quadruple your efficiency.
00:04Look for part symmetry; if the right- hand and the left-hand side look the same,
00:08let's mirror it, save yourself some time and make better parts.
00:13In this example, we're going to take a look at this block.
00:15It's got four holes in the corners; it's pretty straight-forward.
00:18We've got a Boss feature, created from one Sketch.
00:20Let's jump in there and take a look.
00:22Now there's nothing technically wrong with this; everything is fully-defined and black,
00:28there's dimensions, and it looks pretty good.
00:30However, we can be a lot more efficient in our design if we think through a few of these.
00:35Look at these dimensions here, three-quarter of an inch (0.75),
00:37three-quarter of an inch over here, and here.
00:39We're using that same dimension four times.
00:41Any time you're seeing a dimension more than once in your drawing it's too many.
00:45Let's go ahead and delete those, delete, and delete, and delete.
00:49Let's go ahead and add an equal relationship so this one dimension here controls all four.
00:58Select Ctrl, select all four of those, by holding down Ctrl and say Equal.
01:01Now all four of those are controlled by this one dimension here.
01:06Same thing over here, 1 inch, 1 inch, 1 inch, and 1 inch.
01:09We're using that to space this off the corner of the part. Why do it?
01:12Let's delete this, delete that, and delete that one.
01:15I'm going to now add a Centerline, just from this edge of the part or that
01:23little spacing to there and then add a relationship that says this center point here,
01:27hold down Ctrl and select that line, is at the midpoint.
01:30Now that controls that and the last thing we do want to do is,
01:34we still have some leeway this way, so we want to make sure
01:37that the spacing here is the same as it is up here.
01:39I can do that by adding more centerlines.
01:41Let me make a centerline out to the edge, and then one more up to the top.
01:46I'm just going to make those two centerlines equal.
01:52Now by just one dimension here I can control the spacing
01:55from the edge of the part to the centerline of the holes.
01:58I can control the diameter of the hole by this three-quarter inch in the size.
02:02But if you look at this part, the left-hand side here is the same as the right-hand side,
02:07the upper portion is the same as the lower portion.
02:09So we're doing a lot more work than we need to; we're drawing four holes.
02:12We can really just draw one-quarter of this thing, this one hole and the shape here.
02:16So let's go take a look at another example.
02:18So this is almost exact same part, but just one-quarter of it.
02:24If I look at the Sketch underlying here, it's a simple hole and
02:32we've just got a couple of these little centerlines here with
02:34an equal relationship and a three-quarter of diameter here.
02:37So it's very easy to change, very simple, very straight-forward, very easy to create.
02:41All I did was create a rectangle, one hole and two centerlines;
02:45very straightforward, very easy.
02:46Once I have that part there, I'm going to use the Mirror Command to compound it.
02:51Hit the Mirror.
02:51The first question it's going to ask is, which Mirror Plane do I want to mirror over?
02:56Now I can either choose a Face or a Plane, let's use this face here,
03:01and then it's going to ask me, do I want a Feature Mirror, a Face Mirror,
03:05or a Body Mirror? There's three different options here.
03:07A Feature Mirror, which is the default, is the most common type of mirror, which would be
03:11like if you had a hole here and you wanted to mirror it to another section of your part.
03:15However, we want the entire part, we don't want just that hole.
03:19We want the whole body, so I'm going to jump down here to Body Mirrors,
03:22and the Body Mirror could be made up from one feature or
03:25it could be made up from hundreds of features that went into to create that body,
03:27and I can mirror all those over in one shot just by selecting that body.
03:30As soon as I do that it gives me a nice preview, click OK,
03:34and I've doubled the part and it's exactly the same.
03:37Now click on Mirror one more time, this time I'm going to mirror this face here
03:40so I'm going to select that face, and as far as the body,
03:43I'm just going to pick this entire body here.
03:44Click on it, and there it is.
03:47The same part, whether we look at original part or this part,
03:52at the end of the day, they're the same.
03:53However, they're really not, right?
03:55Because this part is much simpler to make, and if I want to make a change to this,
03:59all I have to do is change that one section or that one quadrant to easily make an update.
04:04So let's go ahead and try that out.
04:05Click on Sketch and edit that.
04:09Say we wanted to add one additional hole or maybe a square hole, so this time
04:12we're just going to click on a 2 Point Rectangle, I'm going to add a square hole here.
04:18Now if I was going to do this in the other part, I would have to add four
04:21rectangles and I'd have to add dimensions four times.
04:24So I'm going to say, 1.0 inches here, let's add a couple of dimensions to the edges
04:29if I wanted to or I could even use some centerlines as well if I wanted there
04:33and then just a couple more just to define that shape.
04:35So I'm doing it one time versus having to do these things four times. Lay out that part.
04:45There is my hole, there are the controlling arms.
04:47Now I could even get rid of this one here like I said,
04:49if I just want to make a couple of constructions going back to the edge.
04:52Now here is the magic.
04:53As soon as I delete or get out of this sketch here,
04:58that square hole has now propagated across all four,
05:00because I used that Body Mirror feature, so this entire original body was copied over.
05:06There's my original body, I mirrored over once,
05:08it takes everything that was originally there and the same thing over here,
05:11everything I had originally on this side is now on this side.
05:13So it's a very powerful feature, especially if you want to add or modify.
05:16Mirroring is a great time-saver and it makes modifying and updating parts quick and efficient.
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Creating hollow objects with Shell and Draft
00:00The Shell command takes a solid and turns into a thin-walled feature.
00:04This is used a lot in molded parts.
00:06This feature can do amazing things with just a few clicks.
00:09Before we shell this part I want to add some draft to it.
00:13Draft is when we add some angularity to the outside faces or inside faces of a part.
00:18So if it's molded, we can easily release from the mould.
00:22We generally assign this as an angle of maybe three to five degrees,
00:26and sometimes as low as maybe a half degree, depending on the circumstances of the molded part.
00:30So to add the draft angle let's go ahead and click on Draft.
00:34We're just going to use the basic type, which is the Neutral Plan Draft
00:39and the Draft Angle is specified here.
00:42This is going to be how much the part is actually going to angle in,
00:45from the top side to the bottom side, as it progresses through the draft.
00:50The Neutral Plane is going to be the face where we start that draft from.
00:53I'm going to click there.
00:54And then I'm going to pick on the Faces Draft.
00:56I'm going to pick this face, that face, that face,
00:58spin the part around and grab this back face here.
01:01As I click on OK notice what happens.
01:05The top of the part, if we look at the side of the part here,
01:08the top is skinnier and now it gets wider as it gets to the bottom.
01:11That's exactly the opposite of what we wanted.
01:13We want it to be skinnier at the bottom and wider at the top.
01:15So let's go back to Draft and click on this Reverse Direction.
01:21And notice that's going to now make the bottom of the part slightly skinnier.
01:25That'll make it easy to pull that part out of the mold and makes that little bit easier to work with.
01:30Now we're ready to turn this part and do a shelled part, but before we do that
01:34we just need to add one more little Fillet on the top corner here.
01:37So let's just go ahead and grab a 0.25 Fillet and grab any of these edges and select that chain.
01:43Fillet out top of that part and now we're ready to shell.
01:46Inside the Shell command, it's going to ask us for how Thick we would like to
01:51make those walls and number two, what faces we would like to remove.
01:56So right now I'm just going to remove just that top face.
02:00Click OK and there it is.
02:02We've got our first shelled part including the Draft Angle we added to the outside of that part.
02:06I'm going to section that part in half.
02:10Take a look here; we've got a nice uniform wall thickness throughout the part.
02:14Let's go back and play with the shell command a little bit.
02:20This time I'm going to go and add some more of these faces to be removed.
02:24This time I'm going to select in here and I'm going to and add this face now.
02:29Click OK and that's going to remove that and take it right down to the base.
02:31So any face I select it's going to remove it from that shell feature.
02:36Go back one more time.
02:37This time I'll remove this Edge over here, this Face over here.
02:42And now I remove that as well and we've got a nice uniform wall thickness part,
02:45which I can remove any faces I'd like to make a part that'll be very easy part to mold.
02:51Shelling a part gives us the ability to quickly create a part with uniform wall thickness
02:55and is an amazing tool for building complex parts.
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10. Blocks
Working with reusable sketches using blocks
00:01Imagine that you spent all day working on designing the cutouts for a
00:04motherboard on a new computer case.
00:07If you'll be using that same motherboard in other designs, why not create a
00:10block to be able to easily reuse that sketch geometry?
00:14Blocks are independent, non-solving sketches that can be used in a variety
00:19of ways in SolidWorks.
00:21The most common would be to copy a sketch to be used elsewhere in your design.
00:26By creating a block, all of the entities in the block become frozen and can be
00:30manipulated as a whole.
00:32We can save blocks for later use, as well as open blocks in the SolidWorks format
00:36or any AutoCAD format such as a DWG or a DXF file.
00:41To insert an existing block, we first need to locate it on our file system.
00:44In SolidWorks, the first thing what we like to do is actually add in the Blocks toolbar.
00:49To do that, go up here in the right-hand side in the gray area and right-click
00:53and come down here to the Blocks toolbar.
00:55Just turn that one on.
00:56Notice it drops it here. I want to place it right up here in this upper corner.
01:00The first one would be to make a block, which we'll do in the next movie, and then
01:03the second one here would be to insert a block, so I'll click on that.
01:07As soon as we click on that, we get the option to go ahead and browse to that
01:11block. And in my file system, I have it here, under Exercise Files, and we're in
01:17Chapter 10, and then we have Blocks.
01:20So I have a bunch of different blocks here we can play around with.
01:22And then what we're going to use is this last one here called VGA-Cutout.
01:24So go ahead and click on that.
01:27Notice as soon as I open that block, it actually attaches to my cursor and then
01:32where I drag my cursor around,
01:33I have the ability to place that block.
01:34Now I'm just going to place it one time and then once we place it one time,
01:38it continues to stay attached to the cursor.
01:40I can place it again and again throughout my design.
01:45Also, while I'm working with it, I have the ability to increase its size or scale
01:50factor, so I can scale the block.
01:52I can also rotate this block by typing the stuff in.
01:55So I can place another instance of that same block.
01:58It's the same block; it's just this one has a rotation and a scale
02:02factor applied to it.
02:03As soon as I'm done with that, I click on OK, and there are my blocks.
02:06Now you could see underneath that sketch, I've got a bunch of different ones
02:10here that are placed.
02:12Now if I go in and edit one of these blocks, so if I click on the block itself,
02:16I can add relationships to them, like Horizontal or Vertical to orient it.
02:20We can then also place dimensions to place it in our sketch.
02:24I can also click on Edit.
02:25So if I edit this block, notice all the sketch entities now become active and I
02:31can go ahead and maybe add a dimension.
02:34So right here it says 0.152. I'm going to change it to 0.25.
02:37As soon as I do that, look what happens.
02:40Not only does this one change, but so do all the other ones.
02:44Now even though these are smaller, they're not scaled. This is 0.25, and
02:48that's scaled 2.3 times.
02:51So anything I change in this one is going to change all the other blocks and so,
02:54the same thing if I change any one of the other ones.
02:56They will all be changed exactly the same way.
02:59So if I edit that, notice that 0.25 now is part of that block.
03:03So we've edited the block as a whole and then we've copied it throughout the design.
03:07We can also go back and add other blocks if we want to, by just clicking here and
03:12selecting more blocks to bring them in.
03:14Just go to the same Exercise Files, grab those blocks, and here's a bunch of
03:18different things that we can take a look at.
03:19So we can snap things on to bring in like an AngleSlot or a Drill.
03:24Now here's another block I can just place anywhere I want.
03:27So you can have as many blocks as you want. And then each one these blocks can be
03:31operated on over here.
03:32If I right-click on it, I can edit the block. I can save the block out.
03:36If I change that block at all, I could then save it as a different name, back to
03:39the file system, which can be then used somewhere else.
03:42I can even explode a block.
03:43So if I click on, say, this one here, if I didn't want this to be a block anymore,
03:48I can just right-click on it and I can say Explode.
03:51Now that turns that back into regular geometry.
03:55Notice this dimension change as well, because it applied that scale factor.
03:59Now anything I do here to change this around, it's no longer a block, so it's
04:02not going to affect the other items here.
04:04If I wanted to turn it back into a block, I could, and
04:06save it back to the system. And we'll learn how to create blocks in the next movie.
04:10Blocks allow the designer to reuse sketches.
04:13If you have designed the perfect connector cutout, why sketch it out every single time?
04:17Save yourself some time and create a block and then reuse that asset
04:20throughout your design.
04:21SolidWorks can leverage AutoCAD files, if you're working with other systems, and
04:26turn them into usable geometry as well.
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Creating blocks
00:00Reuse of sketches is one of the best ways to save time and be more efficient in SolidWorks.
00:06Creating blocks is as easy as selecting the elements and choosing Make Block.
00:10We can then use that block in other sketches.
00:13On the screen I've got some cutouts for a motherboard, and we've got like a DVI
00:19and HDMI and some USB ports, Ethernet ports, some audio jacks that have all kind
00:23of been laid out here.
00:25Now I can take this and turn it into a block and we can easily reuse this data in
00:29another sketch or another feature.
00:32To do so, let's make sure we got the block toolbar turned on. If we don't, just
00:35right-click in the gray area and make sure the Blocks is turned on.
00:39And then the first thing here is called Make Block.
00:41Click on that. It allows us to go here and select which items I want to include.
00:45So I'm just going to window around all these, select OK, and notice it gives
00:50us all the entities that are going to be there.
00:51The next thing is Insertion Point.
00:54So click here and it's a little manipulator.
00:56I can just drag this around. I am just going to snap that to my origin right now.
01:00That's going to be cut on the tool tip when I import that block.
01:02Once you are happy with what you have selected, click on OK, and there it is.
01:07We have got now Block1-1, and we can now manipulate this and move this around our
01:12sketch if we wanted to, or we can go out and save it out for file system. So
01:16let's right-click on that, Block1, and say Save Block. And I have a folder called
01:25Chapter 10 in Blocks, but you can really save this in just about anywhere you
01:28want on your file system.
01:30In fact, sometimes I would recommend, if you're using blocks in an organization,
01:33and you have a certain cutouts or different features you might want to share
01:36throughout your organization, put it on file server, call it blocks, and then you
01:40can use it any way you like.
01:42So I will just go ahead and just say New and save it out, and there it is.
01:48So now I have a new block that's saved out to the file system, and I'm going to
01:51now go open up this file here, which is 10.2. And this is just a sheet of material
01:59that we are going to add that block to it to make a cutout.
02:01So let me click on that Top Face, click on Normal To, and I am going to start with Sketch.
02:06As soon as I am in the sketch, I am going to go over here and say Insert the Block.
02:11And I'm going to Browse for block and it happens to be on the Desktop, under
02:15Exercise Files, Chapter 10, and inside Blocks and there it is, the new file we
02:20just saved. Click on OK.
02:22Then as soon as I do that, it attaches to my cursor.
02:26I can drop it anywhere I want.
02:27I am just going to put it in the center here. And I could add more if I wanted to,
02:31or just hit Escape to turn it off.
02:32Now I can add some dimensions, so I am going to dimension from this edge to
02:36that circle. And I want to dimension one more from there to the bottom to place
02:42that, and notice as I'm doing these, that the whole block is moving as I am
02:47changing those dimensions.
02:48It's operating on it as a whole.
02:50As soon as I am happy with my dimensions, everything looks good,
02:52I am just going to go ahead and go to Features > Extruded Cut, spin it around and
02:57can see what's going to happen there. And I am going to say Through All and click on OK.
03:01We have just added that connector cutout quickly to another sheet, and there it is.
03:06By creating blocks we can save a lot of time.
03:09Blocks can be saved to a central file server and used throughout your
03:12organization, or saved to your local library for easy access.
03:16Additionally, if you are working with imported data, like AutoCAD files or
03:20exported files from graphics programs, blocks can make it easy to get those files
03:24into SolidWorks, and easy to work with.
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Designing with blocks
00:00Blocks can be used to lay out mechanisms. Then the sketch serves as a skeleton
00:04to build the parts.
00:06Take a look at this example.
00:08What we have a sketch here with the mechanism for like a forklift-lifting device;
00:13it's more of a four-bar mechanism here.
00:15And so what I can do is I can turn each one of these elements into a block, and
00:20we can see how they operate together. Let's try it out.
00:22So this first section here would be like the lifting mechanism. Let's go ahead
00:26and select all those items there, and we're going to say Make Block.
00:30As soon as I do that, just click OK. Now we have a block there at that front
00:33section. It turns gray. I have Block14-1.
00:37These two mechanisms are the two lines here. Click there, click there, select
00:41those, and say Make Block.
00:43Now we need to make an independent block of each section of our design.
00:49So this one and this one are going to be in another section.
00:51I am going to say Make Block, click on OK. This little wheel here, we're
00:58going to turn that into a block itself, click OK and then the line here and just
01:03say Make Block, so they are all independent blocks.
01:06Then we need to tie a few things down. So the points we don't want to move we want
01:10to add a relationship, like an anchor, so just fix that end point and we'll fix that
01:14end point there, and let's also fix the centre of that one so it doesn't move.
01:18Let's see what happens.
01:19Notice as I move this thing around, this block actually move the entire
01:25mechanism. Let's treat it as a whole, so you can actually layout and see how this
01:29things comes down here, how these mechanisms are going to start moving around.
01:33Now I can go back and edit this blocks to change the way the linkages are,
01:37where there endpoints are fixed at, to change and modify that shape.
01:42We can add on things like, say we add like a line here, maybe it would be like a
01:46rack and pinion drive
01:47for instance. And I'll say this is going to be a vertical line, and then let's go
01:52ahead and make that a block.
01:53And we can add maybe a traction relationship, so I'll click on there, hold down
01:57Ctrl, grab this, I'll say Traction, which is kind of cool mate property.
02:03I need one more thing here. We have got to continue and make sure that's at Vertical.
02:06As this thing moves around, notice that it goes up and down as a
02:10traction mechanism. It's pretty cool.
02:13Once you've worked on your design a little bit and you have it kind of laid
02:16out exactly the way you want, we can use this layout as a skeleton for actually the real parts.
02:21So I'm going to say exist that sketch right now.
02:24All those blocks, by the way, are under Sketch1. And we were on the Front Plane, so
02:28I'm going to back to the Front Plane. I'm going to start another sketch this time.
02:32Part of my sketch now is I'm going to use these two elements from that to create
02:37a part. So I'm going to click on this one, hold down Ctrl, click on that one, and
02:41I'm going to use this thing called Convert Entities.
02:43Now we haven't seen Convert Entities yet, but what that does is it inputs
02:47geometry from behind into our current sketch. So I will just click on Convert
02:52Entities and it just brings those two lines into my current sketch.
02:54As soon as I have that, I'm going to also use this Offset Entities command and
02:59select those two, and let's say Offset.
03:02And we did this a little bit before with creating a slot, and I'm going to just
03:05take this lines and use the Cap ends with the Arcs and offset it a little
03:09distance here, click on OK.
03:11Then I'm going to go ahead and turn that to a Feature. Click OK and you can see,
03:17that would be the first item, part of our mechanism.
03:21We can use these different items here that we're going to be creating, or these
03:24different sections, to go and actually create the mechanism to build an assembly.
03:28But as I move these things around, it will automatically be the skeleton that
03:31will derive that shape.
03:33So I'll go ahead and again create another boss down here if I wanted to and
03:37continue on with this. It's a great way to layout mechanisms and kind of see how
03:41things are going to work to help you visualize.
03:44Using blocks to lay out mechanisms is a great way to think through design and
03:48rapidly modify the mechanism.
03:50Just remember that each section must be its own block and to relationships.
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11. Assembly: Putting it All Together
Understanding the tools for beginning a new assembly
00:00Now that we can build parts, the next step in the design process is to assemble
00:04the parts together to create your product.
00:07You can think of parts like LEGOs and the assemblies as connecting the parts
00:10together to build your creation.
00:13Parts are the building blocks;
00:14assemblies are the combination of parts. And we can combine other assemblies
00:18together to create sub- assemblies into a top-level assembly.
00:22Parts, assemblies, and sub- assemblies can all have drawings.
00:26The Assembly environment is very similar to the Part environment, with its own
00:29specialized set of tools.
00:32To get started with assemblies, we need to get into the Assembly environment.
00:35There are several ways to start assemblies, and the easiest is to open the part
00:39we would like to be at the base of our assembly.
00:41Choose this part wisely, since this part will be fixed and the other parts
00:45will be added to it.
00:46For example, if you're building an engine, it would be wise to start with the
00:50engine block and then attach other parts to it, like the pistons and valves.
00:55Starting with the piston would still work, however the assembly process
00:58would be a bit odd.
01:00To get started with assemblies, let's click on the New dialog box up here or
01:04click under File > New, and we get the New Document window pops up. And we've
01:08been using the part and now we're going to use the assembly.
01:10So just make sure that assembly is highlighted there and then click on OK.
01:14As we go into this, it's going to bring up the dialog box on the left that says,
01:18Begin Assembly, and if we had open documents, they'd be here.
01:21Unfortunately, nothing else is open, so let's go back and open something up, or
01:25we can browse for it here.
01:26But before I do that, I am just going to cancel that and I am going to hit R key
01:29on my keyboard to bring up some recent documents.
01:31So here is the part we want to begin an assembly with, and then jump over to
01:36that window. And again, let's go back to that same Insert Component window right
01:40here, and now notice there are documents listed.
01:42So if I click on OK, that imports that block into my new assembly, and
01:48notice the part here, and if I click on the plus, it opens up the entire tree of that part.
01:55Assemblies and parts both have planes.
01:57Inside of here, I've got the three planes. I am going to go up here and say View >
02:01Planes and make sure I see them.
02:03And then I've got the planes in the assembly, I am going to show those as
02:06well. Show, Show, Show.
02:09And notice those planes are kind of laying right on top of each other.
02:12And this block is centered right at the origin.
02:14Now, if I wanted this block to be able to move around, notice this little F in
02:18the front of its name.
02:19That means it's fixed.
02:21If I right-click on it, I come down here to Float, that's no longer there.
02:24But there is a little minus sign. That means it's undefined as far, as its location.
02:28So now if I move this thing around, you can see that these are the planes of the
02:32assembly itself, and then these are the planes that are inside of the block.
02:35So those are owned by that part itself.
02:38And as we add other parts to this assembly, we are going to have the same thing.
02:41Each part is going to have its own series of planes, and then the assembly itself
02:45has got its own set.
02:46Now let's take a look up here at the Assembly toolbar.
02:50If we have a component selected, I can go back and edit that component.
02:53So I can either edit the part in its own environment or in the context of the assembly.
02:57If I would like to add other components to my assembly, I can insert it here.
03:01Or I can just go into window and I can just drag and drop components in, which
03:05we will cover in the next movie.
03:07Mate is how we connect two components together with a series of commands we can
03:11go through, and I will cover that in the next few movies.
03:13We have options for doing linear or circular patterns, mirroring components, a
03:18lot of different ways we can start adding components on the next level here.
03:22We can have smart fasteners like bolts and nuts like that we'll auto-create.
03:26We can move components around just by clicking on them.
03:28Or if we are not in that command, I can just grab that component, and with my
03:33left mouse key, just hold it down.
03:35If I want to spin this component around, I can click on it with my right mouse
03:38key and I can spin it around, just holding down your right mouse button.
03:44Most of the other world environments, they are the same; if you hold down the
03:47middle mouse button, you can spin the world around, and you can zoom in and zoom out as well.
03:53And then of course these buttons up here still work the same.
03:55So Zoom to Fit, Zoom to Area, Previous View, and Section View all still work the
03:59same as they did in the Part environment.
04:02We can add features that are only available in the assembly, like if you had two
04:07parts would be welded together, then you might add a hole through them, that
04:10would be an Assembly-level feature.
04:12We can add reference geometry here, just like we could in parts, as far as
04:15planes and axes and things like that
04:16that might help us to lay things out.
04:19Once we start assembling things together, they can move, so we can do some
04:22studying of how they are going to move or create some animations.
04:26We can add bills of materials and we can explode things out, so that we can
04:30see how they would be assembled together, and then that can be brought into a drawing later on.
04:34Once you start to assemble parts together, you really start to realize the power
04:39of designing in a 3D modeling environment.
04:41Your computer becomes a virtual prototype environment.
04:45By assembling the parts together, we can see most of what we would in real
04:48life and save ourselves a lot of time and see things we may have overlooked
04:52while building the parts.
04:54This ability will save countless hours and dramatically reduce the amount of
04:58prototyping that is necessary.
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Identifying steps in creating an assembly
00:00In this video we're going to cover the steps to assemble parts together.
00:04The first step is to make sure we have the required parts in the assembly.
00:08You don't need to bring all the components in at once; however, sometimes it
00:11speeds the workflow to have the major components available.
00:15Secondly, aligning the parts close to their desired location will help to
00:18connect the parts together.
00:20In this assembly, I have a block and I am showing the planes of both the
00:23assembly and the part.
00:25Now, most of the time when you bring in a new part, your beginning part you
00:28are going to start with, they are going to be automatically aligned together on the origins.
00:33In this case, we don't have that.
00:34So what I am going to do is I am going to mate the two together, and we are
00:36going to cover the Mate command in the next few movies.
00:40Click on Mate, and I am going to click on the origin of this one and the origin
00:42of that one, and they are just going to slide together. And it says Coincident
00:46and it says Align axes, and that's what we want.
00:49Click on OK, and now those two parts are mated together exactly on those.
00:52So if I click on the part and try to drag it out, it's not going to move,
00:56because it's now locked to the origin.
00:58I am going to now hide those planes so that I don't have to see them, and I am
01:03also going to hide the origins.
01:04We can always turn those on or off depending on how many mating parts you have,
01:08if they are going to come in handy or not. Okay.
01:10So now we have one part in our assembly, but it's going to be a fairly boring
01:13assembly if we only have one part in it.
01:15So let's go get some more parts.
01:17Two ways to do this.
01:18Number one is insert components.
01:20If you look here, we've got three components that are currently open.
01:24If there are more components, they will all be listed here, or I can actually
01:27go out to the file system here and click and browse to find a component that's
01:30not currently open. And then once we have something we like, we can click on
01:34it and just click OK.
01:35The problem with this is a lot of times it adds it right to the origin, if I were
01:38just to click, but notice it's now stuck to my tooltip, so I can also drag it
01:42and drop it anywhere on the screen if I'd like to.
01:45But if I click on just OK, it will just put it right at the origin.
01:47Sometimes that part will actually be hidden inside the other part.
01:51So instead of doing this, I am going to go ahead and cancel that.
01:53The way I prefer would be to click on the window and I am going to say Tile
01:58Horizontally or Tile Vertically.
02:00So that's going to open up all the windows that are currently open, and if I
02:03wanted to add more windows, I just click File > Open and go grab a part that's not
02:07currently open, click on OK, and then once again, Tile Horizontally. Now I have
02:11all those parts open.
02:13These are the parts I want to put into this assembly here.
02:15So I can just click on this part, hold down my left mouse button, and just drag it right in.
02:20Same thing with this part here: just drag it right in.
02:23This is the part we originally had in our assembly.
02:26I am just going to click on that and just drag one more of those in.
02:29I don't really want this one yet, so I am not going to add that one in.
02:32Once you're happy with what you have in there, click on the Expand button. And I
02:35am going to take a look at my assembly.
02:38I can move these parts around
02:39if I hold down my left mouse button, click on the part and drag it around.
02:44If I hold down my right mouse button, I can spin it around to change its orientation.
02:49I also have the ability to spin the world environment around exactly how I did
02:53with the parts, by holding down the middle mouse button to spin things around.
02:56And then I can also zoom in and zoom out just by using the scroll on the mouse.
03:02Up here I also have Move components, so if I click on Move component, I can just
03:06click on a component, drag it around.
03:07Or I click on Rotate component to spin that component around.
03:12I really don't use those commands because they're both available just by
03:16clicking on a component, with your left mouse button to move it, or your
03:19right-mouse button to rotate the component around. And I can do that with all
03:24the components here to moving them around.
03:25Now, if I wanted another one of these components, I can hold down Ctrl and I can
03:30drag another component out.
03:31The neat thing about that is it actually copies it in the exact orientation
03:35that it starts from.
03:36So like this component here, I am going to rotate it around a little bit, and
03:38then I am going to Ctrl+Drag to show that.
03:42So see it's coming out in the exact orientation as the one it copied from.
03:45So it's really handy if you are just adding a bunch of more parts or hardware or
03:48screws or something like that.
03:50You want to add a bunch of them to your design without having to drag and drop them.
03:53It's a real nice way just to copy those parts.
03:56We want to mate these things together here.
03:58In our next movie we're going to learn how to do the mates, but right now let's
04:01just get them into the orientation.
04:02So I am going to hold down my right mouse button and spin this part around, and
04:05then I am just going to kind of put it right up above here so we know that that
04:08part is going to go down in that hole.
04:10In one of these, we're going to spin that around like this, and I am going to
04:14spin my world around by holding down my middle mouse button and just drag it
04:18over here. So it's going to be close by.
04:20We are going to put this on top of there, so those are going to mate together.
04:24And if I spin it around, I can move these things a little bit more, so get them
04:27close to where they are going to be.
04:29Having it perfect is not essential here;
04:31we're just getting them close to what we're going to be working with when we
04:34start mating these parts together.
04:36The steps led out in this video will be repeated in every single part in every assembly.
04:40Getting the parts laid out well will help to get your model assembled quickly
04:44and with less errors.
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Mating parts together in an assembly
00:00Mating parts together is the fundamental skill of working with assemblies.
00:05Mates are very similar to sketch relations.
00:07We choose two or more faces, planes, lines, or points and then choose how
00:12they will be connected.
00:13The most basic is a coincident mate.
00:15This is basically just saying the two items are touching. Let's take a look.
00:19In a window here we see we've got a block, which is at the origin, which is
00:24our first part there, and then we've got two more parts that we've added into this assembly.
00:29And so we're going to jump into the very most basic mates.
00:32To get started, let's click on Mate.
00:33As soon as I open that up, notice the first window here is the Entities to Mate.
00:39So anything I'm going to select in here is going to automatically start mating things together.
00:43We also have these standard mates here like Coincident, Parallel,
00:46Perpendicular, Tangent, Concentri,c and some distances and angles, so we can put in there as well.
00:52By default, SolidWorks is actually going to find out which mate is going to be
00:56the most appropriate when we select our pair.
00:59So we always have to pick a pair, a minimum of two things to create a mate.
01:03So for example, I'm going to come down here and I'm going to pick the outside of this boss here.
01:08Now you can pick an edge, you can pick a point, you can pick a face, you can
01:12do a lot of different things, but it's always better to pick faces versus edges
01:17or edges over points.
01:19The bigger they are the harder they are to break.
01:21So I'm going to go ahead and select that face there--notice it highlights--and
01:25then the face that I want to be going around that.
01:27And we are going to have a concentric mate, so these two faces are going to be concentric.
01:32So if I click on this face here notice what happens.
01:35That moves into position and now by default that selects hey, this is probably
01:40what you're looking for is Concentric Mate, because I've picked two concentric
01:43circles or two concentric faces.
01:45Once I click OK, that mate is now established.
01:49So if I click OK, it'll turn it off, or it continues to stay active.
01:53The Mate window stays open, so I can continue just to pick pairs of faces to mate together.
01:58If I pick this face here and I pick this face here, it creates another mate, and
02:04this time it chooses Coincident because it's saying you're picking two faces
02:07that can be easily coincident. It makes sense.
02:10We could also change that to Parallel or distance if we wanted to as well,
02:14but SolidWorks just assumes one, and you can always change it to something
02:18else if you'd like to.
02:19Once you're happy with that, you click on OK, and then I'm going to close that Mate window.
02:23Now notice this part here. It's got a little spacing up there because we
02:27mated the front of this face, put that face there. And I can spin this part
02:31around right now, still because we notice this little negative or minus sign
02:35in front of that part.
02:36That means the part is not fully defined yet.
02:38Now I'm going to click on that part here and I'm going to show its right plane,
02:43and then I make sure to turn on Planes so we can see them.
02:45Then I am going to go ahead and hide these other planes here, so we don't see
02:48those while we are mating things together.
02:50So I mean you can always turn planes on and off just like that, to easily see
02:56where they are, and planes are a really great way to mate and we're going to go
02:59and cover those in a future chapter here.
03:00So now while I move this part around, you can see that that plane's
03:03spinning around, right?
03:04There are no degrees of freedom if we were to lock that plane down.
03:08So for instance, I'll say like that plane there and I'll mate it to like the
03:12outside of this and I'll say these are actually going to need to be parallel.
03:15As soon as I do that, let's look at this part.
03:20Notice it used to have a minus sign in front of it and now it doesn't.
03:23That means it's fully defined. So most items we're going to need a minimum of
03:26three mates to fully define their location.
03:29Now you don't have to have fully defined parts; that's fine.
03:32We might want this thing to be able to spin around here and that's fine.
03:35But just keep that in mind. If you see a little negative sign there, that means the
03:38parts are not fully defined, but now it is, right.
03:40So we've locked the plane, so the orientation, we've got the face, and we know the
03:44location, where it is.
03:45Let's try a couple of more here.
03:48This time this is kind of like a small screw or a representation of a screw
03:51without the threading and things like that in there.
03:54Make sure we want to put that in to the hole.
03:55We also have this angle or the chamfer that we're going to mate to this
03:58other chamfer here.
03:59So we have a bunch of different Mate options.
04:01So first let's get into the Mate window, let's click on the outside face, and
04:06click on that, and then we're going to spin around, and this is the other face.
04:09So the best way to think about mates is to say it out loud.
04:12You say, I want the outside of this screw and the inside of that hole and
04:16that's you mate pair. As soon as you pick that pair then move into position and now that's mated.
04:21Once you have a mate now these things can move around.
04:23So I can drag this up and down, but the mates are always going to be established here.
04:30And if you look at the mates over here at the very bottom of our Feature
04:33Manager, I can expand that box out by clicking on the plus and then I've
04:38got all the different mates, and I can click on them to highlight them and
04:41they'll show the pair that's being mated together.
04:44That last mate we did, which is Concentric Mate,
04:46if you didn't want that one, you can just hit Delete and delete that mate.
04:50Now I can move this thing around anywhere I wanted to.
04:53To put it back, just go Mate, select that pair, select that, and there we go.
04:59We have a couple of more mates we're going to add to this.
05:01So this time I'm going to pick this face here.
05:03Pick that face there, come up here and I pick that face there, and I'm going to say Coincident.
05:08All right that brings that down into the hole.
05:11So we've got a nice mate here.
05:13And in fact, if we think about those mates making, those two coincident, we
05:17actually don't need the mate before that.
05:20This one here, it's redundant.
05:21All right, because by making these two faces here coincident it actually just
05:25establishes both the location and depth that's going to be in there and the
05:29concentricity, all in one shot.
05:30So if I got rid of this one here, I can just click on it and hit Delete,
05:33it's not going to hurt anything to have it there, but I can now only spin this
05:38part; I can't move it up and down or I can't move it right or left.
05:40All right, so it's fully defined.
05:43And notice I'm using faces; I'm choosing faces to mate things together.
05:46So, the priority of mating is number one, most powerful thing would be choosing
05:52the fundamental planes, right because the planes are always going to be there.
05:55They start there when you start your part.
05:56So if you mate a plane to another plane, it's going to be the most solid mate you can choose.
06:01Secondly would be faces.
06:03If I pick entire face to mate to something else, that's probably going to stick around.
06:07Whereas if I pick an edge to mate something else, if I were to chamfer that edge
06:11or radius it or just something else of that, as soon as that edge is no longer
06:15there, that mate's going to fail.
06:16And so let's try a couple of failed mates.
06:18Now notice this part here.
06:21We've got the back of this part.
06:23Right there I can select that part, by grabbing the back of the part.
06:26Now I am going to say that back of that part, let's mate that together with this face here.
06:30As soon as I do this, it's going to say hey, both of these are already fully
06:34defined, but I'm going to say it doesn't matter. I'm not going to put it on
06:36there. I'm going to say okay.
06:38But it's going to warn you hey, we can't do that. It's going to cause errors.
06:43But if were to change something in these parts to make one of these mate faces
06:48go away, it would change the way this is mated together.
06:51So I'm going to open that part here, and I'm going to go and I'm going to select
06:55that top face, and I'm just going to draw a rectangle over it, and I'm just going
07:03to cut a little bit away.
07:04I'm just going to trim off just a little bit of that, make it a little thinner.
07:06So now I have changed that part.
07:08When I go back to that assembly, it says update the thing, and then I say OK.
07:14And now look what happens. It says we got all these red errors. It's just saying
07:18hey, this Coincident Mate can no longer do because that face is no longer there.
07:22All right, it's moved in. We chopped off that face.
07:26It's highlighting the two faces or the two parts that actually made up that mate pair.
07:30So we've got this part here, and it's showing that mate again is in there, and
07:34each part itself has the mates that are assigned to that.
07:38So the mates that are inside the part are the exact same mates that are down
07:40here; they're just listed twice.
07:42This is all the mates in entire assembly, and these are the mates that only
07:46apply just to that part.
07:47All right, so if I go ahead and I delete that mate here, click OK, it fixes all the mates.
07:52But now the problem is is that's free-floating.
07:55Move it in now. So I need if we go back and re-mate that to fix it, and there it is.
08:04These basic Mate tools will help you build your models.
08:07When building mates, try to choose items that are stronger versus weaker or
08:10easier to break. For instance parts start with three fundamental planes and
08:14we cannot remove them.
08:15So if you mate two planes together, there's no way to break that mate.
08:20However, if you mate a corner point of your part to something else, anything
08:23that changes that point will break that mate.
08:26Try to think about the easiest and most robust way to mate parts.
Collapse this transcript
Matching part sizes accurately in the parametric prototyping environment
00:00The most powerful benefit of using solid modeling is to virtually create objects
00:05and assemble them together in the computer.
00:08This allows us an opportunity to foresee potential problems way before the first
00:12prototypes are made.
00:14An added benefit is we can directly generate the files needed to produce rapid
00:17prototypes like SLAs, FDM, or 3D printed parts.
00:22On the screen here, we've got a block and we've got this little washer-looking
00:26part, and we're going to assemble them together.
00:28So number one, we've got a mate already established here, and I am just going to
00:31delete that mate, so we can re- add it and that mate is right here.
00:35I am just going to find it in the tree just by highlighting over each pair.
00:38Then I want to get rid of that one there. I am just going to go back and
00:41re-create that to review.
00:43So right now, these parts are free-floating.
00:45I can move it around a little bit. And I am going to click on this outside face
00:49here, select mate, and take that inside face there, and it's going to give us a
00:54coincident mate. Highlight it up, and click OK, and there we go.
00:58Now I can bring this part in and out, drag it in.
01:01So I've got that degree of freedom.
01:02So a couple of things I see. So I bring this closer together here.
01:05So if I start mating it up, I might overlook this, but I think I wanted these to
01:08be a slip fit, but not quite that loose, right.
01:11We want it to slide over that, but not to be so sloppy like that.
01:15And secondly, I want to mate this back face here to the back of that washer.
01:19I am going to click there and I am going to pick that mate.
01:22You can always pick the pair first, so you can save that face, hold on Ctrl,
01:26select the other face, like that.
01:29Then select mate, and then it just automatically puts that pair together, and it
01:32pre-highlights them both.
01:33It makes it an easy way to select things.
01:35Once you have it look good, click OK, and now let's mate it together.
01:40So now this part is stuck on there.
01:42Two things we want to go back and edit. Number is is this hole is too big
01:46for this shaft. And number two, we want to thicken this up so it's the same
01:51length as this boss here.
01:52So we're going to do that two different ways.
01:54Number one is I am just going to click on the part. I am going to go Open part.
01:57We get this in-context dialog when it pops up anytime that we just click on a part.
02:01And so just click on with a left-click. It's going to pop up an open part.
02:05We can open it, we can edit it in context, we can hide it, we can change
02:09transparency, we can suppress it-- a lot of things we can do here.
02:12We're just going to do the very first one called Open part.
02:13That's going to open up that part there. Delete this little sketch here, and
02:19we're going to go and click on that sketch, and we're going to edit it, just like
02:24we did when we changed the parts around.
02:25And now I have got a 2.25 and that shaft we had in the other part, let's go find
02:30out how big that shaft is.
02:31So before I go and change this, let's go back to the assembly and take a look.
02:35We're editing the part, so it's hidden for right now.
02:39But, I am going to go ahead and I am going to show the Tools palette down here
02:43and the tools right here, and they show up on the side.
02:47Now, I am going to go back and actually get out of that sketch here. That part
02:52is going to come back.
02:53So before we do that, let's go back to the assembly and update the part,
02:56and I am going to use the Measure command.
02:58That's part of the Tools palette.
03:00So I click on the Measure and then I am just going to click on that face.
03:03It says okay, here is an Area, here is a Diameter, here is a Perimeter, and the
03:06Diameter is what we're looking for. So it's 2.0.
03:08We can do a little inspection to figure out what's going on.
03:11So now, we have a 2-inch diameter.
03:13So I am going to go back to that part now, go back and edit that sketch, and I
03:18want a slipfit, so I am going to change this to like 2.005.
03:20So we're going to make it a 5000th of an inch larger than a 2 inch, so it's going
03:25to give us a 5000 slip fit. Click OK, modify that.
03:29The way I have it designed here is the 1 inch over, so it's going to change that
03:32outside diameter too.
03:33So I am going to click OK.
03:34We go back to that assembly, and notice that part automatically updates, and now
03:39it just slides over that shaft.
03:42The next thing we want to do is we want to change the thickness of this washer, so
03:45it's the same length.
03:47To do that, this time I am going to use an in-context editing technique.
03:50So I am going to click on the part, and I am just going to say Edit part.
03:53Now, I am editing in context to the assembly.
03:56So I am going to go back to that part, and notice over here in the tree, it
04:00highlights it in blue.
04:01I can go back in here, and now I can actually change any of the features that
04:04when we created that part.
04:05So I am going to click on that and say Edit Feature, and right now it's using a Blind Extrude.
04:10So instead of Blind, I am going to say Up To Surface.
04:12And the surface I am going to choose is actually part of the block, not the part
04:17itself, so it's a different piece. And as soon as I click on that, it changes it
04:21so it's actually related now to the base block that it's on.
04:26Click on OK and then when I want to get back into editing the assembly, I click
04:30on that, and notice the washer has now changed. It's in context of this and it
04:35just allows us to quickly and rapidly adjust parts so they fit together well,
04:39all in the computer.
04:41Prototyping in a computer is fast, economical, and easy.
04:45Leverage the power of SolidWorks and the variety of tools that are available to
04:48build, compare, and analyze your designs.
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Working with subassemblies
00:00Just like we can combine other parts, we can also assemble other assemblies.
00:05The tools are the same.
00:06All we need to do is drag a few subassemblies into a new assembly.
00:11To get started, I've got four parts here.
00:13And what I want to do is I want to combine this part, this part, and this part
00:17into a subassembly, and then we are going to add that subassembly to this tray.
00:21And we can actually add multiples of that.
00:23If you think about it, if I didn't create the subassembly, I would have to
00:26add this part, then add that part, and then the third part, and each time we
00:31want to add it to a new little slot here, a little hole, we are going to put that in container. Let's get started.
00:36I'm going to open up this part here, and I'm going to say, one easy way to
00:40actually start an assembly is actually start right from the part.
00:43Let's say File > Make assembly from part.
00:48What that does is it just drops that part right into the assembly, selects
00:52it over here, and just click OK, and there it is. Just quick way to get into a new assembly.
00:58To assemble that together, let's go back here and tile our windows jorizontally
01:00so we can see them all.
01:01Now I want this part here, so I'm going to drag in, and then I want the cover and
01:06I'm going to drag that in too.
01:09So that's my subassembly.
01:09We are going to use a couple of techniques here to mat these together.
01:12One of the ways I'm going to do that is I'm going to turn on the Temporary
01:16Axes, so each one of these has an axis in the center of it, because they are
01:19all revolved parts.
01:20Okay then we will click on Mate, and I'm going to mate together this axis here
01:25with this one here.
01:26That just puts that cone inside of our container here, so we can move it up and down.
01:32Then I will use one of those Coincident Mates, so I'm going to say the bottom of that container.
01:36Then I'm going to spin it around and pick the bottom of this part. It puts that right in the
01:40container. And let's put the cover on.
01:42So I will select that axis there and select the axis here. That brings the cover
01:47directly over the part.
01:48I can still move up or down. And then I'm going to pick like this little edge here, spin
01:52that around, and grab the bottom of that and mate those together.
01:56All right, so we have done a little more mating practice here.
01:59Now that we have mate all these together, we have assembly9,
02:02so I'm going to go out and save that.
02:04You got to make sure you save here subassembly before you can import it
02:07into another assembly.
02:08So I am just going to call that 11.5. Save that out.
02:13So now we have an assembly. We are going to now put into another part.
02:16So let's go back and take a look at all the things we have opened.
02:19So this part here is the 11.5-1. I'm going to open that up.
02:24It's just a part, right, so we want to put that into an assembly itself.
02:27So I am going to go File > Make assembly from part, and I'm going to start with
02:32that part there. There it is.
02:33Okay, now I am going to start dragging in other parts or other assemblies.
02:37So I'm going to Tile Horizontally again.
02:40Now I could drag individual parts on if I wanted to, but I can grab this entire assembly.
02:45And instead of grabbing it from the actual graphics window here, I'm going to
02:48grab the icon over here in the tree, drag it all the way up here, and then you
02:52can see the assembly comes into the other assembly. This is assembly10.
02:55So now I have a subassembly inside of another assembly, so it allows us to
03:02bring that. And then inside of that subassembly, I can see I that's made up
03:04of these three parts.
03:05And then I can continue to do that.
03:09Here is that part, or that subassembly, and I can just drag it up to this new assembly.
03:13Keep dragging them in as I need them.
03:15So I can drag as many as I want to.
03:17That's definitely going to be a huge timesaver versus having to bring each one of these
03:21parts in and then assemble all three of those together for each single item and
03:25then put it and assemble it together.
03:28Now that we have some items in here, we can start mating them together.
03:31So we know that this little inside face here and the outside of that part are
03:37going to be mate it together, and probably the inside bottom there and bottom of
03:42that container are going to get mated together.
03:44And so that's my first mate, placing it right there on the tray.
03:49So I can have those mates that apply on an assembly level as well.
03:53So you can see, here are my different assemblies, and there is the icons
03:55little bit different here.
03:56This is a part icon and the subassembly has a little green corner to it
04:01showing that it's actually an assembly and then that's made up of these individual
04:04parts that go back in there.
04:06And then the mates themselves can apply right there, and those are applying
04:10on the assembly level.
04:11So we are affecting these directly. And also if you open up that assembly, you
04:15can see the mates in each one of those there.
04:17They go up and make that part up. And as soon as you add mates to like a part of
04:23this, you get another little folder called Mates in assembly10.
04:25It's going to show you the mates that you have added to control that assembly.
04:30Let's go ahead and just do a couple of more here, just to get the rest of them in there.
04:34I will click on there, click on there. It's going to bring those together.
04:36Click on the bottom there, spin it around, click on there. These are just
04:41rapidly adding Coincident mates or Concentric mates, and let's do the same thing over here.
04:45Click over here, click over here, and then it just brings them together.
04:49You can do it in different orders too.
04:50So I can go select this one here and put that one there.
04:54The next thing I'm going to show is what's called a Multi-Mate. And we have a
04:57bunch of items that have already mated to the same face,
05:00we can use this. And notice this little like lightening bolt on the corner of
05:04that thing. Anytime you see a lightening bolt what that just means, it's going
05:06to make things rapid and faster.
05:08Once I click on that, the Mate Selection, so this is the item that's going to be in common,
05:14so the common one is going to be this one here, so that face and then the items
05:18we want to mate to there.
05:19So I want both the bottoms of these. I'll just click there and click there.
05:23And then in one shot it does both of those mates at the same time, pretty handy.
05:27By assembling one assembly into another, it automatically becomes a subassembly.
05:32We can continue to nest assemblies into other assemblies.
05:35The tree structure can be assembled in any way you want, with as much
05:38complexity as needed.
05:40However, best practice would be to assemble the parts in the same way you
05:44would in real life.
05:45Look for a series of parts that would be repeated, and then combine them
05:50together into a subassembly to be put into the top-level assembly.
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Patterning in assemblies
00:00In this movie, we are going to cover patterning.
00:02We are going to do linear patterning as well circular patterning.
00:05Now, patterns can be made from individual parts or subassemblies or even
00:09top-level assemblies.
00:11You can pattern just about anything you like.
00:13If we look at this example here, this is one we finished in a previous movie,
00:17and we kept adding individual subassemblies to this, and adding relationships.
00:22And you can look down here, we have got a lot of relationships we added to
00:25locate each one of these little jars.
00:28And instead of doing all that work of adding a new one in, mating it up to all
00:33the different references, we've got a bunch of holes here that could take quite
00:36a while. But think about if we had hundreds of holes that we needed to put jars
00:40in. That would really take a long time.
00:42So instead of doing that, why don't we go ahead and use a pattern instead?
00:45So what I am going to do is I am going to click and hold down Ctrl and just
00:48select those three right there, and I am going to get rid of those.
00:50I am just going to hit Delete and Yes to All.
00:53Now I am going to select that one.
00:55Keep in mind, this is a subassembly, so there's actually three parts inside of here.
00:58I can either pick one of the parts individually or I can pick the whole
01:02subassembly, no problem.
01:04Click on the Subassembly and then click up here under Linear Pattern.
01:08So Linear Pattern works almost identical to patterning in the part level.
01:13First thing is which direction do we want to pattern in? And I am going to
01:16select any edge going in that direction. I am going to pick that edge there.
01:21And then it's asking you the spacing between the parts, and I believe it's 4
01:25inches here. And we're going to say how many we want. There it is.
01:30So as soon as I click on 2, there we've got our next pattern there.
01:34You can see we've got all three parts in there. And it's easy as just going 1,
01:382, 3, 4. More patterns, so we've got 5 across that way.
01:42And then same thing with direction 2, pick that top edge, and like I said, you
01:45can pick any edge going in that direction.
01:47I can pick this edge back here if I wanted to, or you could even draw a sketch
01:51if you wanted a pattern going in a different direction.
01:53I am just going to pick this edge here and put the same spacing of 4.0 and then take a look.
01:59Notice we're going in the wrong direction. I can just flip that with the arrow
02:03here, and there we go.
02:05So we've got 3 going that way, 5 going that way,
02:07and just that quickly we've established our pattern.
02:11Now, if we wanted to remove an instance from there, first off, in here, we've
02:16got the components we're Patterning, which is that of subassembly, and then
02:18down here in Instances, if we click in this box, it gives me this little purple dot on each one.
02:23If I want to get rid of any one of those, I could just randomly remove some of
02:27the items if I wanted to, and they show up here as far as a matrix level,
02:31third row second column, fourth row second column, kind of thing.
02:35So if you want to bring them back, just delete them out of this box here, and
02:39then they'll pop back in.
02:40Click on OK, and there it is. Just that quickly we've got a nice linear pattern,
02:45laying up all these parts.
02:46And we've got a very simple tree here.
02:49We've got the original base and then we've got that subassembly.
02:52And then below Mate, notice that in the Mate we only have two mates in
02:54this whole assembly. Pretty cool!
02:56And then the linear pattern here and all those new parts under there.
03:01And if I wanted to, I could actually suppress that entire thing to hide them
03:05all. If I wanted to I can bring them all back, and I can also go in here and edit that.
03:10I can change the spacing if I wanted to or remove certain items out of that group.
03:14A lot of power in one simple command.
03:17Click OK, and there we are. Okay.
03:19Now I am going to jump over to the Circular Pattern, and I have a file open here
03:24called 11.6-2. And this is just a plate.
03:28Now, what we want to do is we want to Circular Pattern this one around, so
03:31I've got one quarter of an enclosure kind of laid out. I just want to take that,
03:36instead of having to make it four different times, and then assemble it
03:38altogether, it makes it real easy just to go ahead and pattern that around.
03:42For circular patterns what we need is a axis of rotation.
03:46So before we can pattern things around, I need to add that axis in.
03:49It's the same way we've been doing it before.
03:51I am going to go up here to Reference Geometry and I'm going to say we need an Axis.
03:56And the Two Planes method is probably going to work out best for us.
04:00And I am going to pick the--let's see what we've got here. We've got the Top Plane and
04:04the Right Plane. Those are the ones that are intersecting here for us.
04:08So that's going to be right in the center of that shape.
04:11And you have to pick these planes dependent upon how you drew your original sketch.
04:14So this one was drawn on the Front Plane so that's why we have to pick that pair.
04:18So just take a look at it in the Drawing view to make the correct selection.
04:22Click on OK, and now we've got an axis to view around, and I am going to make
04:25sure we're viewing our axes.
04:27There it is, and there is our part we want to move around.
04:30So, same thing, under Linear Pattern, there is a thing called Circular Pattern.
04:34And let's just simply jump into this.
04:35The first question it's going to ask me is, what axes? There it is.
04:40And then second one is, what's the component we want to pattern? I am going to select it here.
04:44I always try to select things from the tree versus from the Drawing window.
04:48So I am going to pick that pattern there, and notice you can see a
04:50little representation.
04:51Right now it's giving us a 15 degree and there's two of them.
04:52We probably prefer to have equal spacing, so it's going to put on the other
04:56side, and we actually want 4.
04:58So as you see, as we add those up, it just adds one more, adds one more, spin around.
05:03And same thing, we can always remove an item if we wanted to take one of those
05:07out of the grouping, but we don't in this case. Click on OK, and it's as simple as
05:12that. We've generated a circular pattern of these parts,
05:15and we can do that with as many parts as we want.
05:17And we can also go back, just like we did with the linear pattern, and then
05:21here are the parts. We can suppress these if we didn't want to see them for a
05:25second, bring them back.
05:26We can edit this pattern here, just by clicking on the Edit feature, and we
05:31can change things around a lot of different ways here if we wanted to change
05:34it through different angle or a certain amount of instances we wanted to put in there.
05:38So a lot of power, again, in a very simple-to-use command.
05:42So there you have it for the linear pattern and the circular pattern.
05:46Patterning can save a lot of time and provides an easy way to modify the spacing
05:51and quantities of parts or subassemblies.
05:54If you find yourself adding more than a few of the same item to your assembly,
05:58maybe a pattern can help out.
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Downloading pre-made parts from the Internet
00:00One of the best ways to build assemblies is to not build the parts at all.
00:04Standardized parts can be downloaded from a variety of web sites for your use
00:08in your assemblies. Let's take a look.
00:11The first web site I was going to show is 3D Content Central, and this is owned
00:14by SolidWorks. And you can upload brackets and cylinders, hardware and bunch of
00:19companies who do a lot of these type of products too.
00:22And you can look at some of these companies, who they are, and you can browse
00:26and search for items you might be looking for, download them into your model very quickly.
00:30Next thing I'm going to show you is MiSUMi, and this is a configurable website,
00:35so you can download all types of the products for mold designs and automation
00:39components, press die components.
00:41You can take a look at some of these.
00:43We have like automation like linear motion, like shaft, bearings.
00:46Go on the web site, configure the product exactly the way you want, and then
00:50download it, maybe into custom machine and things like that based upon the
00:54input data you give them.
00:56Up here, another one called GrabCAD. There is all types of really neat models
01:00that have been uploaded here.
01:01They use SolidWorks models as well as models from other different companies in
01:053D formats like STEP and IGES that are uploaded here as well.
01:08And then if you have some neat models you've developed, you can upload them,
01:10share them with the community as well.
01:12PEM Engineering, so they make PEM hardware like the captive fasteners, this
01:16is very common in sheet metal type parts, but it can be used in machine parts as well.
01:20You can search for a part number here, download the cad model, bring it right
01:24directly into SolidWorks.
01:25And the last one I am going to show you is McMaster-Carr.
01:28And this is a great resource.
01:29It's kind of like the world's best hardware store online, and you can download
01:33the parts quickly here.
01:34And if you order the parts, they normally show up in less than a day a lot of
01:37times. It's a really great resource, and there is also some really good
01:40information as far as technical data about the hardware and the materials that go into it.
01:44So I am just going to download one socket and cap screw here.
01:46So, notice how I can select which one I want.
01:48I am going to pick that style right there.
01:50Not all of their components have a download, but a lot of them do, so I'm going
01:54to go over here and pick this socket head and go down to a size I am looking
01:59for. I am looking for, say, 1/2"-13 and once I find the type of hardware, it gives
02:05me a couple of options as far as what type. I am going to use Stainless Steel
02:09and I got a choice of 316 or 18-8 and I can pick the length.
02:13So say like this one here, it's a 1"1, so if I click on that item right there,
02:16notice I get a few options here.
02:18I get a CAD download, I get the catalog page or I can bookmark it.
02:21Click on CAD and I get a picture of the drawing--it's pretty nice--and then I
02:26can download it on all types of formats: IGES, PDF, SolidWorks,
02:30STEP files. And then I can also get the technical drawings as an AutoCAD drawing or a PDF.
02:34So I lot of times would download both the 3D SolidWorks file as well as like
02:38maybe a 2D-PDF or 2D-DXF drawing, just so I can keep that as a reference in
02:42maybe a reference folder I might design.
02:44Pick the 3D SolidWorks, click on Save, and it says, open the file up, click OK,
02:49and it's going to say Read-Only. That's great, and there it is, just that quickly.
02:53I downloaded a file off the Internet and now I can take it, this little
02:55component here, and save it out to my local directory and use it in my assemblies.
03:01Downloading CAD models can save a lot of time,
03:03and many times you will get an even better model.
03:06If you're working with standardized components like hardware or off-the-shelf
03:09items, make sure to check on the Internet.
03:11You will be surprised at what you find.
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Working with pre-made parts bundled with SolidWorks Professional and SolidWorks Premium
00:00If you have SolidWorks Professional or Premium, you have the option of using the Toolbox.
00:05The Toolbox provides millions of hardware items that can be quickly added to your assembly. Let's take a look.
00:11Here is a part that we've got four holes in, and these could easily be created
00:15with a Revolved Cut, or we could use the Hole Wizard, which we'll be learning
00:19about in Chapter 13.
00:21And what we want to do is we want to add some hardware to this assembly.
00:23To do so, over here in the Library we've got the Design Library, and notice
00:28we've got the different blocks and then you have this thing called the Toolbox.
00:31And notice it says it's not quite added in yet,
00:33so we want to either click on this link here to add it in, or come up here to
00:36the top and say Tools, and at the very bottom of that, say Add-Ins.
00:40This also gives us a way to add in a lot of different features in SolidWorks.
00:45We've got FeatureWorks, we've got the 3D rendering package, which is
00:48PhotoView 360, we can use the Motion, the Routing, Simulation. And then down
00:52here we've got Toolbox--we want to turn that one on--as well as Toolbox Browser.
00:57And then if you want those items to show up automatically during startup, just
01:01click and turn them on over here.
01:02And once you are happy with that, click OK and that adds that in.
01:05And then over here back in the Library, now we've got the Toolbox. And notice
01:09it gives us this little window that says Toolbox is currently installed on this computer.
01:12If you want to use it just for one user, that's fine; however, if you are
01:16working with a group of people, it's best to have Toolbox installed on a server
01:20or a community machine that everybody can access the same Toolbox files.
01:24So I am going to click down here and look at some of the items that are available.
01:27Click on the Inch Folder, and you can see there is Bearings, there is Bolts,
01:30there is Screws, there is Bushings, O-Rings. You've got a lot of neat things you can add in.
01:34So let's just take a look at Bolts and Screws for right now.
01:36And what type of Screws, there are Countersunk Head if we want. And maybe we
01:41want a Countersunk Bolt. And once we grab that, we're just going to pull it out
01:45to the window and let go.
01:47As soon as we do that, it's going to ask us, how do we want to configure
01:50that bolt or that screw?
01:52So first is what Size we want. We've got all kinds of different sizes here, and
01:55I am going to start with a quarter 20 (1/4-20).
01:58And what type of Drive we want, so it's a Slotted, that's fine.
02:02And how long do we want to have it? So I am going to pick like three quarters of
02:04an inch (0.75) and notice it changes on the fly for us.
02:07And come down a little bit further, and how do we want it to display? Do we want
02:10Cosmetic Threads and make it look a little fancier, or Schematic to actually
02:15put the threads on?
02:16This might look nice to have that in there.
02:18However, it's going to add a lot more data to your model, so a lot of the times
02:22you don't want to add all that extra weight to your models, so just maybe
02:24Simplified is the easiest way to go.
02:26And then click on OK, and that's going to build that model.
02:30Notice it attaches to your Tooltip.
02:32So now if I want to go place this, I can just click anywhere I want to place
02:35one, or I can actually automatically mate these together.
02:38And if I hold down Tab, it will actually flip it upside down so I can change the
02:42mating orientation, and I can just drop it right in the hole.
02:45Same thing over here. Go over the hole. It just automatically will find a mate for you.
02:49Hold down Tab, it's going to lock into the hole, and click OK.
02:52So it's an easy-to-place hardware, and we can literally add millions of
02:56different styles and configurations of hardware to our model just that quickly.
03:00When you are done, hit Esc, and that turns that off, and now you've got these
03:03holes in there, and you can see they've mounted in there.
03:06And then if we want to go and work with this part here, we can just use our
03:09standard mate techniques we've already used, use the right mouse button, spin it around.
03:12We can click on Mate, grab the outside of that, grab the inside of this hole,
03:16mate those together,
03:18and then maybe bring that top of the screw here to the top of the part.
03:22Something like that, it's a really easy way to Mate.
03:25So you can do it both ways.
03:27If we are using a lot of hardware in our design and we are sharing it on the
03:30server, that's great, but what if we want to send our design to somebody else,
03:33maybe a manufacturer, to build those parts?
03:35We want to make sure that that hardware is included with that assembly, because
03:39right now it's stored in a different location.
03:40So I am going to go up here to File > Pack and Go. If I click on Pack and Go, it's
03:46going to go out and find all the items that are part of this assembly.
03:49This is a brand-new assembly so I haven't saved it yet, so we probably want to
03:51save it first. But it's called Assembly Two and then it's made up of
03:5411.8-1, and then this new countersunk bolt that we just found.
03:58And you can see where it is in the folder, its name, and then where it's being
04:02saved to, and then a lot of other information here. In this folder, you can
04:07go see where it's located at.
04:08So first off, this one hasn't been found because we haven't saved it out yet, so
04:12let's go ahead and do that before we go any further.
04:14So let's cancel this, let's go File > Save As, and we are going to save it right
04:19here. We are just going to call this one 11.8, and click on Save, and that's
04:24going to save that. Now we have 11.8 assembly.
04:26Now, let's go back to the Pack and Go.
04:28Now you can see it's saved out correctly.
04:31And then in the folder, we can see where it is, so it's in Ch 11. That's great.
04:35And then this one here, notice it's in a different folder.
04:37So we want to make sure we have a folder that has all the items in one.
04:40So we can click here and find out which path we might be using for that, and you
04:44generally don't want to save it into the same folder you're already in.
04:46Choose a different folder to save it to, and it's going to copy all those items
04:49and put it in that folder, so you have a second copy of it.
04:52The other great thing you can do is click on Zip the file out.
04:55So if I want to just take all those files and put it in a new folder and zip it
04:58up, this is the way to go.
05:00And by the way, that's also a great way just make a copy of your design at any
05:03one stage you are at. You can just make a zip copy, have everything in there,
05:07and then any time you want to come back to an older version of your files, they
05:10are all in that zip file, which also makes it really easy to email out or put on
05:13a FTP server if you need to send a lot of files.
05:15A couple of other things on the top here. If we have drawings, which we haven't
05:19covered yet, we can also include those.
05:21We can include simulation results, as well as a few other things in that package.
05:25So it's really a great way to add everything up and make sure that there's
05:28nothing missed from that design.
05:29Once you are happy with it, click on Save and we are good to go.
05:35Toolbox is a great way to quickly add hardware to an assembly.
05:38If you are working with others or sending the files to a manufacturer, make sure
05:41to use the Pack and Go Wizard to pack those files up so they are in a nice ZIP
05:46file and all the files are included.
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12. Advanced Mates
Mating parts with coincident, parallel, and distance mates
00:00Mates are very similar to sketch relations.
00:02We need a minimum of two parts and an idea of how to connect the parts.
00:07Much like relations, we have all the basic ways of aligning parts, for example,
00:11Coincident, Parallel, Collinear, Distance, and a whole bunch more.
00:15Coincident is the most common of these mates, and attaches two items together by
00:19touching the selections.
00:21In general, most parts will acquire three mates to fully define their
00:24location and orientation.
00:26So we have got an assembly here with just one part in it, and I am going to go
00:29ahead and just tile horizontally and just drag a couple of additional parts
00:33into that assembly. Okay, there it is.
00:35I can move these parts around, get them oriented kind of the way we are going
00:41to start assembling. So we will start with this part here.
00:44We will click on the mate, and my selections here, I am going to choose this face here.
00:49So I want to mate this block down to that face.
00:52Now, first I am going to show you what not to do, or what's going to maybe
00:55cause some problems.
00:56If I just pick like this point, this corner of this block, click OK, it's going
00:59to move that and make it touch.
01:01Here is the problem though: as I move this thing around, it's touching, but if
01:06we look at the part itself, only that one point is touchin. So I can have the
01:10block that's inside of there, I can spin this thing around, there's a lot of
01:13things that can happen.
01:15But that part is really not very constraint, just really just that point that's
01:19touching and everything else is just wiggling around.
01:22So let's go ahead and delete that mate.
01:24Hit Delete. The next Mate is going to be a line point.
01:29So I am going to hit Mate, and I am going to choose this line here on the
01:32edge and that face.
01:34So now it's going to bring that edge down to touch.
01:37And now what we are going to have is kind of like more of a hinge type of mate.
01:40So it's going to rotate around that point, but it's really not locking it down.
01:43So those aren't quite as powerful mates as if we picked the whole face.
01:47So I am going to go back and undo that and cancel that.
01:50So take a look at the mate, so there is no mates now, we are free to move around.
01:53Let's go back and mate that face here to actually the entire face, and now that
01:58brings that all the way down and constrains it in, in at least two dimensions.
02:01Now, this block moves around or I can drag it around the screen if I needed
02:05to. Let me start adding some additional mates here.
02:07Let's take a look, go down to Mates. Let's go down to Parallel.
02:11So Parallel is going to mate just two faces that are parallel.
02:14Now, we can use lines as well, but like I said, lines are just not as powerful
02:18as the full faces are, or surfaces.
02:20So let's pick a whole surface versus a line.
02:22Pick that surface there, and there is a face here, and those are going to be parallel.
02:28So now in Parallel, we still move this thing around; it just blocks the
02:32orientation so they are aligned at least, so you can move it in and out.
02:35Now that we have a parallel relationship. I can move this around, and if we add
02:40another mate, this time we can go to Perpendicular.
02:43Now, Perpendicular would actually add almost the same thing.
02:46So Parallel and Perpendicular, but I pick a different pair, so I pick this face
02:49here and that there.
02:51So I will pick this and--hold on, we have got too many things chosen.
02:55If I select too many things, I can always go in this box and hit Delete to take them out.
02:59Pick there, pick there, and say Perpendicular, and that's going to be fine.
03:05Now, we have two mates that are actually doing the same thing:
03:06we have a Parallel and a Perpendicular.
03:09And the reason I added those-- you can see Parallel here and the
03:12Perpendicular there--as long as they don't violate each other, there is not
03:15going to be any problems.
03:17But really, these are redundant. They are doing almost exactly the same thing.
03:20So we can get rid of either one of those and it won't cause any problems.
03:23The blocks still lock down.
03:26Go back to the Mate, and this time I am going to put in a Distance.
03:30So down here, as far as Distance, I can type in a number, and I can choose a pair.
03:34So I say this face here, that face there, and we give it a number. Or I can
03:38change that number, say like 2.0.
03:40I am just going to span that out.
03:43It's not going to give you a hard number of distance, it's going to place that
03:45block at a certain place, right up along that other edge now.
03:50Those are our basic mates.
03:51Let's spin this thing around over here on the other side, and let's take a look at this pair.
03:55So I am going to do a Mate here, let's just say this face here, click on Mate.
03:59And by the way, I can pre-select these two faces, so I can pick that one, hold
04:02down Ctrl, spin it around.
04:04Let's select that other face first and then notice I get this in-context pop-up
04:09window and I can click on Mate right there and it mates those together.
04:12Now, we want this to kind of be in here first. And right now it's kind of at a
04:17different angle, so let's play with a few of the other ones.
04:20So one of the mates we can do is an Angle Mate.
04:22So I can say like this face here and that face there, and I can choose an angle, so 30 degrees.
04:29And if I change that, notice that block, it starts moving around.
04:32I can change that angle, adjust to that face, and I can zoom in, zoom out, so I can
04:37adjust that to an angle if I wanted to.
04:39And I can also flip the direction, the other side if I needed to, and you can
04:43change the alignment by flopping it to the other side if you wanted to as well. Click on OK.
04:47But that's not the orientation we're going to need to get that in there, so to
04:50fully define this thing, let's go back, cancel out of that.
04:53Let's go to Mates, let's delete that angle.
04:55If you ever want to change or modify or delete a relationship or a mate, we
05:00can go down here and just click on it and then say Edit that feature, and we
05:04can go back and change it.
05:05We don't necessarily have to delete it and then reapply it; we can just go ahead
05:08and go back in and edit that feature or that mate. Click there.
05:13But in this case, I actually do want to get rid of this, so I am going to hit
05:16Delete and there it goes.
05:17So to bring this in here, first I have got to save this into to this block here
05:21and mate it together with the end of that.
05:23And then we have got our relationship.
05:25We can slide this up and down, and we are probably just going to go ahead and
05:29use another coincident mate here to just lock these two together.
05:32All right, there it is.
05:36These mates will handle most parts with flat sides.
05:39As you get used to the Mate tools, you will see the SolidWorks generally chooses
05:43a mate based upon the selections you make.
05:45You still have the option to change the mate; however, it gives you a
05:48good starting point.
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Mating parts with tangent and width mates
00:00In this movie, we're going to cover the Tangent mate and also the Width mate.
00:04The Width mate is a great tool to center one part within another.
00:08Many times, when there is not a plane to work with, or some other easy, center-
00:11aligning feature, the Width mate can solve the center alignment.
00:14You can even handle the case with uneven sides or angles.
00:18But first, let's take a look at the Tangent relationship.
00:21So we will click on Mate, and I've got this part here.
00:24We are going to make that so it actually rolls or slides around the outside of this part here.
00:28That's where we are going to jump into this Tangent relationship.
00:31So first, I am going to select the pair.
00:32If I click over here on this face and click on this face here, by default,
00:37SolidWorks thinks what we want is a Concentric mate, and that would be fine for
00:41some circumstances and I would add that.
00:43But if we didn't, we can actually go right next to it, and it's a
00:46Tangent relationship. Click on that one.
00:48Notice it pushes it out and just makes the two faces tangent to each other.
00:52Click on OK, and then we have the degree of freedom.
00:54I can actually roll over this part right around there.
00:57These two faces we are going to be touching.
00:59I have two circles here, but if we had, like, a wheel and you wanted to roll down
01:03the road or something like that, we could attach the wheel to a tangent
01:06relationship along the track and I could easily move it forward or backwards. Or
01:09we can have things that roll around and things like that with tangent.
01:12So it makes it really nice.
01:13The second case we are going to look at is the Width mate.
01:17Now, I've got this part here that's locked in there.
01:19I am going to click on that part, and we are going to expand it out.
01:22Now you look in here, we've got the mates, and this thing's got three
01:25mates attached to it.
01:26It's got that side there, and it's got this one here.
01:29So I am going to delete these two here, that one, and that one, just by hitting
01:34the Delete key on my keyboard by selecting the mates.
01:36Now we should be able to move around.
01:38Now these happened to be the exact same size, if you look at them, but what if we
01:43went back and change that part?
01:45So let me go back and open this part here, and let's go back and edit that
01:49sketch. And as you can see, we've got a part that's a little bit bigger.
01:52So I am going to change this one to 1.25, and we'll change this one to 3.25.
01:59Now this wedge is a little bit smaller.
02:02I am going to go back into that assembly, and you can see there is a
02:06little space there.
02:08If we were to go and make a mate between like this edge and that one or that face
02:14and that face, now the parts are here.
02:16But if we wanted to--for instance, you can use a Coincident mate, so we will
02:20hit this face here.
02:22Now the problem is, is well, we've got this gap here at the top, right, and
02:26that's not really what we want.
02:27We want things more symmetrical if they are going to fit inside there.
02:30Obviously, that's not going to work out as far, as that mate there.
02:33So Coincident, let's get rid of that one.
02:34What we do have is a thing called a Width mate.
02:37It takes care of this situation for us.
02:39I am actually going to delete this other coincident relationship right now too.
02:43So I can still move this out here.
02:45So a Width mate looks for a pair.
02:46So I am going to Mate, and that's actually under, not our Standard Mate palette,
02:51but if you look under here, we have a thing called Advanced Mates.
02:53So Advanced Mates has got a bunch of different mates we are going to look
02:56at. And keep in mind, there's also a thing called Mechanical Mates down here,
03:00and we've got things like Cams, Hinges, Gears, Rack Pinion, Screws, Universal Joints.
03:05These are more advanced mates that we are really not going to cover in this
03:08course, but I just want to let you know they are there if you need to take a
03:10look and try to play around with those.
03:11Let's go back to Advanced Mates, and we are going to cover several of these, but
03:16right now we are just working on the Width mate.
03:18When I select Width mate, it gives me two choices.
03:20It says one, the first thing I want to know what are the Width selections?
03:24I am going to spin this thing around.
03:25I want to pick this face here and this face there.
03:29So basically, we want two pairs, so basically what's going to fit between those
03:34two faces, and then my Tab selections is going to be the tab on this side and I
03:39am picking on this side as well.
03:40And let's say it's going to make the distance between these two faces and these
03:45two faces exactly the same.
03:46I am going to click on OK and that mate the lines.
03:49Now notice, as I move that in there, it's the same distance between the spacing here
03:54and that spacing there.
03:55Click on OK. Then I can go ahead and maybe add that relationship back at the end here,
03:59just so you can see it a little better.
04:02So it handles the case of always fitting that perfectly between the two faces.
04:06Now what's even cooler about this feature is if I go back and I change this
04:10part, right now those outside edges are aligned.
04:13If I were to change this to like 2.0 and click on OK, the part
04:18drastically changes.
04:19If I go back over here to the assembly, it updates. Guess what?
04:23The Width mate has no problem with it. It says, "No problem. I can handle that. I
04:27can figure that out for you."
04:28So even though these faces are not parallel at all, it still finds the best fit
04:33and puts it directly in the center between the two.
04:35The Width mate command is very handy.
04:37It can solve mate problems that would otherwise lead to lower-quality mates.
04:41This is an advanced mate and it does take more system resources,
04:44so only choose this option when simpler mates will not work.
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Mating parts along a path
00:00The Path mate is very handy when you want a part to move along a specific path,
00:05specified by a sketch.
00:07And to saw how it works I've got a plate here, and on the plate I've created a
00:11sketch on the top plane to define my path. Then I've added in this little cone here,
00:17and in the bottom of my cone I've added a point.
00:19Now you could also use the Origin, but in case you didn't have the origin right
00:22at the bottom of the part, you can always add a point or some type of a sketch to tie into.
00:26So I want to make sure I go and View > Points.
00:31So my first mate, so I'm just going to say, at the top of this plate here, and
00:34then I'm just going to spin around. I'm going to grab just the bottom of that
00:37part there, and let's do a typical coincident mate.
00:41Now I've got that plate there with the cone on top of it, and this can
00:47slide around now.
00:48So now what we want to do is we want to lock this cone onto that path.
00:52To do so, I am just going to click on Mate and then come into not the Standard
00:57Mates but beloe that, the Advanced Mates. We have one called Path Mate.
01:02A Path mate is pretty simple to set up.
01:05The first question it's going to ask is I need a vertex on my point.
01:08So I am going to use that point right there, and then in my Path Selection right
01:12there, I'm just going to choose that path.
01:13As soon as I do that, it's just kind of brings that point over and lays it right
01:17on top of that path. And just to point something out is this point has to be
01:22right on the bottom of that part.
01:23If it was in the middle of that part for instance, it would violate that mate
01:27because you've already made a Coincident Mate with the bottom touching the
01:29top of that plate here.
01:31That definitely needs to be on the bottom or on edge or something like that.
01:34Click on OK, and now we've got that mate set up. And as I grab this part here, we
01:40should be able to drag it along that path.
01:44It just smoothly slides along that path. You can go anywhere you would like to take it.
01:50The Path Mate provides a nice way to move parts along a fixed length and path.
01:55With a little preparation, the Path mate can provide some very handy advanced
01:59motion for your assemblies.
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Mating parts by aligning planes
00:00When we start a new part, we have three planes and an origin as a starting point
00:04to construct a new part.
00:06None of these can be deleted or modified; therefore, if I use this to mate parts
00:10together, they are unbreakable mates that are easy for the computer to solve and
00:14provide for automatic centering.
00:17As long as we design origin-centric, this type of mate will be perfect.
00:21There are a few things to make creating mates like this easier.
00:25We're going to start by viewing the planes that are going to be used as the mate pair.
00:29So I have this block here, and I am going to click on the Plus to open up
00:33this dropdown. And I want to see the Front Plane, and notice it shows up
00:38here in the Right Plane.
00:39So those show up. And then I'm going to do the same thing for the cone, click
00:44down here to the Front Plane, and show that one, and then go down to the Right
00:47Plane, and show that one.
00:48Now if for some reason you are not seeing these, you can always go to View and make
00:52sure we have Planes turned on; if I turned that off, they just hide.
00:55Go back to View > Planes and it show up.
00:57So you don't need to turn on all the planes, just the ones that you are really
00:59going to be using your mate pair.
01:01So our first mate, we're just going to use a Coincident Mate, just to put the
01:05cone on top of this block.
01:07Select the top of that block, select the bottom of the cone, and that just makes the
01:12first mate pair there.
01:13So now we have a cone who is sliding around on the block.
01:17I am going to place it right here for now.
01:21My next mate is going to be just picking this pair, and we're just going to use
01:24the Standard Coincident Mate like we've already learned.
01:26So I'm just going to select that plane here and that plane there, and they come
01:32together. And then same thing now we have got another degree of freedom
01:34back and forth this way.
01:36So just go ahead and pick that pair, so the Right Plane there, and the Right
01:40Plane there, and notice those come together. Pretty simple to do, as long as you
01:44can see those planes.
01:46Now these planes being made together makes for a very, very powerful mate because
01:50these planes are there from the very beginning when we created these parts.
01:53So if I completely change these parts, those plane mates won't fail.
01:57There is nothing to fail about them because they are the fundamental building
02:00blocks for that model.
02:01They are also quite easy for the computer to solve, and it gives you automatic
02:05symmetry. It puts it right in the center of that part.
02:08Keep in mind, when you're designing though, make sure we are origin-centric; we
02:10have got the origin in the center of our part. That way everything will
02:13automatically align. It makes for building assemblies very easy.
02:17Plane mates are the strongest type of mates, and by using them, you can build
02:20almost unbreakable assemblies.
02:23In small assemblies this might not seem like a big problem; however, as your
02:26model grows, having failing mates can cause a cascade effect that can really
02:31make for a bad day.
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13. Hole Wizard
Getting started with the Hole Wizard
00:00The Hole Wizard provides a quick way to generate a variety of standard size
00:04holes for screws, tapped holes, counterbores, and the ability to easily change
00:08from one style or size to another.
00:11Let's have a block open up here and we are going to add some holes to that.
00:14So the best way to use a Hole Wizard and the Hole Wizard is located here under
00:18the Features and Hole Wizard.
00:19And before actually opening the Hole Wizard, select the face first and then jump
00:23into the Hole Wizard.
00:24Okay, you have got a bunch of choices here.
00:27So starting at the top here, we have got what type of holes; we've got
00:30counterbored holes, we have countersunk holes, we just have simple holes here.
00:33We have tapped holes, pipe tapped holes, and then you can actually make a
00:37customized or a legacy-style hole by changing and putting the values yourself.
00:41Below that, we've got our Standard, which we are going to cover in the next
00:45movie, but you have got a bunch of different types of fasteners and holes that
00:49we can select from to choose those type of fasteners, but, your most standard
00:53probably would be ANSI Inch or Metric, let's choose that one.
00:57And then from there we have got a variety pack of types of screws.
01:00So we've got all these different things we can put in there as far as
01:03counterbored holes for these types of screws, so binding head screws,
01:08heavy hex bolts, pan heads, you get all these little choices down here,
01:12socket head screws.
01:13So I'm going to pick like a socket head cap screw for instance.
01:15Don't want to get down here to Hole Specifications as it is going to ask me
01:18the size and the fit.
01:20So with the size I'm going to go down to pick like a standard size, let's pick a
01:24big one to just make it easy to see.
01:26So say like 1 inch and then a normal fit, or you can choose close or loose,
01:30depending on how tight you want to make those fit tolerances, and if you click on
01:34Show custom sizing, it's going to tell you what the actual values are.
01:37This comes in really handy because most people don't know off the top of their
01:40head, exactly the size hole I should be putting in my block, for a clearance
01:44hole for that screw, or the size of the head of the screw or the thickness of the
01:47head of that screw to make a nice counterbore, so most people are not going to
01:50have that information off the top of their head.
01:52So SolidWorks has a nice, table lookup to pull these values, and these are your standard
01:56values, and if I change the values here, you'll notice that a couple of these
01:59numbers will change depending on if we want a loose fit or a tight fit, as far as
02:03the through hole there.
02:04End Condition, come down here a little further, we've got Through All, we have
02:08Blind, Up To Next, these are the same as kind of our extrude cut choices.
02:12All right, so if I only want a hole a certain amount of inches deep I can
02:15choose Blind, I can say Through All to make sure it continues to go through the
02:18part no matter how thick it is, Up To Next, Up To Vertex, Up To Surface, so
02:21a lot of that kind of repeats there.
02:23So I'm just going to choose Through All for this one, and then you get an
02:26option of Head clearance.
02:27If you want it to be a little bit of more space above, countersink this screw a
02:30little bit deeper than it would really need to be.
02:32You can also add some countersinks to either the front side or the backside
02:36or under the head countersink or far side countersink, just by clicking these
02:40little tabs, these little checkmark boxes on, and we can adjust the way that this is.
02:44Now keep in mind, anything that we fill out in here, these values are going to
02:48propagate through to your drawings.
02:50So make sure you fill it out correctly here -- it's a common error is the
02:53End Condition, right?
02:54Instead of Through All they say Blind and give it 20 inches, well that shows up
02:59in your drawing as this hole is 20 inches deep, or your part only might be a half
03:03inch deep, and it clearly goes through it, but you don't really need a drill
03:06hole 20 inches deep.
03:07So sometimes there is a little area for confusion.
03:09So if you do want to go all the way through the part, it's best to check here Through All.
03:13Once you've gone through and picked all these different choices out, then we
03:17click on this tab here at the top which is Positions.
03:19Now the way that the Hole Wizard will work is it just relies upon the Point
03:23command, here is a Point command up here.
03:24And so anywhere I place a point, it's going to put that hole.
03:27I will click here on that face and notice it gives you a visual representation
03:31of where it's going to be placed, and any where else I place a point, there it is,
03:34it's just going to keep dropping those holes.
03:36If I hit Escape, it will turn that off or I can go up here back to the
03:39Point command and just unselect it.
03:41Now if I've got a point on here and I want it, I can just make sure I turn the
03:44Point command off first and then go and select that point and hit Delete and
03:47just remove that point there.
03:49I can also -- while I am in this mode, I can hit the Spacebar and look straight
03:53down on these parts, I can move these things around.
03:55I can use dimensions to dimension them out to the edge, to define where they are. All right,
04:03as soon as I do that, notice the point turns black, the other ones are still
04:05blue, so these are still moving around.
04:07I can snap them to something like the origin, and then it's fully-defined with a
04:11little relationship so we can add relationships to them.
04:13Then we can also use construction geometry to draw in the Hole Wizard.
04:19All right, and I will make a little rectangular box here.
04:24Then I can drag those points and snap them over here to the corners.
04:27Now if I want to add a few more, you just go back to the Point command, drop a couple on there.
04:32Now here is one thing that doesn't work.
04:33If you actually have a point already and you try to click on top of it, you
04:37can add that point.
04:38But it doesn't necessarily always link together with that point.
04:41So it's sometimes easier actually just to drag an existing point over another
04:45point so it snaps on there, so kind of create that geometry first.
04:48I've got one extra one almost deleted there, and there we go.
04:51So we can move things around and then we can use this construction geometry to
04:54layout that part, so I will put 2.0 there and 2.0 there, just so we have a nice
05:03fully defined sketch, all the lines are black and we are doing good.
05:06So now you can see, there's all the holes, there are multiple different ways we
05:11define where their locations are, and as soon as we are happy with that, we just
05:14click on the OK checkmark and there they are.
05:17So there's our holes placed on the part.
05:19We can see on the back side they go through there and it's all fully-defined in
05:23just the standards we chose to create this part, and notice there's a little
05:26cheer from the top edge.
05:28We can easily go back and modify this.
05:30Notice it just tells us, counterbore for 1 inch Socket Head Cap Screw.
05:33You can always go back to this feature, jump back in here and I can easily
05:37change, okay, I didn't want a 1 inch, I only wanted a half-inch.
05:40Click on that and they all update just that quickly, so it's easier change
05:43from one to the next.
05:45The Hole Wizard is based on points, because a location of a hole is
05:48defined by a point, to add another hole, all we need to do is add another point to our sketch.
05:53To change holes, we can just select a different style and all the holes
05:56automatically change.
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Understanding hole types and standards
00:00The Hole Wizard can create everything from tapped holes, to countersunk,
00:04to counterbored holes.
00:05There are a lot of options and it's best just to go from the top, go
00:08through them one at a time.
00:10To get started, let's choose a face and then select the Hole Wizard, so I am just
00:13going to choose the top here, and jump right into the Hole Wizard.
00:16Now we've already covered the first one, which is counterbore, we also have countersink.
00:20If I click on Countersink, we've got a few things that change here.
00:22We get at what degree we want to use, so we have 100 degree screws or 82
00:27degree screws, and Oval Head or Socket Head Countersunk Screws, we've got a lot of choices here.
00:32And notice if I change over here to like Metric, for instance, a different
00:36standard, then I get a subset and type of spec that those are going to
00:41be built to, so for instance Metric screws are normally 90 degrees versus the 82 or 100 degrees.
00:46So choosing a different standard definitely will modify the options that
00:49are available to you.
00:50Same thing for Metric, I get M2 through all of my different metric sizes in here.
00:54If I go back to inch, I get 100 degrees or 82 degree screws, and then I get all
01:01my standard screw sizes that I can go ahead and put something in for us, so
01:04I'm going to put like a half-inch screw.
01:06This is countersunk screw, and End Condition I've got Through All, the same
01:10choice that we had before, and then we can also do head clearance.
01:13So depending on which type of hole we are adding these options are going to change.
01:18Simple hole, if I could click on that one instead, I've got a bunch of options
01:21here as far as which standard I want to use.
01:23The Type, which would be All Drill sizes, Fractional Drill sizes, Helicoil
01:28sizes, Letter Drills, Number Drills, Pipe Tap Drills, and this is really popular
01:33one here, Screw Clearances.
01:34So if you are just going to add some holes to one part they are going to
01:37obviously screw down to another part with some tapped holes, you can use Screw
01:40Clearances which will then provide the right spacing around that fastener.
01:44So if I pick like a quarter-inch screw, the normal fit is going to be a little
01:48bit bigger than a quarter-inch to give it a little bit of clearance, and just
01:51gives you the recommended size for that. Same thing with the condition and I can
01:55also countersink the near side of that hole if I would like to, there's a bunch
01:58of different options there.
02:00Tapped holes is another one that's really important here, and so we've got the
02:03Type Tap, which is the Bottoming Tap or a Straight or a Through Hole, exactly
02:07the thread size I am trying to tap to, so I can pick like a half 13.
02:11I can put the custom sizing if I needed to, or the degrees of how I want to drill the hole.
02:16Here's the End Condition and it asks you, if you take a look at this picture really
02:19quick, it's actually not the very tip of the drill, it's actually to the full
02:24diameter of that drill, so it's right before it tapers down to the point;
02:27so keep that in mind when you are choosing that.
02:30You have this little link here which automatically figures out the correct
02:33distance, so if I say I want a one-inch thread depth, the hole that needs a
02:37drill is going to have to be deeper than that, and the method they are are
02:40using is you go Blind Hole.
02:42So if I change this to like 2.0, when I go back up here, this will automatically
02:46link together to specify the right size and depth hole.
02:50Now you can obviously change this and if you wanted to put something in custom
02:53in here, you might want to unlink those so that it doesn't automatically change,
02:56but you want to make sure you're at least drilling a little bit deeper than your
03:00tapped hole, and obviously the deeper the better to make it easier to put that
03:03tapped hole in there.
03:04You can always go back and reset the values.
03:07And there are options here, this is how we want to show this on our part,
03:11because it's actually not going to cut those threads for us, it's just going to
03:14give us a representation using a dashed line with this method here.
03:18We can also just pick just a hole, so it's just going to put a hole in, which is the
03:21correct size for the drill that you would use to then tap the hole afterwards.
03:25This is showing the correct size hole with a cosmetic thread and this is showing
03:28it with the thread section completely removed.
03:31So I generally would not recommend this one, it's either going to be this one or
03:34this one, would probably the best bet, and my favorite spot is to keep the
03:37cosmetic thread showing where that is.
03:39And you can give it a thread callout, and these are some of the things that are
03:42going to show up on your drawing as well.
03:43So I think with a thread class you can pick a 1B, 2B or 3B thread to designate
03:49that on your drawing and you've got a few options here.
03:52And then the last major thing here is going to be your Pipe Tap, so same thing,
03:57what type of Pipe Tap do you have, the size of the Pipe Tap hole, and your
04:00different input values here.
04:02So that's how you go ahead and add a hole to a different part.
04:06I am just going to put a Straight Pipe Tap, let me go to Tapped hole, I am going
04:11to make it half 20, and then I am just going to click on here and just put a one
04:14tapped hole, so we could see it and if we go in here and look, you can see the
04:18bottom of the hole there and you get a little cosmetic thread.
04:19Now the other thing I was going to touch on here is go up to Options, click on
04:23Options, it's under System Options, Hole Wizard/Toolbox, and you can see
04:28where we are pulling this data from.
04:30So different organizations if you have a lot of people using the Hole Wizard or
04:34the Toolbox we can set up custom features or holes or hardware in there, and so
04:39it's going to be pulling it from a certain location.
04:41Right here we are just going the C Drive, so if I want to go configure that, I click on that.
04:45And these are my Toolbox Standards and I also have the Hole Wizard standards, so
04:50I will click on the first page there which is Hole Wizard, and these are all the
04:53standards that I can display.
04:55So if I am not in Japan for instance, I am not using that type of hardware, I
04:59can turn that off and so it won't show up in my book.
05:02But you've got a lot of different countries here and then specific companies
05:06like Helicoil and some other companies that are making specialty hardware that
05:10you might be using to put into your design.
05:12So if you do want to use those or if you are trying to use the standard that you
05:15don't see there, it might have been turned off, you can go ahead and just turn
05:18that back on then and they will show up.
05:19Let's make sure you click up here and you save what you have done, and then that
05:23will show up over here in your Hole Wizard.
05:25If you are done with that click on OK, cancel that out and we're back to where we were.
05:30The Hole Wizard provides a lot of functionality and many options and types of holes.
05:35Make sure to review all the options in the interface, since these would be
05:38shown on the drawing.
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Positioning holes in layout sketches
00:00We can create sketches to drive the Hole Wizard in the wizard interface or we
00:04can predefine a sketch to place the holes.
00:07We can also use the 3D Hole option to place holes on different faces and
00:11at different angles.
00:12We've got a part here and we defined two layout sketches on it, so here's our
00:16original Boss, and we've got a sketch here, which is on the top plane, so it's
00:23kind of in the middle of that part.
00:24And then Sketch3 here is another little sketch on that top face.
00:28So we're going to use those to place our holes.
00:30We're going to go into Hole Wizard, click on OK.
00:32Now in the past, I said to pre-select a face right before we start the Hole Wizard.
00:37It makes it easy just jump right in.
00:39But in this case, when we want 3D holes, we don't want to do that.
00:42So we're going to go here and select a counterbored hole, three-quarter
00:47inch looks good, normal sizing, and instead of going Through All, let's just say
00:50Blind, and 3 inches is fine.
00:53Near side countersink, that all looks great.
00:56Click on the Positions,
00:57now as soon as we click on the Positions, I get this option for 3D Sketch, right?
01:00And that's what we want. All right, and
01:01if we just make some holes on one face, we wouldn't choose that option, but
01:04since I want to place these holes all the way around the outside and on
01:07different faces, I do want the 3D Sketch.
01:09So click over there.
01:10Now notice my cursor gives me which plane I'm operating in, so the XY plane,
01:15and it gives me the option to go start placing some points and notice the Point command is active.
01:20Now there's one thing interesting about SolidWorks is, if you actually try to
01:23click on an existing point, it gives you a little error.
01:27So just place the holes right next to the points you want to be on.
01:31And then same thing as I go over a face like this, I can click there and click there.
01:36Notice those are angling themselves to be perpendicular to that face or
01:40normal to that face.
01:41Same thing over here, I am going to just place these holes right next to where I
01:46want them and same thing in the end, place the holes, and then on this top
01:51face, I can actually snap right to those points.
01:54Okay, so then I hit Escape and now I'm out of the Point command and now I
02:02have the option, I can just drag these points around, and I'm just going to snap
02:05those points right to those endpoints of these lines.
02:09And you can see how that's coming together, snap to there, snap to there. All right!
02:16So we're really just building points on multiple faces of this part.
02:21So with one feature we can add all of these holes.
02:24It's pretty powerful.
02:25I'm just going to drag them over right to those points and notice as I'm
02:31dragging them over, they are becoming black which means they are going to be
02:35fully-defined, I know exactly where they are.
02:38And that one I didn't get, so snap it again, there we go, and one more time.
02:43And notice I've got relationships turned off, so I'll go to View > Sketch
02:47Relations, so they show up for a second there, but they hide right away.
02:51So once I have all those points defined where they are, I can just click on OK,
02:55and there it is, it places all those holes in one feature. All right!
02:59On multiple faces, on curved faces, notice we're pointing towards the
03:03outside face of that, we get some type of a normal relationship, and same thing
03:07over here on the sides.
03:08So this is very powerful, especially if you've got a lot of points to place on a
03:12part, but the best way to do this is actually to do these layout sketches.
03:16Now if I went and changed one of these sketches, these are just kind of
03:19undefined sketches right now.
03:20So I can just drag these things around.
03:22If I wanted to, I can drag these out or closer to the faces and move this stuff around.
03:27Soon as I go back and get out of that sketch, notice the holes, their locations
03:32are defined by the endpoints of these lines and that's how I am defining that,
03:35same thing with this other sketch here.
03:37Even though all the holes are created with just that one feature, I'm using two
03:41separate sketches to define where their locations are.
03:44Click on that and notice those will automatically move out based upon those sketches.
03:49So it's very powerful and a nice way to add a lot of holes to one part
03:53just using one feature.
03:55And if I needed to, I can always click back in here and easily change this, say
03:59like to a 1-inch hole, they all automatically update and just that quick to go
04:03from one type of hole to the next.
04:05I can even go to say we have a different size hole, I could change this to a
04:08tapped hole for instance.
04:10Click OK and there it is.
04:11Just easily changed from tapped hole to counterbore or countersink hole, any
04:15options I want, I can easily change between the two.
04:18By using a separate sketch to drive the Hole Wizard, we can have a dynamic
04:22feature that will adapt to the driving sketch.
04:24We also have the ability to create holes on multiple faces all in one feature.
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14. In-Context Modeling
Linking sketches to other parts
00:00The real power of SolidWorks starts to shine when you link one part to another.
00:05If we think about assemblies as a whole, instead of individual parts, we can use
00:09one part to drive the other.
00:11Think about a jar and a lid.
00:12Wouldn't it be nice if we made the jar bigger that the lid would
00:15automatically change size to fit?
00:17We can, and we could do so much more.
00:19Now we've seen this part before, we're going to go ahead and modify this assembly.
00:23If you've got two parts in an assembly here and what we're going to do is we are
00:27going to modify the base of this part.
00:28So right now, if we open up one of these parts, File > Open, take a look at it,
00:34let's look at the sketch real quick, and inside there you can see, we've got all hard
00:37numbers, we've got a three-inch diameter here, which is a double-dimension
00:40because it's going to across this centerline here.
00:42We will go back to the other part, same thing as I have got all hard dimensions
00:47here showing exactly the size of that part, so this is the dimension we are
00:51going to change here, it's the 3-inch dimension.
00:51So if I change this dimension here to 4 inches, it should get bigger.
00:57If I go back to my assembly, notice we've got a problem.
01:01The lid didn't change size, so I'd have to go back and physically change the
01:05size of that lid to match so, change this to 4.0 and then everything should
01:11be fine, in that situation go back to the Assembly, and there it is, so
01:15everything looks fine.
01:16But wouldn't it be a lot better if we could actually just link this lid to the size
01:20of the base, so if I change the base size that lid would automatically change.
01:23So instead of having to go back to the individual parts to do that, we can
01:26actually do that right here in the assembly.
01:28So I am going to click on the lid part here, and notice, the first option is
01:32Open Part, but the second one here is called Edit Part.
01:34So we are going to be editing this part now in context to this sssembly, and
01:38notice it changes to a blue color and I can expand it out, and I have all the
01:42same features and sketches I do in the individual part.
01:45So the sketch here for that Revolve1 is the one that actually controls the size,
01:50so that's the one I need to edit.
01:51When I click on that I'm going to say Edit Sketch, hit the Spacebar and click on Normal To.
01:55Then I can see this four-inch diameter here, and you can see it kind of in
01:59context to the other part too which makes it really handy.
02:01So what we want to do is delete this four-inch dimension.
02:05By doing that, now I have the ability to kind of drag the size of this lid out
02:09and move it around, and that's what we want.
02:11We want to give it a degree of freedom that we want to control by linking to another part.
02:15Now notice up here in the upper left-hand corner, there is a thing
02:18called No External References.
02:20Make sure that's not turned on, because if that's turned on it will not let
02:23us link to another part, and sometimes you don't want to be able to link your
02:26part together, you just want to be able to change it without adding links,
02:28but in this case we do want to add a link or reference to another part which is the base here.
02:32So to do that, I can either drag this point here and have it snap on to this
02:37corner, but that's probably not going to be the best method for doing that
02:41because what if I want to be able to move the lid up and down, that wouldn't
02:43allow me to do that.
02:44So instead of doing that, I am just going to make a relationship here that says,
02:47hold down Ctrl, select the two, I am going to say Colinear, outside of the base
02:52and the outside of the cover will be colinear.
02:54So now notice they both become all black and fully-defined, so it knows
02:59exactly what size it is.
03:00Now I am going to exit out of that sketch and then exit back into the assembly.
03:04Now you are thinking nothing changed.
03:06Well they didn't, but how about if we go back and change the base part now?
03:11So here is our part, I am going to physically change this part by changing this to a 6 inch.
03:15So now that part changes, and when I go back to the assembly, we are hoping that
03:19the lid changes size too.
03:20So here we go, there is the lid, it didn't change quite yet, but it says
03:23Models have changed. Would you like to rebuild?
03:25Yes, and there it is, pretty nice.
03:28So now anytime we change the size of the base, the lid is automatically going to
03:31resize and change shape.
03:33Now we've only added one link to another part.
03:35There can be hundreds of links to other parts.
03:37You can make a very, very complicated assembly that has parts that are changing
03:41size and related to all types of different parts.
03:44Keep in mind though, it's best practice to choose one part which is going to be your
03:47driving part and then have most of the other parts linking to that part.
03:50So you just have to change one part and the other parts will change.
03:53You can get yourself into a little bit of a problem if you have a circular
03:56reference when you have one part referencing another one, and then that one
03:59comes back and references the beginning part so try to avoid the circular
04:02reference and try to stay with one part as your driving part and other parts
04:06linking to it to control their size.
04:08External references can generate highly -automated assemblies that really show
04:12the power of SolidWorks.
04:14Best practice is to have one main driving part and the others reference it.
04:18It is possible to create a circular reference so make sure you think through how
04:21your design is laid out.
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Linking to layout sketches
00:00Much like linking to other parts, we can have a layout sketch that drives a series of parts.
00:06SolidWorks has a built-in layout function, and we can also use standard
00:09sketches to layout designs.
00:11To start using a layout we need to create a layout in the Assembly Mode of SolidWorks.
00:16In this example I've got a layout made for this part here and I have got a
00:20sketch for the next part that we're going to be putting in there.
00:23Now you can tell we are in the Layout Mode, because if you look at the very top
00:26of the tree you can see this little wooden four-bar mechanism, that means we
00:29are using a layout.
00:30So if I right-click on that I can go down to Layout and I can take a look
00:34at that layout sketch.
00:36So it's a pretty simple sketch here, but basically i've just kind of octagonal shape
00:39here of one-quarter of an octagon, and then I've got a couple of the lines
00:43here laid out for a little rib we are going to add to this to design.
00:46I've got to mention here that's driving the outside of that part.
00:49So if I go back and exit out of that layout, now by the way to get into the
00:54original layout when I start a new file, under Assembly click on OK, it gives me
00:59the option right when I start a new assembly, do I want to create a layout?
01:02If I did click on that, it would just drop me directly into that on a Sketch
01:05Mode in the layout portion of SolidWorks to start just sketching out what our layout is.
01:10Now the nice thing about layouts, you don't need to worry about overlapping
01:13lines, or have a complete sketch, it doesn't really matter because none of these
01:17entities are actually going to be directly used for creating geometry, or an
01:21extrude or something like that.
01:22It's just the layout for that and then we are going to convert those entities or
01:26link to them in our other sketches.
01:28So I am going to go back to the part I have open, which is here, and we're
01:32going to go ahead and add-in this new part.
01:34So adding a new part, we can do it in several different ways, one of them is we
01:37can just go start new part and then drag and drop it into the assembly, and then mate it up.
01:41We always want to have our parts fully mated before we start working with them
01:45in context to these other parts, that way they are not going to move around and
01:48the sketches won't be skewed.
01:49So the second way would be to actually go to Insert Components, and under there,
01:53is a thing called New Part.
01:54So if we click on New Part it's going to allow me to actually put a part, it's a
01:58virtual part inside of this assembly.
02:00Before we do that we want to make sure though that we save out our assembly.
02:04So under File, do a Save As or Save, to make sure you've got a nice
02:08filename saved to that, because that new part is going to be saved
02:10underneath that filename.
02:12So I go to Insert Components > New Part, you'll notice it dropped a new part here
02:16and I just click on OK, and this is a virtual part, it's just in this assembly,
02:19it's not saved anywhere on the file system right now at all.
02:21If I want to edit that part I can just click on it and go to Edit Part, and what
02:26we want to do is, create this little rib here, and to do that I am going to go
02:29down here to find the corresponding plane that would match up.
02:33So probably the Front Plane in this situation would work, that way it's on the bottom of
02:37this part and we're going to go under Sketch, and start a new sketch there.
02:41Hit the Spacebar, which is then going to make it, I am looking down on the part.
02:44So I've got these entities that are from the layout sketch, and I am going to
02:48use those to layout my design.
02:50Now these two down here I can just convert those directly over, so I am going
02:53to click on Convert Entities, just by selecting the two, hold down Ctrl and say Convert Entities.
02:58Those just bring those from the layout sketch directly into this sketch.
03:01Then we've got the line command and I am just going to start from that end point
03:05and drag it up here.
03:06I don't want to go all at the end, I just want to come to the inside, and I am
03:09going to snap to that intersection, I am going to come over here and snap to
03:12that intersection and then the last one, all the way down here and snap there.
03:15So I am just snapping to that underlying sketch and leveraging some of
03:19that layout geometry.
03:20Once I have the shape I want, I can say, okay, I want to go down to a feature
03:24and notice we're in the Assembly Mode so some of the tool palettes are in a
03:27different order here, Boss Extrude is over here now, and we're going to type in
03:31half of an inch, 0.5 and click OK.
03:34So now we've just added this part to this assembly and notice we are still in
03:38the Editing Mode, so I want to go back to assembly, I click here, now I am back
03:42into the Assemble Mode and I have got a couple of parts here.
03:45Now this part here is a virtual part, if I want to save that out to the file
03:48system I can right-click on it and I can say Save Part (in External File),
03:53here it is, and that will actually save it out to the file system, but I don't
03:56need that quite yet.
03:57Now what I am going to do is, I am going to go back to that layout sketch and I
04:00am going to change the layout, and hopefully these parts are going to
04:02automatically adjust, so let's go try that out.
04:04Go down here to Layout, and instead of 24 I am going to click on 36.
04:09Click on OK, you can see that sketch automatically adjusts, go back and the part
04:14should rebuild, and notice both of those two parts have now adjusted to that new
04:18layout sketch, so that sketch is driving both of those parts.
04:21Now I've created a circular pattern already with the Circular Pattern command,
04:26and I've got the parts rolled back a little bit here, so I am just going to roll
04:29it forward, and I am going to go, we'll take a look at that.
04:32So now I have the outside in the pattern, but I don't have this new part, so I
04:36am going to go and add that in, and select Components to Pattern, I tap
04:40the first one, I am going to add that second one in, there it is.
04:42Now I have all four sides of that thing complete.
04:44And I am just going to back one more time and see if we can change that layout.
04:50We're going to go, look at the part straight on and I am going to drag this up a
04:55little bit and change that to 48.
04:57And so you can see the layout sketch expands out, so as you go back, all those
05:03parts are automatically driven, and you can see the circular pattern
05:07automatically updates as well.
05:08Layouts can be very helpful to give the ability to drive a large amount of parts
05:12from the same layout.
05:13It also creates a clear order, what's driving what, just by changing one
05:17single sketch.
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Using the Hole Wizard in context
00:00We have already learned the power of the Hole Wizard.
00:03Now let's take it to the next level by linking the location of the holes to another part.
00:07In order to do this, we need to edit a part within the assembly.
00:10Then we simply open the Hole Wizard and choose a reference point in another part.
00:14Let's give it a shot.
00:15I've got base plate here, and notice there's no holes in it, and then I've got a
00:19plate that has four counter board holes and then over here I've got a little
00:24socket head cap screw that we'd like to install.
00:26Problem is before we can install it we need to add some tapped holes in this plate
00:30and we want to add those in context.
00:32We don't have to memorize what whole spacing was here, we just want to place
00:35them directly underneath where these holes are.
00:37And this thing by the way is still floating around.
00:39We haven't locked this down at all either.
00:41So let's go ahead and edit this part in the assembly.
00:44To do that let's click on the part and over here it shows up highlighted.
00:47And if I left mouse click it, I can say File Open Part or Edit Part and Edit
00:52Part is what I'm looking for, click OK.
00:54And notice everything turns blue meaning that we're editing within context of
00:58the assembly and I'm going to pick this top face to use the Hole Wizard on and
01:03I'm going to click on Hole Wizard and then come down here to a tapped hole and we
01:08want a tapped hole through and half 13 is the size we're looking for, and I want to
01:12just say Through All.
01:13And I am going to make sure we got all the correct things filled out here as far
01:18as thread class 2B and we'll add a little nice near side countersink.
01:21I am going to jump over here to Positions and notice as soon as I do that I get
01:25a little point on my cursor and because I have Point command turned on, that's the
01:28default for being inside of the Hole Wizard.
01:30Now I'm going to hit the Spacebar, click so I'm looking directly down through here.
01:34Now I can snap to any points here in context.
01:37So I'm going to right in the center of this hole and notice as I go over the
01:40edge of these holes it gives me four little quadrants and the center point.
01:43So I'm going to snap right there, pretty easy to put these in context.
01:46I just go over here, snap and notice it doesn't show me that center point till I
01:50actually mouse over the edge and then it pops up.
01:53Okay and last one here.
01:55Now those holes have now been added in context.
01:58As soon as I'm done adding holes, hit Escape.
02:00Turn that Point command off.
02:02I got four holes in context and the Hole Wizard, I click OK and then click OK again and go back.
02:08Now notice just that quickly I've added those holes to the assembly, they
02:11show up below here and I'm going to go ahead and add a relation here or mate this together.
02:17I am going to say that external there with this here, and then I think the inside
02:22of this, the bottom of that with the bottom of the fastener.
02:26All right, now what I have is a plate and I just have one of the socket head cap screws installed.
02:32You can se there it is in the bottom, I've the tapped holes and here's the power of that.
02:35So whereever I want to place this plate now I can drag it over here and watch,
02:39as soon as I click on rebuild, the holes automatically will follow that plate to
02:44wherever it's going to be.
02:45So you need to move things around and click on the rebuild which is that
02:48red light green light.
02:49And then it just rebuilds the assembly, brings the part over to where it's new location is.
02:53And so wherever I put these parts, the holes are automatically going to
02:57follow as well as any other mate references I have like a fastener or
02:59something like that.
03:00So that's using the Hole Wizard in context.
03:02Using the Hole Wizard in context is a great time saver, and using this technique
03:06can be a nice design improvement.
03:08To create a mating hole pattern we don't even need locations or spacing.
03:12All that info is received from the attach part.
03:14If the attach part changes, the corresponding holes update and life is good.
03:19Changes are inevitable.
03:20And the more self-solving you can make your model in the beginning, the more
03:24your model will pay dividends in the end.
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15. Creating Threaded Parts
Calculating values for creating a threaded part
00:00SolidWorks has several ways to represent threads including the Hole Wizard
00:05and cosmetic threads.
00:06However, if you really need to create threads, we need to use a swept cut to
00:10actually cut those threads.
00:12This can be time-consuming and adds a complex feature to your model.
00:15As with all sweeps, we need a profile and a path.
00:18The profile is just a 60 degree triangle and the path is a helix.
00:22Now for the hard part.
00:24We need to input the correct values into the helix and the profile sketch to get
00:28the correct thread when finished.
00:30Let's look up the thread data from the Machinery's Handbook or any other
00:33threading reference.
00:34The size thread we're going to use is a 1-inch 16.
00:38Before we go and look that up though, I'd like to cover how we got to this stage
00:41in this bolt creation process.
00:43So I am going to roll back using the history bar at the beginning and I just
00:46have a piece of hex stock just created with a simple hex sketch, extruded that out.
00:50And then the next one here is going to be the revolved cut and we did something
00:54very similar to this in an earlier movie.
00:56Click on the sketch and I am going to take a look at how it looks.
01:00Now from here, I am going to go around here, we've got a little lead-in to the thread.
01:03This is a section that's going to be threaded, we have a little thread really for
01:05the backside and then just finish it off as far as the outside shape.
01:08Now these values here, this value here in particular, this is going to be our
01:12major diameter for our thread and this is what we're going to look up this
01:15value to input into the sketch.
01:17So then we just do a revolved cut on that and we're back to the stage we're here.
01:20Then what we're going to do here is just we're going to do a revolved cut to
01:23just trim off the top of the bolt, make it look right, and then we're going to
01:27create this sketch here to actually cut those threads.
01:30Okay, so let's jump over to the Machinery Handbook.
01:33So this is a Machinery's Handbook and it's a very common reference, and if you
01:37don't happen to have one, you can always buy one from Amazon or Barnes & Noble
01:42or any major bookseller out there.
01:43And this is the digital copy version so I have a PDF of it and I can look
01:47things up quite easily, or if you might have the paper copy, that's just the
01:50same to look things up.
01:51So we're going to first look at the thread profile.
01:53So here's a standard unified thread profile and it's a 60 degree profile.
01:58If you notice, everything is based upon the P, and the P is the pitch.
02:02And so pitch means 1 divided by the threads per inch and we're going
02:07to calculate that out.
02:08And what that means is what a pitch is, if I turn the thread or the bolt one
02:13turn, how far does that progress.
02:15That's what the pitch is.
02:16Okay, you can see most of the values here are based upon the pitch.
02:19The pitch line is a 0.5P and the basic pitch diameter is what we're going to be
02:24looking up from the table, and you can see that everything here is laid out
02:28based upon the P. So thread pitch is 1 divided by the threads per inch or TPI.
02:33In this case, we have 16 threads per inch and so that's going to be 1 divided by
02:3716 which equals to 0.0625.
02:41Now let's go over and take a look at the table.
02:43So here's the table and we're going to look at the 1-inch 16 thread, and we're
02:48going to look at the 2A variety of that.
02:50As you can see, external threads have a major or a max and min diameter kind of laid within.
02:56So in this case, we have a max diameter of 0.9985 and a min diameter of 0.9891.
03:03So if I average those, I get .9938.
03:05The next column there would be the pitch diameter.
03:08In this case, we have a max of 0.9579 and a min of 0.9529.
03:14Average those and I get 0.9554.
03:17Those are the values we're going to be using to put into our sketches.
03:21Back in our sketch, let's just review inside of the sketch here we used for
03:25revolve, this value here, this 994, that's our first value we calculated.
03:30If I double-click on that you can see it's exactly the number I told you. It's 0.9938.
03:34It's a four-place decimal, so when I click OK, it's actually rounded down to a
03:38three-place decimal.
03:39Okay, that's my first input value, that's going to give the major overall.
03:42Even though it's a 1-inch thread, most of the time those are slightly undersized
03:46for the actual nominal value it's calling out for like the 1 inch.
03:49Okay, and next is going to be this profile sketch and I am going to open that up
03:55and let's take a look what's inside here.
03:57This 0.955, if I double-click on that, that's the same value we came up with
04:01for the pitch diameter.
04:03So that's 0.9554 and that's what we're going to input into the equation.
04:07It's a triangle here with a 60 degree triangle and here is the pitch line that
04:12we defined and we're going to input that value.
04:14Before I do that, I am actually just going to show how to create this just real quick.
04:17So I am going to delete all that and we'll start from the beginning.
04:20I am going to start with construction line, I am then going to snap it right to
04:23the end of that bolt.
04:24Here it is, bring it out, and then I am going to continue on with just a regular line.
04:29I am going to draw a triangle.
04:33One more construction line in the center there and let's start at that point, I
04:36am just going to drag it out and I am actually going to cut it short there and
04:40then I am going to add a relationship.
04:42So I am going to say that point, hold down Ctrl, select that line, and I am
04:45going to say Make Midpoint.
04:46Now I am going to add some relationships and some dimensions, so I am going to
04:51say this is a 60 degree triangle, which we know from thread profile chart.
04:56And I don't want this sticking out too much further than the outside of my bolt,
04:59so I am actually just going to make another little construction line and then I
05:02am going to merge these two points together.
05:04And the next line we need is a little center line and this is just between
05:10the two outside edges, and make sure you don't snap that to the midpoint or anything.
05:13We just want this to be able to move in and out, so it's a construction line we can move.
05:17Now this is the pitch line, it's actually half the pitch line, so what I want to
05:21do is input that value.
05:22So I am going to click on that line and come out here.
05:24Now I can use this input bar here to actually calculate things out for me.
05:28So as I remember from that table, the pitch is 1 divided by the threads per inch.
05:33I'll type in 1 divided by 16 or 16 threads per inch.
05:37And then from the profile sketch we saw earlier, it's actually divided by 2, so
05:41I am going to divide it by 2.
05:42And I can do all that in one calculation right here in just the input bar.
05:45Click on OK and that solves it out for us giving 0.031.
05:49The last piece of information we need here is the pitch diameter.
05:53Now we calculated it as 0.9554, so let's go input that value now.
05:57I am going to click on this center line here.
05:58From this center line, I am going to click on this little point here and notice
06:01if I go across that center line, it turns into a double dimension.
06:05So I can actually input exactly the value I calculated.
06:07That's what I want to do.
06:08I am going to type in 0.9554, click on OK.
06:13Notice my sketch is now fully defined.
06:15I've got all of the lines are black and so I am pretty good.
06:18Now in the next movie we're going to create the helix and then finish out the
06:22cut by doing that revolved sweep to cut out that profile.
06:25It takes a bit of work to create real cut threads, so I would not recommend this
06:29option for all situations.
06:30However, if you're going to rapid- prototype your parts or just want real threads
06:35to look visually correct, this is the option.
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Using a helix sweep path to create a thread
00:00The next step in the thread creation process is generating a helix that will
00:05guide the Cut tool.
00:06To do this, we need to draw a circle that will be the size of the helix.
00:09Let's get into the Helix tool and get started.
00:11Before we do that, you can see on the screen this is exactly where we left off in the last movie.
00:16We have a profile of the shape of a 60 degree triangle, which we're going to use
00:20a helix to drive around this part to cut the threads.
00:24So now we need to create the helix.
00:25So I'm going to exit out of the sketch, and you can see that sketch was there
00:28and now we're going to go --
00:29I'm going to make sure we are viewing sketches,
00:32so we can see where that sketch is, and now we're going to go ahead and create a helix.
00:35To do so, I need to say Insert > Curve > Helix.
00:39Once I do that, the first part of creating a helix is I need to select a face for
00:42playing, I need to draw a circle that's going to be the size of that helix.
00:46So I'm just going to pick the very front of this bolt.
00:48So I am going to click on that, I am going to click on the Spacebar, Normal To
00:52it, I am going to use just this outside edge here.
00:54I could either draw a circle myself or just click on that outside edge and covert it.
00:59So bring that entity into the current sketch.
01:01Notice if I do that, it just brings that sketch here.
01:03As soon as I exit out of this, it's going to go directly into the Helix tool,
01:06and sometimes it's a little hard to figure out exactly where you are because
01:08there is no little window that tells you do this or do that.
01:11So it's going to make you draw a circle and as soon as you exit out, it's going
01:14to go into the Helix Tool. Okay,
01:16so we have a couple of different ways to define a helix.
01:19First one is Pitch and Revolution, but we can also do Height and Revolution,
01:22Height and Pitch, Spiral, a lot of things we can do.
01:24But we're just going to leave default one there.
01:26Now the constant pitch is what we want and here's the pitch, right?
01:29So I got to that number by just using the Input Bar to do the calculation, I say
01:341 divided by 16 threads per inch, and that's what the pitch is.
01:38And we are spinning the correct direction, if we are going the wrong way, we go this way.
01:43So if we can always flip that one way or another and then I can figure how many
01:46revolutions it's going to take me to get down to the base of this thread. Okay,
01:49now the other thing that is very important is notice this start angle here.
01:53We want to make sure we're starting our helix right at that sketch.
01:57So if I zoom in here, notice this little start arrow is right at the same level of that sketch.
02:03It's a little bit hard to see on the screen, but that's going to be
02:06starting right there.
02:07So I could adjust this angle to make sure that that start point is right at the
02:11same plane as where I drew that sketch, so make sure you do that.
02:14If it's over here, some like that, it's going to give you an error, and then
02:17make sure we're going either clockwise or counterclockwise to make sure we're
02:20doing the right type of thread, either right-hand thread or left-hand thread.
02:23Once all that looks okay, click on the check mark, there it is, and we can verify
02:27our thread, just by zooming in making sure that it looks way it's supposed to, I
02:32am going to spin it around.
02:33Okay, so now we have a profile, and we have a path, and we are ready to do the swept cut.
02:38I'm just going to click on Swept Cut, and for the profile, I'm just going to
02:42zoom out a little bit here, and I'm going to pick that first sketch.
02:45That's going to be our profile sketch, and then our second one is going to be our path.
02:50We're using that Helix as our path.
02:52As soon as I click on that, it gives me a little preview of what it's going to
02:55look like, as far as cutting down the line there, and all the other options we
02:58just leave them as their defaults.
02:59Click on OK and there it is.
03:02We've cut those threads and you can see how they look, they're pretty nice.
03:06So that's a real cut thread on a part, and this is part of the standard, part of
03:11the Machinery Handbook, as far as those input values and we can use the same
03:14exact method for any size thread.
03:16It's a 60 degree thread or if you needed to create an ACME screw thread or some
03:20other shape thread profile, it's really just a matter of changing that 60
03:23degree triangle to whatever thread profile you might be using, and just make
03:27sure you got the correct pitch diameter and that overall outside diameter of
03:30your thread correct.
03:32The Sweep tool can be used to make a variety of shapes and a thread profile
03:36is just one of them.
03:37The key point to remember in creating threads is that the process will be
03:40the same each time.
03:41So make sure to use good thread values from a table.
03:44Also, make sure to specify the correct thread in class on your drawing.
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Understanding internal and external threads
00:00The process to create internal threads is the same as with external threads.
00:05However, there are a few subtle differences that we will review.
00:07First off, let's open up 15.3-1.
00:11This is a simple part with a hole that we want to thread.
00:13Take a look at the screen here, I can see that I am actually sectioning this in
00:17half so I can easily see the part we're going to be working with.
00:19And if I go back and turn that off see the hole, and I created this hole
00:23just with a revolved cut, and we did that right here in the Front Plane, and my
00:27sketch just looks like this.
00:29Okay I've got just a rectangle with a little chamfer added to the upper corner
00:34there with 45 degrees, and giving it 100,000 chamfer, and then this value here is
00:40the 0.939 is the value that we looked up from the Machinery Handbook, and if you
00:45didn't catch the movie at the beginning of this chapter where we did that, we
00:48are going to do it again in this movie to look that internal diameter up.
00:50So we are going to go ahead and do that right now.
00:54Okay, and the thread size we are creating is a 1-16.
00:57And we are using an internal thread this time so we are going to go look up these values.
01:02As you can see, the diameter has a max and min value, and we want to kind of
01:06shoot right for the middle of those, that would make sure that it's not too big,
01:09too small, we are right in the middle so we have a little leeway either way.
01:11As you can see the max diameter is 0.946 and the min diameter is 0.932, and so
01:18if we average those out, we get 0.939.
01:20And on the pitch, which is the next column over, we get a minimum of 0.9594 and
01:27a max of 0.9659, if we average those we get 0.963.
01:33So those are the two values we are going to use as our input values in our sketches.
01:36Back here at the sketch, you can see that diameter value, there it is, that
01:400.939, that's where that gets input.
01:42I am going to exit out of that, and now you can see that we've got a start of
01:46another sketch here, and I am going to put the Section View back on so we can
01:50see easily in there.
01:52So let's go back in the sketch here, take a look what we have got.
01:55Now, very similar to the external thread sketch, we have got a little 60 degree
01:59triangle here, and we have got it snapped on to the inside of that hole, and we
02:03have got this pitch line here, and this is the pitch divided by 2.
02:07And I got to that number just by saying 1/16/2, and if you don't remember where
02:13this value came from, but in the beginning of this chapter we covered how to get
02:17those values and how to look those values up from the Machinery Handbook. I'll click there,
02:22and the other piece of information we need is this pitch diameter, and that's a
02:25value we just looked up in the table, so it's 0.963, just type that in, attach
02:30that to the little construction geometry there, and that's all we really need to
02:34create that profile.
02:36Click on Exit Sketch, accept that, and now we need is a helix.
02:39I am going to go up here to Insert > Curve > Helix/Spiral.
02:45And the first question it says is, please select a face or plane to draw a
02:48circle, and I am going to pick just that top face, and I am going to hit the
02:51Spacebar to look straight down on it.
02:53Now, it doesn't actually tell us this, and right now there is no other dialog boxes
02:57open and it makes it slightly confusing, but all it's really looking for is
03:00a circle and then as soon as we exit out of the sketch, it's going to jump
03:03into the Helix command.
03:04I am going to grab the Circle command here and I am going to snap my circle out
03:09and make it so it's attached to this, and if it didn't automatically add that, I
03:13can just go ahead and add a relationship here, and let's say, Make Coradial.
03:16It's the exact same size, it fully defined as black.
03:20And since we are done with that, we will click on OK, and as soon as we do that
03:23it will jump right into the Helix command.
03:25So we have got a bunch of ways we can create helix.
03:28First one will be Pitch and Revolution, we have got Height and Revolution, few
03:31different options, I am just going to use the first one.
03:33Now, we are using a Constant Pitch, and then the pitch here is the same thing.
03:37So 1/16 or 16 threads per inch, that's where you can put that value.
03:41And then if our threading was going in the wrong direction, I could just reverse
03:44it, so depending on how you have it drawn out.
03:46And then the same thing with Revolution, if I want to go little bit
03:49further, it's fine.
03:50As long as we go past the part, everything will work just fine.
03:52And then this is the start angle, and that's very important, we have got to make
03:55sure that we start our helix right on our sketch.
03:59And if I change that value a little bit, see how that start point is moving around.
04:02We want to make sure those both start exactly at the same location, otherwise
04:06you will have errors.
04:07Once you have that, click on OK, there is our helix.
04:10So now we have a profile and we have a path and we are ready to create the Swept Cut.
04:15Our profile is going to be Sketch4, and notice I am selecting from the tree
04:19here, I can always get to that tree by hitting this little plus, open it up
04:22and see what's in that tree.
04:24So I am going to pick Sketch4 for my profile, and then for my path I am going
04:27to pick just that helix.
04:28Soon as I do that, it gives me a nice preview of what's going to happen, and I
04:31click on OK, and there's our threaded cut.
04:35You can see it does a pretty nice job, and you can always turn the Section View
04:39off to see the full part.
04:40See down there, bend it around, perfect!
04:43Whether you are creating a 1 inch thread or a small thread, a 4/40, something
04:47like that, the process is going to be exactly the same, just the values are
04:50going to be slightly different.
04:52Threading is used extensively in product design and development.
04:55Having these basic skills is essential.
04:57The threads we created were standard 60 degree threads,
05:00however the same technique can be used to create Acme, Ball Screw, or really any
05:05other type of threads.
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16. Equations and Design Tables
Using equations in refining sketching
00:00Equations are awesome and in SolidWorks 2012 they got even better.
00:05Equations allow you to drive an unlimited number of sketch values from one variable.
00:10If we later want to change the size all we need to do is to update that one
00:13value and all the linked values change.
00:16Think about a quarter inch hole that was used across multiple features and sketches.
00:20If we wanted to change that hole to a three eighths of an inch hole all we need
00:23to do is edit the equation and all the holes update.
00:26Otherwise, we would need to open each individual sketch and modify those
00:30values independently.
00:31In the Graphics view here we have one quarter of a part that looks very
00:34similar to some things we've done in the past, and I am going to drive this using equations.
00:38So I am going to go up here to Smart Dimension and I typically would have just
00:42clicked over here and clicked on maybe this centerline dimension, and input a
00:45double dimension here.
00:46And if I do input this, notice I just type in the number and it's the value I get.
00:51It is a little pop up that says, "Start with = to create an equation."
00:54So if I do that, let's try it out, = now I can link to various different like
00:59equations, like sin(), cos(), and tan(), or I can even link to file
01:03properties, like the Mass, the Density, the Volume, Surface Area, I mean all
01:07kind of things you can do here.
01:08Or we can just start typing a variable name out here, so as soon as I start
01:12typing something like length, L-E-N-G-T-H.
01:16Then I get this little pop-up saying, it's going to create a global variable.
01:19As soon as I click on OK, all right it says create a new variable, call this and I say Yes.
01:24And now it gives me a chance to input what that value is supposed to be.
01:27So I am going to type in 12 and then click OK.
01:30So now, not only I have created a variable called Length, I have also assigned a
01:35value of 12 to it and you can tell I have a little sigma in front of here that looks
01:39like kind of like an E, that means that it's linked to an equation.
01:43And the Equation Editor is in the Toolbars palette.
01:46So if I don't have this toolbar opener here which is the Tool palette, I can
01:49right-click here and make sure that I go down and grab the Tools palette
01:53which is right here.
01:54I happen to have it already on, so I am not going to turn it on, but that's
01:57where you get the Equation editor.
01:59They are also show up over here, under Equations and then you got values
02:02they are linked to.
02:03Okay, so let's go on and add some more.
02:06Now we can continue to add things in the input bar or we can go back to the
02:10Equation Editor itself and open these values up.
02:12Now I've got a bunch of values I can put in here, so I can say something
02:17like Width and then give it a value and type in 8 and then it equates out to something.
02:24You can even give it some notes, type it over here and we can then just continue
02:28on this way and we'll try a Height and let's give it 2, so we can just start
02:34inputting values like this that we are going to use in our design and we can use
02:38things like Hole, and you can write anything you want here.
02:41You can fill this whole space with a paragraph if you wanted to describe your
02:44variable but you probably want to use something that's short and sweet
02:47that's easy to remember and just to type in, and let's go give it like a .75, and
02:54we can continue here to as many values as we want and then notice down here
02:57also we have these equations that are set up so we are saying D1@Sketch1 is
03:01equal to that Length value.
03:03So we can add more like that as well.
03:04So I click on OK, now we got a bunch of values that are in there, so now we
03:08just got to go link them to it.
03:10So click on this sketch dimension and then click here, across that centerline
03:14value and this time if I want to link that to something, hit the equals again
03:19and now I got these global variables, they are already assigned, I can just go
03:22grab one of those, right.
03:23I want the width this time and say Width and click OK, and just inputs that values.
03:26Okay, I have got a few more that I can input here, I can say this value here, we
03:32want a dimension on that and I can say equals again and just go grab that
03:37hole size, click on OK, there's that hole.
03:42We don't have a value for these lines here quite yet, so I can just input it on the bars.
03:47So I can say, this is going to be equal to space maybe.
03:51Okay and click OK, it's going to create a new global variable and then we are
03:55going to change the value here to 1, click OK and now that links those values
04:00and adds that global variable.
04:02Now once we have got all these values here, everything is equation driven.
04:05I don't actually need to ever come back to this sketch, right, everything here
04:08is all linked value.
04:10So I am going to go and now create this feature and extruded it, and I am going
04:14to type in like 1 inch, now there is my Extruded Base/Boss and there is my part.
04:19Now, notice I put in a value there.
04:20If I want to, I can also double-click on this and you can see all these values
04:25that are input that are there.
04:26Now even that one inch value there, if I want to double-click on that,
04:29I can link that as well, I can say = global variables, and this time I change the Height.
04:33So I can link all of those, okay and click on OK, and hit rebuild and there it is.
04:41Now if I want to change this part around I can go right here to the Equation
04:45Editor, here is all the values and I can just go ahead and change any of these that I want to.
04:50I am going to change this one to 8 inches and I am going to this one to 4
04:55inches, and I am going to change this one to 1 inch and let's change those holes
05:00to .5 inches and the spacing we'll leave the same.
05:04Click on OK, and you can see that the part changes automatically.
05:10Everything is just updates and if didn't update you can just hit rebuild
05:13to refresh that part.
05:14But everything automatically changes quickly.
05:16If I go back to that sketch you can see those values are now input from those equations.
05:21It's a really easy way to go and leverage those values.
05:24Now I'm using this as just one sketch, but I could be creating sketches on all
05:28types of different faces and creating a very complex part.
05:30If I was using a half-inch hole for instance, I could link to that half-inch
05:34variable over and over and over again through multiple sketches through multiple features.
05:37If I change one thing, they would all update.
05:39So it's a very, very powerfully way to go about that.
05:41When I go back to the Equator Editor here, I have a few other things I can do.
05:45Notice I've got some values that are kind of linked here and I can display where they are.
05:48I can also import and export these values.
05:51So if I am using these type of things over and over again, I can export all
05:55these values to an equation in just a text file.
05:58So equation.txt, I have a Chapter 16, I am just going to drop in there,
06:01and these are all the values that I am exporting out of there and I can hit
06:06Export and there they go.
06:08And then notice down here, I have got a file that's linking to this external file
06:11that's driving these equations.
06:13So if I go back into the File System, inside of that folder, notice I have got
06:17this equation.txt file.
06:20If I click on it I can see a Preview of it, I can actually right-click on it, I
06:23can say Open with and something like Notepad would be good.
06:26And you can see it's just a simple text file that says Length is equal to 8, and
06:30there are all these other values that are linking to what they are, so I can
06:33continue as long as I keep that same format, I can start adding values here or I
06:37can take this and I import it to another file that I might be using length, and
06:41width, and height and hole diameters already and then I just can update those
06:44values to what they need to be.
06:45So that links those values out to the system and makes it really handy and you
06:49can see that value there, import that same file or a different file, if I wanted to use
06:53different equations in my design.
06:55Design reusability is a great timesaver and using equations in your
06:59designs makes it easier to make changes and allows others to easily
07:02understand your input values.
07:04In SolidWorks 2012 they made it very easy to create equation values in the input
07:09bar, so integrating them into your design is easy and efficient.
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Working with complex calculations
00:00The Equation Editor gives us the ability to create equations based on
00:03variables and input values.
00:05Equations can use the results from other equations as their input values and
00:09some very complicated dynamic values can be calculated.
00:12These values can then easily be linked to sketch dimensions.
00:16In this part here we've got just a simple layout and we're going to add some dimensions.
00:20So I'm going to add dimension from this right-hand side across the centerline
00:24to create a double dimension, and I am going to create a global variable here, so
00:27I am going to say equals, I should call this one L, and I click OK, and I am
00:32going to create a global, say Yes, and then it gives us the opportunity to
00:35type in that value, so I'm going to click on in that box here and type in 12 and click OK.
00:42So now we got a value, global value called L, which is now equal to 12. Okay,
00:45so another dimension over here, this time I'm going to make another equation,
00:50I'm going to say equals.
00:51Now what I'm going to do is, I'm going to grab this value down here and I can
00:53add anything into this bar just by clicking on it, into any value that's
00:57available, so click on that, and notice that it gives the name of that value and where it is.
01:01If you mouse over it, it'll tell you the length of it, which is 12, and then
01:04I can do something else to that, so I can start doing some math functions, so
01:07I'm going to divide it by 4, and that's going to give you what you are inputting
01:10there and click OK, and click OK, so then there is your value of 3, and I'm
01:15going to define some of these lines here and dimension right there, so this is 1 inch right now.
01:21So I'm going to take this value here.
01:23So I'm going to say equals that value there, and divide it by 3 to get the 1
01:28inch and then make it slightly small, so I'm going to subtract 0.125. Okay,
01:32click OK, and there is that value and then the last one is going to be this hole
01:36here and we can do some interesting things here to say, I like this value here,
01:40and say times, we can use some functions in there if you wanted to, like the sin
01:43of 30, for instance, plus 0.125 maybe, and we can continue on here, make a
01:50very complicated equation.
01:51And anything else we wanted to add in here, if we needed to, we can just click on
01:55a plus or minus sign, and just go grab that value, it's going to automatically
01:57add that in, so I can say like minus and click on this value here, it's going to add it in.
02:02If all of a sudden that's not what you want, you can just backspace out of that and
02:06remove it out of there, click OK and that's my value and there it is.
02:10So now all these values are linked together and then if I want to go ahead and
02:15if I need to change any of these things or modify how they operate I can go
02:18into the Equation Editor and I can take a look and see some of the values here,
02:22here's the equations that are linked to this, they're cascading.
02:26So if I change L, all these other values are all cascading down from that.
02:30So if I change L which is 12, notice this is D1, so D1@Sketch1 divided by 4
02:36is the second value here.
02:38So obviously if L changes, this value is going to change, and then this value
02:41below it is going to change based on that value, so you can get a quite
02:45complicated cascading effect in equations.
02:48And you can also just add complicated equations here, so say like something
02:51like G, I can grab values from in here, so I can say like there or I can
02:56type in values that I have already created list global variables are linked to
02:59them, so I already got a global variable called L I can link to here, or I can
03:02just type it out, I can plus another L if I wanted to, there's my other L and
03:07click OK and there it is.
03:09So once I've got everything put in there I can give some comments to what we're
03:12doing and you really can create some pretty amazing equation-driven parts, and
03:17let's just go try to change a part here, let's just make a Extrude, I am going to drag it
03:22up 2 inches for instance, and I got that part equationed out now.
03:29So I'm just going to go back to that equation and this time instead of 12, I'm
03:32going to change this to 24, click on OK and then everything automatically
03:39updates, the hole updates, everything changes in that part if I go back and take a look.
03:42Here all the values are, and they have all been calculated and updated based
03:48upon those equations we used.
03:51Creating dynamic equation-driven models in SolidWorks is easy, and it's a
03:55great tool to figure out complex shapes that would otherwise be very difficult to
03:58calculate or draw.
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Integrating Microsoft Excel to manage design tables
00:00Within SolidWorks we can use all the power of Microsoft Excel to drive our parts
00:05and to create various configurations of the same part.
00:08To get started we need a base part that we're going to drive.
00:11Let's get started with 16.3-1, this is just a block with a hole in the center.
00:16We are then going to link the values to drive the size with a design table.
00:20Let's take a look at the underlying sketch here, and take a look at some of the values.
00:25Pretty simple sketch here, it's outlining a few things, and notice if I
00:29double-click on any one of these dimensions, here is the value.
00:32So I can actually overwrite this value or the name of this.
00:35So I am going to type in here just capital W for the width.
00:38Over here I am going to double-click and say, this one is going to be the
00:42height, so just H. This one here I can make it hole, so I can change it to
00:48anything I really like.
00:49Then over here I am going to change this one to radius, and there it is.
00:55If I double-click back on that, notice now its Radius@Sketch1, so those are the
00:59values we are going to input into our table to drive this part.
01:02Click OK, and those values have now been updated.
01:05And go back to the extrude and then you can see here the extrude is, I am just
01:11extruding it one inch, so that makes it pretty simple to understand,
01:14and it's saying D1, so that's dimension one in that extrude. Click OK.
01:20Now, we haven't really played with many of these other tabs here at the top of
01:23the screen yet, so the first one is the Feature Manager, the next one is the
01:26Property Manager, and then followed by that is the Configuration Manager.
01:29Now, if we have a part and we want to make some small modification to it, I can
01:33always go here and I can right-click and I can say Add Derived Configuration, or
01:37if I click on the top one I can say create a new configuration, or Add a
01:41Configuration to that part, so then I could go in and maybe change the size of
01:44the hole to be a smaller hole.
01:45And you have two configurations of the same exact part.
01:48Now, we could do that directly or we can use Microsoft Excel to drive a table
01:53and create the configurations for us.
01:55So to do that, let's go up here to say Insert > Tables > Design Table.
02:00The Auto-create is just fine, we are going to use that as the default, and click on OK.
02:06And as soon as I do that, it actually opens Excel in the background and then it
02:09asks us which values we want to import into Excel to be driven.
02:13Now, if we just wanted to change the length of the extrusion, we could use this
02:17one here, which is just that D1 we looked at, and right now that's one inch,
02:20so if we wanted to have a bunch of different lengths of this piece
02:23with a bunch of different values, we could just drive that.
02:25If we want to drive all the values, we need to select all these.
02:27Hold down Ctrl, select all those and click on OK.
02:30What that does, it makes a little window of Excel inside of SolidWorks.
02:35You notice it's the default configuration, and here's those values that we input before.
02:40So if I want to add another configuration, all I need to do here is just name
02:43it, so I'll say like C2 for configuration 2, and type in some values, so I am
02:48going to say, type .5, type in 10, 5, 2, and I will extrude it 2 inches.
02:56Those are those values, and I can keep going if I want to and type in some more values, C3.
03:00And if I only want to change one or a couple of these values instead of having
03:03to type them all in, I can use the Excel command, which is just Fill Down, and
03:07select over all those windows, and hit Ctrl+D for Fill Down, and that just
03:12copies those values down, then I can just change the ones I want to change.
03:15So I could say this is maybe 12 inches and I want to extrude it 8.
03:19And if I want to I can name this anything I want.
03:21I can add a configuration named Bob, for instance.
03:23It doesn't really matter, you can name your configurations anything you want.
03:27And use that same technique of Fill Down, so Ctrl+D. And do a couple more
03:33things here, we'll change this to 8 and we'll change this one to 12.
03:37So if you do add another configuration, we have got to make sure that we
03:39fill in all the values, otherwise it's going to give us an error.
03:42So as soon as we've got all the values filled out the way we want, we click
03:45anywhere in here in the graphics window, outside of Excel, click there, and it's
03:50going to say, it created these configurations for us. That's great! Click on OK.
03:53If I go over here to the Configuration Manager, you can see these are the new
03:58configurations that have been created.
03:59So we are still on the default, but if I want to go and look at my new
04:01configurations, I just double-click on them, double-click on that and, wow,
04:05we've got a much bigger part now.
04:07You can see how that rapidly changes that part's shape and size.
04:11Double-click on this one, makes a small part, and bunch of different options
04:16here we can take a look at.
04:17So it's pretty neat what you can do with just changing those values.
04:21The part really is the same type of part, just the input values have changed.
04:24Now, if I want to go back and edit the table or change things around, under
04:28the Tables tab here, and keep in mind we are under the Configurations tab, not
04:31the Property Manager.
04:32Configurations Tab > Tables, and then here's that Design Table.
04:36So if I want to change that table, I can right-click on it and I can say Edit
04:39Table, which will bring up that same little window.
04:41Or I can say Edit the Table in a New Window, which actually opens up the full
04:45version of Excel, click on that, and there it is.
04:48It's going to ask us, these are some configurations, click on OK, and I am
04:53going to jump over here to Excel, open it up, and expand out these windows so we can see it.
04:58And under the View Tab, I just want to make it a little bit bigger.
05:01So you can see the same table is now open in Excel and we can add more
05:07configurations if we wanted to.
05:08We can also use the power of Excel here to figure things out for us.
05:11So I can say this row here and I can Fill Down, Ctrl+D, and I am going to
05:16change this one to Gabe.
05:19Now, if I want to drive some of these values dynamically, for instance, if I
05:22want to say this value here, maybe this hole, I want to make it half the size of the width.
05:27So I can actually just say equals and the input bar here is just exactly as
05:32Excel would work, and say this value here divided by 2, and click OK, and
05:36that's completely fine.
05:38We can use all the power of Excel.
05:40In fact, if we skip either a column or a row;
05:42we can go out here and calculate some values out.
05:45I could say this cell is equal to that cell, plus that cell, minus that cell,
05:52and divided by this cell, whatever you want to put in here, and just create some crazy values.
05:57So we don't probably want to put a negative number, but whatever you calculate
06:00out, you can go ahead and use any values you want in Excel to go calculate
06:05these values and fill them out, so you can really come up with some very
06:07powerful equations.
06:09And we can go up into Excel and use their Equation Editor and all the lookup
06:12tables and values, concatenate, a lot of real powerful things inside of Excel
06:16that we can use to fill out our design table.
06:19Once we've got these things looking good, we can go in and easily create new
06:22configurations, but keep in mind, when we do create configurations, make sure
06:26that we are making values that make sense.
06:27Like here the width of the part is 10, the height is 12, and then here's that hole.
06:31Well, what happens if I make this hole like 24, for instance, and I make this
06:35thing four inches tall? Let's try it out.
06:38Soon as I am done with this, I am going to click on Save and close that down,
06:43and then it says in SolidWorks we've now got a new configuration, click on
06:47OK, jump over here back to SolidWorks, and there is our new configuration called Gabe.
06:50And watch what happened, I made that hole bigger than the part, double-click on it.
06:56Now, we've got a completely different looking part, even though the values
07:00really just changed, it's the same part with different values, but now this
07:03circle is on the outside of this rectangle, so we've got a completely
07:05different looking part.
07:06So keep in mind that some of those values, by changing them you might end up
07:09with different parts.
07:10And also, if you made, for instance, like a radius here bigger than this length
07:14if this line here or something like that, that would give you an error saying
07:17this configuration couldn't be built.
07:19But still we have all the other configurations still there, just
07:21by double-clicking on them.
07:23And if we wanted to build an assembly from one of these, I can drag them
07:27directly from this Configuration window into a new assembly, and each one of the
07:31configurations will be operated as a separate part.
07:33Using Excel and design tables allows you to create a collection of similar parts.
07:38This comes in very handy if you're working with something like a bolt.
07:42They look about the same,
07:43however, they are different sizes and different lengths.
07:45The features are created the same with different input values.
07:49If you have a design that looks similar to the bolt example, design tables
07:52would be a good choice.
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Making assemblies using part configurations
00:00We can create assemblies from configurations of a part.
00:04We're right here where we left off at 16.3-1, and we have several configurations of
00:09this part that have been defined with a design table here, and we can go modify
00:13those values in the design table and Excel if we want to, you can double-click
00:17on any one of these to get different input into that shape, and you can rebuild
00:23it to get different sizes. Okay,
00:25so I can go ahead and build an assembly using these.
00:28So I'm going to say, let's start with this configuration here, which is Gabe,
00:32which is my name, and I'm going to say, make an assembly from that, so Make
00:36Assembly from Part, and notice I got that one there and then put it in.
00:41Now what might seem funny is I'm going to go ahead and create an assembly
00:44of all the same part yet they are going to be different, so let's click on Tile Horizontally.
00:49Notice down here we have those display states, if I double-click on one my part will change.
00:55I can grab it from the Excel window here or from here and drag it in.
00:59Notice, there are the same part, it's just different configurations of that same
01:03part, let's double-click on one of these other ones, drag it in up here as well.
01:07So I can actually take every single configuration of this part and put it into
01:14this assembly, so there is all bunch of difference ones.
01:17All the same part, notice they're all exactly the same file name and the
01:21different values, but they are different configurations of that part, so notice
01:24it's Gabe, Bob, C2, C3, and the default configuration that are all in there.
01:28So there's different configurations of the same part, and I can create
01:30assemblies as I would anyway else, I can also add other components to this
01:33assembly, it doesn't really matter, so you can actually have a complete
01:36assembly using just one part.
01:39Makes a lot of sense if you're going to create like a railing or something like
01:41that, you have pieces of rectangular tubing, they are in different sizes, but
01:45really the shape is the same or very similar.
01:47So you can have a big tube at the top, a big tube on the bottom, and then
01:50smaller tubes from maybe with the pickets or the other parts, I can move these
01:54components around and adjust them.
01:56If I click on a component here this little in-context window pops up giving
02:00a bunch of options.
02:01If I go to the very end of this there is Component Properties, click on that,
02:05take a look inside here.
02:06It gives me those configurations of that part and notice the C3 is highlighted.
02:11If I were to change this to C2, it would just change that part, so I can easily
02:16change from one part, or one configuration to the next, inside of this Assembly
02:20window just by clicking on a part, selecting the Component Properties and
02:23choosing which configuration I want solved.
02:26So right now it's the Bob one, I can go down here to C3 or Gabe, change that
02:30around just by clicking those, hitting update and it changes that part to something
02:34else, so it's very powerful what you can do.
02:36So Microsoft Excel inside of SolidWorks there are these real great powerful
02:39features for creating configurations, and then those configurations again can be
02:44used in assembly or in other parts to create very complex parts, and you can
02:47also use all the power of those equations to solve very complicated and
02:51cascading part calculations to really build some amazing things.
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17. Part Drawings
Working with drawing templates
00:00A sheet template is the border and size of a drawing.
00:03Making or choosing a template is important to relay the correct information
00:07about your part as well as your company.
00:09A sheet template will have a block tolerance, the projection type, the units,
00:14and the scale of the drawing.
00:16This is a part we're going to make a drawing for.
00:17I have a couple of different ways to do that.
00:19I'll just start a new document here, I'll click on New, and notice from the
00:23Novice tab here, I've get my standard Part, Assembly, and Drawing.
00:27If I click on this drawing here, it's going to use my default template, or I can
00:30click over the Advanced tab to get more drawings and templates that I might have
00:34already established, but I don't have one of those yet.
00:36So let's click on just Drawing under the Novice tab and click OK.
00:40So when I do that, it gives me a listing of the sizes of standard drawings that
00:43are preloaded with SolidWorks.
00:44If I click through the different ones here, you can see the drawing size changes, the
00:48width and height change, and I get a bunch of different options here.
00:52I can go through different standards and see your ISO or a whole bunch of different ones;
00:57I can click on here that will change.
01:00I'm going to use the ANSI C-size drawing.
01:04So that gives us a lot a real estate to draw out our parts, as well as smaller
01:08block down here, so it doesn't take up half the page like some of the AMB sized drawings.
01:12The nice thing about the C-sized drawing is it's the same ratio as a regular
01:178.5x11 sheet of paper.
01:19So when you print it out, it fits perfectly on a regular sheet of paper and it looks nice.
01:23Now, also down here, this is the Templates menus and make sure we're seeing that
01:28sheet format and click OK.
01:30This just opens up a very basic sheet template, and right off the bat it brings
01:34up over here, which file do we want to incorporate into a drawing.
01:38Any documents I have open right now, which show up right here.
01:41So I think they'll be listed here.
01:42If I don't have one, I can just click on Browse to go find the document I want
01:45to make a drawing from.
01:47Once you have the drawing you like, click on Next and we get an option for some views.
01:51Notice if I bring my mouse over here into the window, it gives me whatever
01:54view I have selected.
01:55If I change that view, I can pick which view I want to start my drawing with.
01:59I can also create multiple views if I wanted to, but this time, I'm just going
02:02to pick this top view and just drop it on the screen. There it is.
02:08Again, so I right click, and then as soon as I've placed the first view, it
02:11automatically puts a projection style on, so I can project out to look at the
02:15right hand part of this drawing or the top view of this drawing or even
02:19isometric view if I go to an angle.
02:20Notice if I move around that part, all these different views are available, so I
02:24can just keep adding views until I'm happy with what I got.
02:28And as soon as I am done with views, I just hit Escape and it turns that off.
02:31If I have like an isometric view or something like this, I can drag it around.
02:35These views here are linked with that little line, so I can move them in and
02:38out, but I can't them move them up and down. All right, and
02:40same thing over here.
02:41I can move it up and down, I can't move it right or left, and then this view here
02:44controls both of those.
02:45So they're all kind of linked together.
02:46Now, I can start putting dimensions and annotations on here if I wanted to, but
02:51also, let's go and take a look at the block down here and take a look at what we have.
02:54And if you read through some of this and it says, this is the sole property of
02:58insert company name here.
03:00So this is really just a starting point for you to go and create your own
03:03customized template that has your company name, your tolerances you want to use
03:07in your parts, and notice these are all blank right now, the material to finish,
03:11all those information is blank for you to fill out.
03:14Now, some of these things you want to incorporate into your template yourself
03:17and some of them you wouldn't. You don't want to necessarily make the material
03:20part of your template unless you're making all of your parts out of exactly the same material.
03:24Same thing with finish and things like that.
03:26And things like the drawing number or the revision, we want to make those so
03:29they can link back to the part itself and gets either the drawing number, the
03:34part number or whatever number we want to show on the drawings here, and we can
03:38make these links that go back and it grabs the part name or the revision.
03:42So, before we go ahead and make changes to the drawing template, let's go and
03:46find out where they're located at and how to access them.
03:49So I've created a drawing template in the Chapter 17 folder.
03:54So I'm going to tab over to that folder here and open this one up.
03:59So now you can see over here, I got the C- drive and under there, I've got a folder
04:02called SolidWorks Data.
04:03Now, SolidWorks more than likely installed this folder for you when they
04:07installed SolidWorks, and inside of this folder is your information as far as
04:12your toolbox or your browser for the different styles of Hole Wizard and things like
04:16that, and you can also place things like drawing templates in here.
04:19You can make a folder called drawing templates if you wanted to.
04:21You can organize this folder however you want.
04:23But it's right on the C-drive, it's easy to get to, and you can put a lot of data here.
04:27So that's where I recommend putting your sheet templates.
04:30Now, over here, I've got a Chapter 17 folder that came with your exercise files, and
04:35I'm going to go and select these four documents.
04:38The first one is a drawing template.
04:40I've got a picture of the Olive Oil company logo, I also have a DWG of the same
04:45logo and then I have just the sheet format.
04:47So you need both a drawing template and a sheet format, and I'm going to copy
04:51those over to that folder there.
04:53Now, in SolidWorks, I need to go and link to where that folder is.
04:58So go back to SolidWorks here and we're going to go back to this drawing, and
05:02go up to System Options here, and when I get to System Options, I go down here a
05:06little bit, and I get File Locations. And in File Locations I've got a bunch of
05:10different options as far as where all these files are located and things like that.
05:13But right now, it's already on Document Templates, and this is where it's
05:17looking for those default templates, or those document templates that we're going
05:20to start from and inside of these places would be part templates, assembly
05:25templates or drawing templates.
05:26So we want to go, add a new link to that C:\SolidWorks Data folder.
05:29So, I'm just clicking on Add and I'm going to go in here to the Computer > C drive
05:36and scroll down to SolidWorks Data and that's what I want.
05:39So Click OK, it just adds a C:\ SolidWorks Data, and that should be good to go.
05:45And then also just before we get out of this, I want to point out that up here
05:48under Default Templates, it also lists which template is going to be used when
05:52you just click on that Novice tab as far as part, assembly, or drawing.
05:56These are the templates that are going to be automatically pulled in.
05:58So I can go change those paths to whatever my latest and greatest newest
06:02template is for each one of those.
06:04And I can and save out a new template anytime I want.
06:06Save it to your favorite location like C:\SolidWorks Data, and then change this
06:11path to it so you can just grab that every time you start a new file, you don't
06:13have to go and change it each time.
06:15So once I'm happy with that, I'm going to add the C:\SolidWorks Data to my path,
06:19click on OK, and there it is.
06:21So, let's go ahead and try a new drawing out this time.
06:24But I'm going to go back and actually go to the part.
06:25So here's the part, and before we actually do this part here, I'm going to back
06:31to this drawing here and just cancel that one so it doesn't interfere.
06:35So don't save that one.
06:36Now from this part here, I'm going to go up to File > Make Drawing from Part.
06:41That pulls a lot of that data and it already knows which part we're using and
06:44everything else like that.
06:45Click on Make Drawing from Part, and as soon as I pull this up, it gives me this
06:48option here of the different sheet formats as well that I could import in.
06:53Or if I hit Escape out of this and cancel that, I can go to the New tab here and
06:58under the Advanced tab, I've got this new template I just made.
07:02So if click on that one,
07:04notice I get that new template I made, and this is a quite a bit nicer
07:07template than the original default and I've customized it to this company that we're using.
07:12So you can see on the left-hand side here, we got the Model View that has a file
07:16we have opened, and I click OK, and the same questions I can just place that
07:20directly on my drawing and now I have what I need to do and I can place a couple
07:24of other views here real quickly and then I can go, click Escape, and then I can
07:29move those around to make them, so they look nice in the drawing.
07:32Now, I've got this sheet format that's pretty established as far as I've got a
07:36picture in here, I've got some company information, and I've got some tolerance
07:41information placed in here as well. A lot of information that might be good to
07:45relay to the customer.
07:46I also have a revision block that I've pre-added in here.
07:49Down here, I've got a time and date stamp, which you may or may not want, and outside
07:54of the drawing, I've actually placed the path to where that file is.
07:58It doesn't actually print on the drawing because it's directly outside of the
08:01border of it, but what happens is sometimes you're looking for where this file
08:04is, and it gives you a nice little link to where to go find these files and
08:08that's the file location of where this part itself is, and it's going to change
08:12depending on, obviously, where you have stored on the file system.
08:15So if we want to go and make some changes now to the template itself, I can go
08:19here and I can right-click and say Edit Sheet Format, and we're going to be
08:25right-clicking anywhere that is not a part, so Edit Sheet Format.
08:28As soon as I do that, now I get blue lines on my drawing.
08:31So these are standard sketch lines, so I can add circles and squares and
08:36rectangles and lines as much as I want to change this around.
08:38I can click on lines and move them up and down.
08:42I can adjust things if I wanted to.
08:44I can click into a text box like this, double-click it and I have the ability to type or
08:50change the font or change the size, change the formatting how I want to align these things.
08:55So each one of these is just a text box that has some information in it and a
08:59font and a size, and same thing down here, I can just keep going round and
09:03round changing things as we want;
09:04a bunch of different ways we can go ahead and do that.
09:08You might want to incorporate a picture into your template.
09:11The best way to do it is go under the Sketch tab and I've got this Sketch Picture, and by
09:16default Sketch Picture doesn't show up in SolidWorks and we did add this in an
09:19earlier movie, but I'm going to go ahead and show you how to do that again.
09:21Customize CommandManager, and go up here to Commands, and we're going to go down to the
09:27Sketch toolbar, and then here's all the available Sketch tools that we can put
09:32into this folder over here.
09:33So if I wanted to add a sketch to it, I'd just click on Sketch, drag and drop it in here.
09:37But I already have one so I don't really need to that.
09:39And the same thing with any other tools you ever wanted to add.
09:41You can always drag and drop them in. If you don't want in there or you just drag
09:44it back out and put it back in the palette here. Click on OK.
09:47So, once I have that, I can click on it and it's going to ask me to go look
09:50for a file. And here's the file that I put in there, which is that logo and we'll click on OK.
09:54As soon as I do that, it's going to place it in the drawing.
09:58It's kind of big so I've got to zoom out to go see it.
10:00So right now it says Transparency none, I want to actually say, From file which
10:03then says it's a clear background.
10:06And I can define the size of that file so I can just drag it up and down, and I can
10:10move it anywhere I want.
10:11Once I'm happy with where it is, I'll click on OK and it just places that file.
10:15So, I'll say, I've moved it down here.
10:17That's how you'll place an image in your sheet format.
10:19Any other changes you want to make here as well.
10:22We can go ahead and add notes as well just by using the annotations and we're
10:26going to be covering that in the next few movies.
10:29Once you have all these changes made, go back out of the sheet format and then
10:33we might want to make these updates. And notice this is obviously going over the top of my part.
10:36So this probably -- we don't want to place that
10:38there, we'd probably have it down here.
10:39I just want to give you an illustration of how we can easily place an image in the drawing.
10:43But once we have one that we really like, we can go up here and say
10:46File > Save Sheet Format, and we already have one called TWOTREES, and I don't
10:52want to replace it right now, but if you did, this is what you'd call it, or you can
10:55also name it something else as SheetFormat2 or TWOTREES2 would be another sheet
11:01format, so you can actually choose one or the other depending on what type of
11:04drawing you're making, and a lot of times, you'd make one that would be like a
11:07metric one and one would be an English unit one, so we could have the block
11:11tolerances changed depending on what type of part you're making and other
11:14standard sheet format templates, or art templates, or drawing templates we'd use
11:18would be something like changing the units.
11:20So, if you're making drawings in metric, you'd have a metric template and it
11:24have one in English units as well, and then the block tolerance would
11:28automatically match that same thing.
11:29So you can have as many templates as you want to define your drawings.
11:33I've already got that saved,
11:35so I'm going to say Cancel and there it is.
11:37SolidWorks has some built-in templates that can be easily customized.
11:41Spending a few minutes and setting up your default templates will put a
11:45professional polish on your drawings and make sure you're relaying the correct
11:48information about your parts.
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Setting up drawing options and sheet properties
00:00There are many different standards and drawing options that can be modified.
00:04Once these options have been set, we can save the drawing templates so these
00:07options will be the defaults.
00:09To get started, let's open 17.2-1 and make a drawing.
00:13I am going to go under the File menu and since I already have a part open, I can
00:16use this Make Drawing from Part.
00:18And notice I get the template that we just created in the last movie, and also
00:22you see the tabs here at the top or just the other templates that are available.
00:25So I am going to pick that TT template for the Olive Oil Company and click on OK,
00:30and that's going to open that template in the background here.
00:32It also brings up this pretty handy little window on this side.
00:34It gives me some views that I can just drag and drop in.
00:37So I am going to grab that Top view and just bring it right in.
00:40Okay, there's our view, and then automatically as soon as I create that view, it
00:44turns on the projection views, and I can just go ahead and make cool
00:47projections of that same part.
00:48When I am done, hit Escape, turns that off and I can just move some of these
00:52around to lay them out on my sheet a little better, they look nice.
00:55Let's go ahead and add a few dimensions now, just so when we do change some of
00:59the options, we can see how those dimensions are going to change when we make
01:04those option changes. I am going throw one up here, and then one over here.
01:11Okay, so there's a few different views here and maybe I will do one on the
01:15thickness of the block over here.
01:17Okay, let's go up now and change some options.
01:20So under the Options tab here, click on that and under Documents Properties, we
01:25have got all these different choices here.
01:27The very first one is the Drafting Standard, and we looked at that before and
01:31right now we are on ISO-MODIFIED environment, we can change to ANSI or anything else.
01:35If I change this, it's going to change all the styles and fonts and methods
01:40for laying things out.
01:41So if I change to ISO for instance, go back here, and I click on OK, notice all
01:46these views changed, all the annotations, now they are aligned with the leader
01:51in a vertical orientation here instead of horizontal.
01:53And this way doesn't look quite as nice in my opinion, but you can modify this
01:58to however you want to have your drawings look, and same thing if probably
02:01the fonts a little bit small.
02:02So I might want to go back and modify some of the stuff to go and change that around.
02:05So go back to Options, go back to Document Properties and I am going to change
02:10this one back to ANSI, and then let's go through some of these options.
02:14So first one there is a little plus mark, I can click on the Annotations.
02:18So any kind of notes we are going to be placing in our drawing is going to be defined here.
02:22The font, the size, the style and everything else is defined here.
02:27So right now we are using 12 point, I'd maybe change that to Points 18,
02:32click OK, and now notice it says, I have deviated from this standard, that ANSI
02:38standard, now we are in ANSI-MODIFIED standard.
02:41Okay, that's fine with me.
02:44And we have got a couple of different type of arrows.
02:46We can do a lot of things here.
02:48Then we jump down to Balloons. When we start making assemblies how do we want
02:51our balloons to look?
02:52Same thing with Datums, we can change everything, the Leader style, the font
02:56width, the line width, I mean a lot of stuff here.
02:59Geometric Tolerancing, same thing, go into Notes, we can change the font again,
03:04the style, the Services Finishes, Weld Symbols.
03:07We go down to Dimension, we got another plus mark, we can click on here, we
03:11can change the Font directly for those as well, so maybe I will makes these 22.
03:17You can make whatever fits your drawing best, and then a lot of different things
03:20for Dual dimensioning, your Primary precisions, your Dual precisions,
03:24Fractionals, if you are going to be using those, how do you want your arrows to
03:27look, you know if you want like a bigger arrow or a longer arrow.
03:29I can adjust all the size of the arrows and change them to my preference, and
03:34different zeros, we have standards.
03:35So then come down to our Angles.
03:37How do we want our Angles to show up?
03:39How do we want the Text position? Do we want to kind of be on the circle there, aligned
03:43horizontally, a bunch of choices.
03:45Arc Length same thing, Text positions, big one, how do we want the font to be laid out?
03:51Chamfer, so we can really control almost everything about how our drawing is
03:55going to look by going through some of these different options here. With
03:59something like the Diameter or Radiuses, we can establish here, how do we want
04:03the Text position to be?
04:05Same thing with Hole Callouts. We've got Linear dimensions, how do I want them to look?
04:09And these are the ones that I change a lot.
04:11This is my favorite one here in the middle, it's just horizontal text, that way
04:14you have to turn your head sideways to go and read all the different values.
04:17Ordinate values here, Radius, Centerlines, how do we want these marks to look?
04:22If I go down here to a couple of Tables, View Labels, Virtual Sharps.
04:29Virtual Sharps is something like if you have two lines intersecting, how do
04:32you want that to look?
04:34So they do that a lot in sheet metal when you have a bend and you want to have
04:37a Virtual Sharp showing where those two edges might come together.
04:40As far as Detailing, this is a pretty handy one here.
04:43So first of all we are showing what do we want to show by default, and then over
04:47here we have this auto insert which is really nice.
04:50So by default, it can automatically add center marks for holes and that can save
04:55you a lot of time if you are using that. Same thing with automatic centerlines,
04:58or automatic balloons if you are working with assemblies.
05:02Dimensions marked for the drawings, so a lot of things that we can just
05:05bring in automatically.
05:06And then yes, sometimes you might want to have different templates for different
05:09types of options, so for instance, if you are working with sheet metal and you have a
05:12grid pattern with a lot of holes in it, bringing in center marks may not be the
05:15best choice because sometimes they can make your drawing look very cluttered and
05:18then you have maybe a few hundred center marks to go get rid of.
05:21So depending on which type of part you are working with, you might or might not
05:25want these things turned on.
05:27You can have a Grid to lay things out if you want, you can set the spacing here.
05:30Units is probably going to be the one we're going to use the most.
05:32We are going to go and say what unit system do we want to use?
05:36The most common will be millimeter or inch, pound, second, and then what are our
05:40decimals points that we want?
05:41Do we want a two point, a three point, a four point, and so on.
05:44So we can define all those right there and then same thing if we have dual
05:47dimension, if we have different angles things like that, we can change these
05:51around, so you know two or three place decimals will probably be the most common
05:55ones you are going to see.
05:57And we'll go down a little further here, you've got different types of
06:00lines you have in your drawings, we can go through those, the different
06:03styles, we can have Dashed lines, we can have a bunch of different things we
06:06can establish here and we can actually load new ones if we wanted to or save custom ones.
06:10Same thing with Line Thicknesses, these are our standards, and Image Quality, this is
06:14another one that's important.
06:15If you have a big drawing and it looks kind of more like an octagon than a
06:20circle, at that point of time, so if we have a low resolution, and it starts
06:23turning into more like a multi-sided shape versus actually like a circle.
06:27But the higher you go here, also the more system resources you are using.
06:30So you want it somewhere in the mid range here would probably be fine unless you
06:34really want to show something very accurately and you have a little more time to
06:37wait, you can do that, and same thing you got a little slider you can do for
06:41Wireframe as well. And then the very last one here, Sheet Metal, and if you are
06:45making drawings for that which we haven't really covered sheet metal yet, but it allows
06:47you to insert bend line information and things of that nature.
06:51So anyways, those are all the system options.
06:53You can see there is quite a bit of stuff that you can go ahead and change to
06:56modify your drawing.
06:57So once you have gone through here and made a bunch of modifications and got
07:01your drawing so it's really looking good, you want to go, get back to your
07:04drawing and make sure then once we have made all those changes, go back here and
07:09make sure you go to File > Save Sheet Format.
07:12And save that sheet format or overwrite your existing format, that way the next
07:16time you open that drawing, it's going to be using that new sheet format and
07:20same thing with property.
07:21So that's the sheet format which is going to be the location of all the
07:24note changes, and then the other one we need to make sure we change is the
07:28part template, and most of those system options are actually located in the part template.
07:32So there is two files, there is a sheet format and there is also the part template.
07:37So we need to save both of those and just go save that part template.
07:40We go to File > Save As, and as far as the Drawing, we need to go down here to
07:47Drawing Templates and you can see we have a template here and we can go up to
07:52the C folder, go down to SolidWorks Data and there is that TT.Drawing template,
07:58that's where all that data stored in.
08:00So if I overwrote that file that would save that file out.
08:03But keep in mind, we don't want to have any views like this in our drawing when
08:08we save that drawing template out because then those views will automatically
08:11show up the next time we make a drawing.
08:13So when we do work with a drawing template and go out and save those options out, we
08:17want to go back and just open up a blank drawing and make the changes to the
08:21template, make the changes to the sheet format, save those out and that way
08:24when we open it again, everything is looking perfect, and we can just get
08:28straight to drawing.
08:29Saving your options as the defaults in a drawing is the single best time
08:33saver in SolidWorks.
08:34More than half of the new users that I encounter don't know this and don't make
08:38these changes and have to go back and modify their sheet format or drawing
08:41options every single time they are making a drawing.
08:43This could be very time- consuming and it's really not necessary.
08:47Save that sheet format, make those options changes and you will be on your way
08:50to being a better designer.
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Choosing the correct projection angle: first angle vs. third angle
00:00In this movie we're going to cover the differences between a first angle and a
00:04third angle projection.
00:05In the United States, the most common projection is called third angle.
00:09In Europe, and most of the rest of the world, first angle is the norm.
00:12To change from one to the other it's really just an option click away.
00:15However it's important to understand what the differences are, and how the
00:19projections look different.
00:21This part here is the same part we've been working with, but I've added a little
00:24polygon on the side and a triangle, so we can see which side we're working with.
00:29I'm going to go make a drawing from this,
00:30I can say Make Drawing from Part, and use that same template we've been using.
00:34Click on OK and it pops up over here and I'm going to click on that top view to
00:38bring it out, and I am going to make a projection on the right and one on the left,
00:42one at the top and one on the bottom of this.
00:44So as you can see we've got the front view here and then on this right hand
00:49view I've got the little polygon here, the hexagon, and on the top I've get the triangle.
00:53Now if I want to change different styles of projections, I can
00:56right-click anywhere in the Drawing view, so if I right-click here and then
01:00come down to Properties.
01:01Inside of Properties I get a bunch of information here,
01:04the name of that sheet, the scale of that sheet that I'm using, here's the sheet
01:08format that I'm using for that, and then up here is the projection style, first
01:12angle or third angle.
01:13So right now I'm using a third angle projection because we set this drawing sheet up.
01:16Now if I change over to first angle and click OK watch what happens to that
01:20drawing, I'm just going to move it over here, so that you can see.
01:22Click OK and now the hexagon here moved to the other side and the triangle
01:27moved down to the bottom.
01:28Now did the part change?
01:30No, the part is exactly the same part as it was before, but the projection style changes.
01:35So, keep in mind if you change from one to the other, your parts are going to
01:38look completely different.
01:39So if somebody is expecting a part to have the right view on the right side of
01:44your part and it's actually on the left, you might get the wrong part
01:47manufactured when you send your drawings out.
01:50So make sure that if you in the U.S. you're using third angle projections.
01:53If you're using first angle projections, hopefully you're in Europe or Japan or
01:57somewhere like that whose using that as their kind of standard type.
02:00And a lot of times in your block down here, you'll write in first angle or
02:05third angle projection.
02:06So it's very clear to whoever is making a part or working with your drawing, the
02:10style of projection that you're using.
02:12It can be a big stumbling point especially, when you are first setting up your template.
02:16If you overlook that, you're drawings might look quite a bit different from the
02:19parts you're going to be getting, if they're expecting a third angle and you're
02:22producing a first angle drawing.
02:24Even though it might not seem that important, one of the most common errors on
02:27new SolidWorks drawings is using the wrong projection type and confusing vendors.
02:32It's a quick thing to check and it makes sure that you're getting the right
02:35projections and the right parts.
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Adding model views to a drawing
00:00In this movie, we're going to learn to add different sheets to our drawings as
00:03well as adding additional sheets to continue on our drawings.
00:06This is the same part we've been working with and I am going to click on
00:09File > Make Drawing from Part,
00:11and use that basic template we've been working with, and I am just
00:14going to add that top view here.
00:16Okay, there's our top view and we can add a couple of projections if we want.
00:19We've got some options when we do add these.
00:21So if I click on any one of these, I can actually change those options and
00:25notice, it's the view that I am using here, which I can always change if I wanted to.
00:28Go down here, I can see how I want to display that.
00:32You can do Wireframe, you can do it with the hidden lines removed, and notice if I
00:36click on one of these things, all those views change.
00:39Now you can do them individually, but I am changing the base view so these other
00:42views are automatically updating as well.
00:44I can change it to a Standard one here, I can do the Shaded Mode with edges, I
00:47can do it with without edges.
00:49Now sometimes these type of views look really nice.
00:51I mean, you can see a view and you can do some projections of it and it looks
00:55all shaded and nice, like you used to in SolidWorks.
00:57I am going to caution you against these a little bit.
01:00When you work with views like this, a lot of times drawings are around for a
01:03long time and they're photocopied, they're faxed, there's a lot of things that
01:07happen with drawings.
01:08And a view like this just turns into a big black blob here in the upper corner
01:12when you start copying that file.
01:14So I would caution you against trying to use those types of views.
01:17The Hidden Lines Removed is probably the best, best bet for that or
01:20showing where those files are as hidden lines are visible.
01:22So either one of those will work just great for your views.
01:25We also have the sheet scale or the scale of the drawing.
01:29So notice this part here.
01:30Sometimes you're working on a drawing and running out of space, you can take that
01:33isometric projection and you can make it smaller. All right,
01:35so you use a custom scale and scale that down smaller.
01:38And if I do, I probably want to put a little annotation down here that's
01:41noting what the scale is because I have a scale down here in the drawing
01:44telling me what size it is.
01:45So if I am making something that's a different scale, make sure we're noting that.
01:49And then once you're happy with what you've got there, you can click OK and
01:52there's your different views.
01:54Now if we're working with maybe an outside vendor and you want to have a part
01:57like this, maybe if it's laser cut first, and then maybe some secondary
02:01machining or something done on it, you might want to send a file to them for laser cutting.
02:04So I am going to show you how you create another view for that, so I can add a sheet.
02:07If I add another sheet here, I can just add more views if I needed to, and you
02:11need to have a model in your view.
02:12So to do that, I am also just going to go, select that same model that we were
02:16using before and throw it out here.
02:19Now we already have that view but if we want some other different views, we can
02:22throw this in here as well, something like an auxiliary view.
02:24So if I had maybe a cut at a certain angle or a hole at some funny angle and I
02:28needed a view to look at, you would ask me for an auxiliary view.
02:31I need to go pick an edge.
02:32So there's no specialty edges on this part here,
02:35it's just a rectangular part with a hole in it.
02:37So I don't really have an edge to pick from this, but I just want to show
02:39you that's available.
02:41Same thing with up here; Standard Views.
02:42Those with 3 Standard Views it would automatically add.
02:45The Model View is just going to tell me it's going to add a part.
02:47Projected Views, we've already done, we'll just pick the base view and then it's
02:50going to give you those projections.
02:51Okay, the Section Views, if you want to slice this in half, I can slice it
02:56wherever I want to place it and then place that new view.
02:58It's going to give you a section view of that and those are aligned together as well.
03:01So it shows you what it's going to look like.
03:03A Detail View, it's going to allow me to zoom in on a certain section and make
03:08it bigger so I can detail that a little bit easier.
03:10I'll break out a section if I want to slice halfway through something to go get
03:14a little more detail, as far as what's inside of a part, I can use that.
03:18If I have a long part, I can break it and pull together so it's a lot smaller on the drawing.
03:23I can crop a view so I am closely at it and then I can also use this
03:26Alternate Position View.
03:27So if you have something like a pair of pliers, you can show it in the closed
03:30position as well as the open position.
03:32So a lot of things you can add as far as the drawings.
03:34Okay, now what we're going to do is go ahead and add another sheet and we're
03:38going to place a Model View on there so we can go ahead and use that to send
03:42to maybe a laser cutting company or a water jet company who could cut these parts out for us.
03:47So I am going to click on New Sheet and notice I get that sheet here, and we'll click
03:50on the Model View and I am going to grab just that top view. And there it is.
03:54So that's exactly what I want to cut.
03:56However, I don't want to have the rest of this border and everything on there.
03:59I want to go and get rid of that.
04:01So I am going to right-click here and say Properties, and I am just going to say
04:04Display sheet format and just turn that off.
04:06Now notice this little image you have on your sheet format.
04:09It might not have disappeared.
04:11Sometimes that's an issue in SolidWorks that it's not disappearing when you
04:14are hiding the sheet format.
04:14So to get rid of that, let's just say Edit Sheet Format, click on it and, hit
04:18Delete and it takes it out. Go back. All right,
04:21so now we have pretty much exactly what we want.
04:23We've got the shape that we want, just purely the lines, nothing else on the
04:26sheet format and we can go save this out.
04:28But before we do that, let's double- check that we're using the sheet scale.
04:31So make sure we've got sheet scale selected and then go back to Properties by
04:34right-clicking anywhere, select Properties, and make sure up here we've got a
04:371:1 scale, and third angle projection or first angle.
04:40It doesn't actually matter here because we're just looking at the top view.
04:43But make sure that's scaled to 1:1, otherwise you are going to get a part that's either 2
04:46times too big, or too small or something like that.
04:48So make sure you're 1:1, and then when you go to save this out, we're going to
04:51go to File > Save As, and I am going to select either DWG or DXF.
04:56If I do that, I get a couple of options here.
04:58Just click on that and inside the Options window here, you've got a bunch of
05:01different versions you can save it out to.
05:04I find sometimes saving out to these older versions, like R13, sometimes works
05:08better especially with legacy systems.
05:10And then also export the active sheet only.
05:13Otherwise it's going to export all of the sheets of your drawing to that.
05:16And once you've got all these selected out, click on OK, and now I can say Save,
05:21and I already have one there, I am just going to overwrite it,
05:23replace that file, and now I have that version I can go ahead and send out to
05:28any type of manufacturing.
05:29So machine shops, laser cutting, water jet cutting, all of those types of
05:33companies can use this type of a 2D file to cut things out.
05:37Also, I just want to point out while we're in here, if we go back to that part
05:41itself, if you wanted to send this as a solid file out to somebody, you could
05:45send the native SolidWorks files, but a lot of times they're looking for maybe like a
05:48STEP file or an IGES file.
05:49We can do the same thing there, we can go File > Save As, and click OK, and then go
05:54down here, we've got a bunch of options on how we can export that data.
05:57Parasolid is a really popular one, IGES files, STEP files, but you can see
06:02there's just a ton of things you can work with other types of software to export files.
06:06So I'd probably recommend STEP files, as it's kind of the most common file
06:08format you'd probably use.
06:09And then same thing, you've got some options you can change there.
06:12I just want to point out that that was available.
06:14Let's go back here, here's our drawing, so we've got couple a different sheets that we're
06:17drawing, see how it lays out.
06:19SolidWorks makes it easy to add views to your drawings by selecting the starting
06:22view and the various projections.
06:24You can see we can do quite a bit with the different projection views and the
06:27different sheet formats.
06:28We can export files and work with a lot of different softwares and vendors.
06:32From here, we're going to move into the next movies where we're going to learn
06:34about adding dimensions and annotations.
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18. Adding Dimension Notations to a Drawing
Creating general dimension notations
00:00In SolidWorks, all the sizes and features are defined in the model.
00:04Therefore, to add dimensions, we just need to define what values we want to show.
00:10SolidWorks can also do a lot of this for us, using the Auto Dimension command.
00:14The tools are straightforward.
00:15However, what's not straightforward is, understanding how to correctly place
00:19dimensions and tolerances.
00:20There is a lot that goes into this and we will cover the basics.
00:24Over here in SolidWorks, we have a part defined here and we have one view of it,
00:28and this is part of the Olive Oil Company's manufacturing process, it goes into
00:32their machines, and we're going to go and add some dimensions to this now. Okay,
00:37to get to the Dimension Toolbar, we have a Smart Dimension up here, at the
00:40top, and most of the dimensioning we're going to be doing is going to be based in this one tool.
00:45First, let's click right on that tool, and we're going to just do some basic
00:49Dimension Expert dimensioning, and by default, we're in just a basic baseline
00:54type dimensioning tool.
00:56So if I want to dimension the overall part here, I'll click from this edge here
01:00to this edge here, and then place the dimension.
01:03So I'll do that right now.
01:04I'll click here, and notice that if I click there, it actually gives you the
01:07dimension of that line there, but it's really not the dimension I want.
01:10So I want the dimension from that line over here to this other line.
01:14So notice if I highlight that, and click it, now it changes where the
01:17dimension is, and then my third click is going to be where I would like to
01:20place that dimension.
01:21So I placed it right here.
01:22So those are the three steps to start a dimension;
01:24pick from where, to where, and then the third is going to be where you
01:28want to actually have that dimension show up.
01:30Now, if I just want to dimension this side over here, I can just do a one-click
01:32pick, and place that dimension. And that's just fine, but sometimes when you
01:37have like a radius on the corner or something like that, it's not actually
01:40going to pick up that full dimension, it's only going to pick up the length of
01:42that one line segment.
01:44So instead of placing a dimension like that, you might want to use a two-click
01:47method, and pick on the bottom-edge here, and the top-edge there and then
01:50place the dimension.
01:51That way, if there's a chamfer or some other type of radius, or something on
01:55the corner, it's not going to be affected, and you're not going to get the
01:58wrong dimension here.
01:59Okay, so that's a couple of different ways to go ahead and place just
02:02standardized dimensions.
02:04Now, I can move these things around if I need to, just by picking them and
02:07highlighting and moving them around.
02:08And the method I might use to, like for instance, dimension some of these holes,
02:12is I can start -- you kind of want to pick a corner that's going to be your origin of
02:16your dimension, so that your baselines -- this is the two baselines we're using.
02:20So I'm going to pick from that bottom of the part, to any one of these
02:24circles to give a dimension here, and I can continue doing that just by
02:28clicking and placing dimensions.
02:30Now, this is what we're going to call it is baseline dimensioning.
02:33So we're starting from the base and we're just placing dimensions across there,
02:37and then you can arrange them in a nice orderly fashion.
02:42You can see that they look very nice, and the nice thing about baseline
02:45dimensions is they're easy to move around, there's a clear defined number
02:49between the different parts, and we're starting from this one line here.
02:52I can do the same thing in the other direction.
02:54I'll pick this as my baseline, and then I can go ahead and place like a
02:59dimension here, keep going across just by clicking on the pairs of items that
03:03I'd like to include.
03:05And you can see as if we start dimensioning more and more items, we start using
03:08a lot of space using the baseline dimensioning schemes.
03:11We have to really space these out correctly.
03:13And so if we do have a problem with minimizing our space here, we have a
03:17couple of other options which we're going to cover in the next movie as far as
03:20using chain dimensions and/or ordinate dimensions to put a little more
03:24information on a drawing.
03:26Those are your basic baseline type of dimensions, and also, before we get out of
03:30this movie, I'm also going to cover -- if you click on these, you have a lot of
03:33options over here too.
03:34So there's a Precision and Tolerance, so I can pick a style.
03:38For instance, no tolerance here, so if there's no tolerance, it uses the number
03:42of characters after the decimal place.
03:44So this is a three place decimal, is what we call that, so it's a point and then there's
03:47three places after it.
03:48So that would go down to our block tolerance here, and we've got a three
03:52place decimal as .005.
03:54So the tolerance there is five-thousandths of an inch, plus or minus. All right,
03:58if it's a two place decimal, it changes the tolerance to only being a plus or minus,
04:02ten-thousandths of an inch.
04:04Keep in mind how many decimal places I'm showing is defining the tolerance of that dimension.
04:09So if I didn't really need that type of dimension here and there to there, I
04:12could change that instead of a three place decimal to a two place decimal, and
04:17now it's going to be using the block tolerance here of ten-thousandths or, plus or minus 10.
04:19So that's the most basic way to add tolerancing to a drawing.
04:25Now, if I wanted a custom tolerance, I could use something here.
04:29So I could say, I'd either want like a Basic, Bilateral, Limit, Symmetric, a lot of
04:32different things we can do here.
04:34So if I do like a Bilateral tolerance, that's going to give me a plus and minus, that
04:38this feature can be bigger or smaller.
04:40So I'm going to say this is going to be twenty-thousandths larger, and it can
04:45only be ten-thousandths smaller.
04:49So now I've assigned a specialty tolerance to that one dimension here.
04:54So it's going to be interpreted differently when we go ahead and work on the drawing.
04:58We are going to cover that some more in future movies.
05:01Dimensioning and tolerancing is a class in itself.
05:04We touched on the basics in this movie.
05:06However, this is definitely an area that will require a bit more study to
05:09be great.
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Creating chain and ordinate dimensions
00:01In this movie, we're going to continue on with dimensioning, by adding the chain
00:04and ordinate styles of dimensioning.
00:06The whole purpose for dimensioning our drawings, and even drawings in the
00:09beginning, is to relay information about building our parts to a manufacturer.
00:13Now, in the real world, things aren't quite as perfect as they are in the computer.
00:16For instance, if we have a hole and a peg or a pin, and it's a 2 inch hole,
00:21and a 2 inch peg, and if we try to put those together, it's going to be a pretty tight fit.
00:25So we need to make sure we're relaying information that's going to allow those
00:28two items to fit together correctly.
00:30So for the hole, we might want to make the hole slightly bigger and give it a
00:33tolerance that's on the plus side.
00:34So it says, it can be maybe 2.05, and maybe ten-thousandths bigger, so it gives
00:39a little bit of play.
00:40Then, the peg has to be a little bit smaller.
00:42So then, when we put them together, we're guaranteed that within that tolerance
00:45block they're going to fit together and not have any problems.
00:48So we want to continue to relay that information when we're working with
00:51drawings, and think about the peg and the hole methodology as far as how we want
00:55to lay these items out, and how we want to tolerance them.
00:58So first, we're going to start with the chain style dimension, and actually a
01:02chain dimension is no different than a regular dimension here.
01:04And in fact, before I start the chain, I'm just going to start with a
01:06regular baseline dimension.
01:07I start here, dimension here, just like we did in the last movie.
01:11Now, instead of starting from the baseline and going to the next item, I'm
01:14actually going to start from the last item, and dimension up here to this next
01:18item here, and I can continue this way, up the part.
01:23So this is what you'd call a Chain Style Dimension.
01:26This way, you're holding from hole to hole, within plus or minus five-thousandths of an
01:31inch, to a three place decimal.
01:32And if that's a situation you need, you've got to make sure that these are very
01:35accurately represented between 0.6 between the two.
01:38Then, that would be the way to go.
01:40So it really depends upon how you're designing and what the requirements are for your design.
01:44You could also combine baseline with chain dimensioning by getting rid of
01:48these and doing a chain from here, and then continue to do like a baseline
01:53from that first hole.
01:55So then, you're specifying a tolerance from the first hole to the other holes,
02:00so you're holding now a different tolerance block to each one of these.
02:04So from the first hole to the last hole, they're not going to be more different
02:08than plus or minus five-thousandths of an inch.
02:09Now, I know that because I'm looking at the block down here.
02:12For a three place decimal, I've got .005.
02:14So I've got plus or minus five-thousandths.
02:17And maybe to the edge of the holes, we're not quite as concerned with the
02:20distance, so I could go change this now to like a two place decimal to give it
02:25a little bit more leeway as far as it's tolerance block, if that was okay in your design.
02:29Generally, the larger the tolerance range you give, the easier it is to make the parts.
02:33The tighter you make that tolerance, the more costly your parts to be made, and
02:37the better machinery or more accurate machinery is going to be needed.
02:40So in general, try to open them up if you can, and that's going to make things a
02:43lot easier for manufacturing.
02:44Okay, so now we want to look at the ordinate type dimensioning.
02:47So if we have a lot of items across a part that we need to dimension, using
02:51the baseline or chain dimension, you can sometimes get a lot of dimensions that are crowded.
02:55So to use ordinate, all we're going to do is go up here under the drop-down
02:58arrow and I'm going to go down to Horizontal Ordinate, and same thing if I
03:01wanted a vertical one, I could choose that as well.
03:03Pick on Horizontal, and I'm going to go and pick where I want to start that
03:07Ordinate Dimension from, and I'm going to start from right here, which is going
03:10to be the baseline for it.
03:11Then I just drag it out with a click and place that 0.
03:14Any item I click on now is going to be added in a horizontal fashion across from this part.
03:20So I'm going to click on this outside edge here, I'm going to click on this hole
03:23here, maybe this line here, that one there, that one there, that one there, and
03:29the hole there, and that hole.
03:30So you can see I can quickly add a bunch of dimensions really quick across a
03:33part, and they're fairly compact, they don't take up a lot of space.
03:36I can just click on there, so I get quite a bit of information with it really
03:39quick, ordinate dimension.
03:40And the same thing if I wanted to use a Vertical Ordinate, I could choose a
03:44baseline over here, which is really the same baseline, so I could choose this as
03:46my baseline and place my 0 here, and I can come in, and start dimensioning items
03:51like that across the part.
03:52So I can add a dimension in, same thing.
03:56Now, you can intermix them.
03:57Sometimes it's better if you're going to be in ordinate, just have all ordinate
04:00dimensions across your part, because you can relay a lot of information.
04:02But really, your choice and it depends on really how your specifications are being met.
04:06The last thing in this movie, if you do have a special dimension here, you can
04:09always click on that dimension.
04:11And we can go in here and change its tolerance as well, so I can add like a
04:15Basic Tolerance or a Bilateral Tolerance to any individual one of these, if we needed to.
04:19And we can change the precision of each one, by the way, as well.
04:22So I can go like a two place decimal here, and that would be just fine, keep it
04:25like a twenty-thousandths or something like that.
04:28The other thing is if we miss something, say we missed that one dimension
04:31there, we can always just click back on the ordinate, right-click on it, and
04:34say Add To Ordinate.
04:36Also, if you have the items that are mixed up a little bit or they're not
04:39looking perfect, you can always go here, and go to Display Options, and re-jog
04:43the ordinate or just jog the ordinate, and move things around a little bit.
04:47So you get a bunch of different options.
04:47So I'm going to go to Add To Ordinate, and just add one more item to that
04:51and then we're good.
04:52There are various tools to dimension parts, and depending on the conditions and
04:56the amount of dimensions, we'll determine the best dimensioning scheme.
04:59There are no hard and fast rules about the best way.
05:01However, best practice would be to try to relate the information in the easiest
05:05and most direct way.
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Dimensioning holes and curved features
00:01There are some special tools and techniques used for using the Dimensioning tool
00:04with holes and curves.
00:06By default, the hole dimensions relate to the center of the hole.
00:09So let's go ahead and apply some dimensions here.
00:11So we've got quite a few different holes on this part.
00:13So if I dimension from an edge to a hole, notice as I go over the hole, I can
00:17pick either the center of the hole and the outside of the hole for the
00:20countersink, and either one, so it's going to really write to the center of the hole.
00:23All right, so notice it just drops a dimension here kind of just hanging.
00:27So sometimes it's nice when you're working with holes, is to add a center
00:30line or a center point.
00:32And so we can go grab this Center Mark here and it just allows us to do that and
00:36some options over here on the left.
00:39If I just place it here, it goes out pretty big, I can change that to
00:44outside the default if I wanted to.
00:46I can get rid of the extension lines if I wanted to.
00:48Once I'm in that command, I can continue to just go here and add center marks
00:51to all the different holes showing where they are.
00:54Also when you go back to your sheet templates or sheet formats, you can actually
00:57have it automatically add in these center marks, if we wanted to.
01:01Oh I need one more here.
01:03I'm going to center mark the center of this feature here and I'm going to make
01:07it a little smaller. So there it is.
01:10All right, so that makes a little easier to kind of say, hey, this dimension
01:12actually is really going to the center of that hole.
01:15Same thing with like hole to hole dimensions, I can click on hole to hole
01:17like this and easily place that same dimension. Here it is.
01:22Now when I have something like this, it's not actually a full hole, it's just a radius.
01:25So then first off, we need to tell the manufacturer where the center of that radius is.
01:29So that's one thing we've got to make sure we're giving a dimension from here to
01:33the center of that radius.
01:34So now it knows if we're going to go create that part where to get that from.
01:38All right, so couple of dimensions here to lay that out.
01:41Then we need to go in and add the radiuses in, right.
01:44So we've got a radius here, that's going to go up to the part and
01:47notice it gives you an R value here that's saying it's a radius, so it changes
01:51the way it looks a little bit and then same thing up here, we need to give a
01:53radius of that value there.
01:55So a couple of different options and notice they're having this little leader
01:58that drops back to that center point.
02:00We can always click on these as well.
02:02We can just change the dimensions if we need to.
02:05And then we can add some specialty text here if we have some special information
02:08we needed to add and we can also change the way it's defined or we can add some
02:11special characters like diameter or degrees or plus or minus.
02:15So if you do make a customized little text, you can add some of that into
02:19changing those dimensions around.
02:22Now sometimes we just have round features like curved features like this one or
02:25like this one over here, and we need a dimension to them.
02:28So if I go to dimension something like from the edge of this part here, right
02:31to this curved feature, it's going to give me the edge or the center point of that.
02:35All right, so we've king of got this arbitrary point out there and it's going to be in
02:38the middle of that part.
02:39So that's sometimes not really what we want.
02:41So sometimes you want to make a dimension from like the outside of a curved
02:44feature to another outside of a curved feature.
02:47You can do that by holding down Shift.
02:48If you hold own Shift while you're selecting, if I pick the outside edge here
02:52and then I pick the outside edge here, notice it gives me a dimension from the outsides.
02:56All right and I can place that dimension from the outside of a hole to an outside
03:00of a hole, or the outside of a curved feature.
03:02Maybe you just care about what the distance is from the base here to the top of this feature.
03:07By default if I click on it, it's going to give me to the center point.
03:09But if I hold down Shift and select that, then it will allow me to pick that one
03:14curved feature and give a dimension there of what that is.
03:17So a couple of different ways to work with curved features.
03:20And then the same thing is true if I want to use the same command here and use
03:24the Shift command and pick the inside of the hole, it's really dependent upon
03:27where you pick on the hole and I get the inside dimensions, so pretty handy for
03:30working with those types of features.
03:31And then same thing over here, if we have like a radius in the corner we can
03:37just easily drop that out there.
03:39And sometimes I'll put the leader on the inside.
03:41If I click on this little dot right here, it'll push it out to the outside so we
03:44can adjust how that looks a little bit by moving things around and we can always
03:47just click on any dimensions and drag them around so they look the right way.
03:51Okay, so that's going to be hole dimensioning and using curved features.
03:56The commands are the same for working with holes.
03:58However there's a few simple modifiers that are not overly apparent.
04:01This movie should give you a good overview of the tools and the techniques.
Collapse this transcript
Applying auto dimensions
00:00In this movie we are going to continue on with our dimensioning techniques.
00:03So first off, I want to make sure that everyone understands that this part
00:07itself is related to this part that we designed.
00:10So that's the actual baseline part that's in the drawing.
00:13So if I go to this drawing here, and I add a dimension across this part, it's
00:18a dimension of 6.5.
00:19Notice, I can't change that dimension.
00:22It just related back to that part which where that dimension is actually defined.
00:26So if I go back to that part now and I open up that base sketch that created
00:30that part, notice that dimension is that dimension right here, the 6.5.
00:35So if I were to change that to 7.0, it's going to make that part longer, the
00:39part updates automatically and then if I go back to that drawing, it's now seven inches.
00:44So that just really just relates back to that drawing.
00:46So keep that in mind while working with designs.
00:48Okay so this part, I'll delete that for right now and we've only got the front view here.
00:51So if I wanted to add some more views to this part, I can go up here to View
00:55Layout and do things like a Projected View,
00:57I could do the Bottom View here, I could do a view over here.
01:01We could use some of those
01:02Auxiliary Views this time by clicking on a line to project a view out at an
01:07angle here, so I can see like that top hole maybe to mention that out.
01:11So there's a lot of things you can do with your views -- I'm going get rid of that one
01:14for right now, just showing you that right now is a place that you can place a
01:16lot of these dimension on different views, make your own views, there are
01:19different ways we want to look at things.
01:21But I am going to get rid of that for right now, I just want to show you could
01:22do that and that's just going to be pulling those views out.
01:25Then what we are going to look at is our dimensioning.
01:27So because all those values are actually stored in the model, SolidWorks
01:31actually knows how to go get all those values and place them in your drawing.
01:34Now sometimes it does a pretty good job and sometimes it's not quite as good of
01:38a job, so let's see what it does.
01:39So go under Annotations and click on Drawing Dimensions, and notice this tab up
01:43here called Autodimension.
01:44Now this is going to reuse a lot of the skills we just learned about.
01:48So it's going to say, what type of scheme would you like to use dimension in
01:51your part, do you want to use a Chain Dimension, do you want to use a
01:53Baseline Dimension, do you want to use an Ordinate Dimension, how do you want
01:56to apply that.
01:58And then you can select which edge you want.
02:00So notice, this little pink it's highlighting that edge.
02:03So that's the edge it's going to use for horizontal dimension, it's going to go
02:06across the part to there.
02:07So if I go to use like a Baseline dimension, it's going to continually use that.
02:10And then same thing over here with the vertical dimension, if I choose a
02:13Baseline dimension here, it's using this purple edge here.
02:15I could use this edge here if I wanted to, or a different edge;
02:18whichever edge you wanted to use, you could change it to.
02:21But right now, by default it's using this edge right here.
02:23There's a lot of different options you can change here.
02:25And then do we want it on the left or on the right?
02:28All right, it's going to either put the dimensions over here or over here.
02:29So I am going to put it over on the right and once we say OK, it's going to go
02:35ahead and do it, and let's see what happens. Wow!
02:37Look at all of these dimensions.
02:40So like I said, it does a pretty good job but it's really not very aesthetically
02:44pleasing to have all of these lines and dimensions and everything.
02:47But one thing good about computers is they remember everything you want.
02:50So every dimension here is placed, and we've learned about a lot of dimensions.
02:54Now it's up to you to kind of massage these into something that looks a little bit better.
02:59And some of them you might want to get rid of and put them here
03:02to line up a little bit better.
03:03So you can use the Autodimension technique and sometimes it works out great and
03:06sometimes it just really clutters your drawing and makes it very hard to read
03:11and probably take more work to actually go ahead and figure out how to move all
03:16these dimensions to a place that's going to make sense than just putting them in
03:19there in the first place.
03:20But a nice thing about it is it makes sure that all of these items do have
03:25dimensions wherever we place them, and so we got things that are overlapping.
03:28We got a lot of things to kind of work with on this drawing to make sure that
03:32this will start looking nice.
03:33We are going to be working on that for a while and trying to make sure that stuff.
03:36You can see there is a lot of dimensions to define this part.
03:39And we are seeing some of the hole dimensions already, we've got a bunch of
03:42stuff here that's been laid out and we are going to be learning about a few of these later on.
03:45And same thing if we add another view of this;
03:49we have a Projected View, I can continue to use those same techniques if
03:54I wanted to, I can say, Annotation.
03:55Go down here to Autodimension and I can dimension that again.
03:58So it's going to add some dimensions here.
04:00There's not quite as many dimensions over here.
04:02So this time it does a pretty good job.
04:03You just have to move them around a little bit, and these look pretty good as
04:08far as dimensioning techniques go, and just move things around a little bit and
04:12move these in properly.
04:14We've got a nice way to dimension things.
04:15And notice we have these little helper lines help lines things up and start
04:18moving things around with.
04:19I just wanted to show this is the Autodimensioning command, it definitely is very powerful.
04:22But sometimes, you want to use it sometimes you might not depending on how you
04:25want to lay out your drawing.
04:26And sometimes if you have just too many dimensions on one area, you might want
04:29to make anther view of that part or a backside view and maybe dimension the
04:32holes from the front side and the other shape from the back side or something
04:35like that, just to make it a little clear to the end user.
04:38So that's Autodimensioning.
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19. Adding General Annotations
Creating hole callouts
00:00Specifying holes is very common in SolidWorks.
00:03If you use the Hole Wizard to create your holes, then you're in luck, and the
00:06software will help you callout the holes as well.
00:09If not, you can still specify holes with simple note changes.
00:12So over here in SolidWorks, we're going to go and take a look at some of the
00:14different holes that we have established here on our part.
00:18So I am going to go up here to the Annotations and use the regular Dimension tool.
00:23So if our dimension just a hole itself, it just gives me the outside dimension and
00:26it just gives me a diameter symbol in front of it, it gives me the size.
00:29That's just standard dimension tool.
00:31We also have a thing called the Hole Callout.
00:33So we use the Hole Callout -- actually it's going to go ahead and pull all the data
00:37from the Hole Wizard that went and created that part.
00:40If I click here, it's going to bring all that data out, and notice that gives me a
00:42three times, it gives me the diameter of the hole through there, it gives me a
00:46counter sync symbol and then the size and then the degree of the counter sync.
00:49So all that data is coming from there.
00:51If we look at the part behind the scenes here, that all came from this feature
00:56here, that created that Hole Specification.
00:58So all that, the angle, the size, the Through All condition, all that data is being pulled in.
01:02So when you do make and use the Hole Wizard, make sure you fill this out
01:05correctly because that's what's going to propagate through to your drawing when
01:08you go ahead and create it.
01:08So let me go back to the drawing, that's already there.
01:11Now, if you didn't use the Hole Wizard to create a hole, I can still go ahead
01:15and add a dimension or something like that to a hole and then notice, I've got
01:18like four holes here.
01:19So I can just go down to the text box where the dimension is and notice, it's
01:23giving a little bit of cryptic information here like MOD-DIAM-DIM.
01:27So, don't change that part, but we can type it in front of that like 4x and
01:30that's totally fine.
01:32So that's what's pulling that information back from SolidWorks.
01:34So those are the information, and then we can also add like if we need to add
01:38like a diameter symbol or degrees or plus or minus or something like that, we
01:41can add special features in here as well. Or if we wanted like a counter board or
01:45something like that.
01:46We can add that symbol and then give it a depth or something like that, the Depth command.
01:50You can just add those to your callout here as you go.
01:52If you don't want them, you can just delete them out of that box there too, and we're back to where we were.
01:56Now in some situations, this whole callout or diameter callout or something like
02:01this is not going to work.
02:03So these holes here are actually kind of special and since it's a little bit
02:06hard to see those holes, so what I'm going to do is actually illustrate them on a drawing.
02:10I'm going to use a line here and I'm going to use like a centerline.
02:13I'm just going to kind of snap up here to above this part here, and I'm just
02:18going to go right through all those holes and I want to make basically a section cut.
02:22So that's what I'm going to use to section this part up in half and go up
02:25here to Section View, which is under View Layout.
02:28Click on Section View, and it's saying it's not going to cut away through because
02:31it doesn't extend up here pass that, that's just fine, and there you have it.
02:35I can cut a little section view of my model and place it over here.
02:39I can place it on the right or left wherever I want to of how I want to look at that cut.
02:44Typically, we'd probably put this on the right hand side here or we can click and flip the
02:48direction that it cuts in, and so now we have it going in this direction, we can
02:52see those holes, and it's giving you the Section B-B.
02:54Okay, so now you can see, these holes are actually quite complicated and they're
02:58intersecting another hole from the edge here.
03:00So this is where you might want to go and use a detailed view, or something like
03:03that, and annotate this out a little further.
03:05I can start specifying the angle of the cuts here;
03:08I can start specifying the size of the through hole, the depth, the angles, a
03:13lot of that kind of stuff as well.
03:14So that's a nice way to kind of specify some of the stuff that might not be
03:17overly apparent just from the top view, so we can cut into there and take a look
03:22and see some information.
03:23And notice you've got a hole here too that's coming down.
03:25So I can go and move this view around a little bit. All right, and
03:29I can make another projected view of this part here and put it up here and
03:33that's that hole there.
03:33We can see it again, I can go back to the Annotations and I can use that hole
03:37callout, and then I can go and specify that hole there and see what it's going to say.
03:43So it's going to give you an NPT tapped hole with a near side counter sync,
03:46there's a lot of data that it's going to pull from there.
03:47So that's going to be that through hole there, it's going to intersect
03:49these other holes, so you have kind of like a little port, probably some olive oil is going
03:53to be flowing through that part and out through some NPT port here to something else.
03:58So, a lot of things we can do with the Hole Callouts and bunch of powerful
04:01tools that we can use.
04:02As with many things in SolidWorks, there's a handy tool to callout holes.
04:05The tool does most of the work for you.
04:07However, make sure to double check your callout values make sense.
04:11After all, it's just writing the input values from your part file if you're
04:14using the Hole Wizard.
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Adding center marks and centerlines to a drawing
00:01Center marks add a nice reference to a hole center or arc location.
00:05SolidWorks has a tool for inserting these, we can also set up our template to
00:08auto insert the center marks for us.
00:10Centerlines can be helpful for drawing and indicating the alignment of various features.
00:14I got a part here with a series of holes and we are going to make a drawing for that.
00:17So let me go ahead and go up here to Make Drawing from Part and let's select
00:22that TT one and drop it in, and I'm just going to bring the top view in, there it is.
00:29So we have a top view of that part and we want to establish some of the holes.
00:34First off, I am going to change a few things around.
00:35I am going to go back to this Properties and we are going to change the scale.
00:38So probably try 1:1, see how that looks.
00:42It's a little bigger, that looks good.
00:44So we can see things a little clearer.
00:46And if we're going to go dimension all these things out then we might want to go
00:48and add center marks.
00:50So if I go up to Center Marks command here, which is under Annotations, or I
00:54can click on each one of these holes and start adding the center marks, and if we
00:58click on that little button there, you see that it just actually added a grid
01:02for us, pretty handy.
01:04That's something that's fairly new in SolidWorks.
01:06So let's go back and see if we can see that one more time.
01:08So if I go and I put a center mark in, notice here's the Center Mark, it
01:13recognizes a pattern.
01:14As soon as I place that first mark, it gives us this little Propagate icon here, so
01:18it's saying that once I placed one, I am going to propagate it through all
01:21these other things.
01:22And notice, not only does it give us center marks, it also gives us centerlines
01:26between all of those.
01:27What that does is it establishes this as a grid pattern.
01:30So we can see that these are all related, they will have the same spacing.
01:33So over here, we do the same thing.
01:36I can click on a hole, but this time it's not really a grid pattern. And the
01:39reason it gave me the grid pattern is because I used the linear pattern
01:43technique for creating this one.
01:44This one I just laid it out.
01:46So if I want to go ahead and establish the center marks, I have to go in
01:48and add a center mark to each one of these items, and then go ahead and use some centerlines.
01:53Now we have all the Sketch tools available in the drawing functions of
01:57SolidWorks as we do when we're creating parts.
01:59So we can go ahead and just draw a box out here if we wanted to, draw a rectangle,
02:03and we can define the box with dimensions if we wanted to.
02:05There is a lot of things we can do.
02:07We can just create drawings from the beginning in SolidWorks.
02:09There is nothing saying that we can't do that, and sometimes people do just
02:12design things in a drawing view and just lay it out. If you have something
02:16simple, and you need to turn it into solid, you have all that ability.
02:19Speaking of those same tools just to lay things out inside the drawing too, if I
02:23want to just dimensions or just put a centerline from here to here, there to
02:26there, there to there, there to there, it's just saying, these four holes are
02:31all related together and saying they're aligned up as well.
02:34Then I can give a dimension from an edge to this line here and I have
02:39dimensioned only this first hole, but it's also saying this hole is inline with
02:41the first hole, and same thing here.
02:43If I am going to give other dimension here from that hole to that hole and place
02:46it and place from here to here and then from there to there.
02:50That way we find the spacing, everything looks clean, and then it really kind
02:54of continues that dimension line across to the next part so we can really see that
02:58they are all part of the same team here.
03:00One other thing I was going to show is I am actually going to get rid of this
03:03hole view now, delete that out, delete the view and I am going to go
03:07and try to add it in.
03:07But this time, instead of putting all that work into it at the beginning, let's go up to
03:11some of our options and under Document Properties, we can come down here to
03:16Detailing, and in Detailing it says, Auto insert on view creation.
03:20So we can say center marks for holes, center marks for filets, slots, center
03:25marks for holes and assemblies, centerlines.
03:28Look at a lot of these things, we can automatically add in.
03:30Okay, so I am going to click OK, turn those on.
03:34Now let's go and grab a Model View, that same one we have right there, and
03:39let's take a look at that top of that part and drop it in there and take a
03:43look at what it did.
03:44It created a whole grid pattern for us and add all the center marks.
03:47It didn't add the centerlines between there here, because they weren't created
03:50as a grid pattern but a lot of that work we just did is all automatically
03:54created just by turning those two options on.
03:57We have a lot more options in the software option to do that.
04:01Sometimes it works good, but sometimes if you do have too many centerlines, and
04:03too many center points, your drawing will start looking a little messy.
04:06So you have the ability to turn that on automatically but you've got to make sure you
04:09have that option turned on before you insert that view into your Model view.
04:13Center points and centerlines are great for showing feature's locations without
04:17the need for excess dimensions.
04:18Use these tools to link together related features and make your drawings easier
04:22to understand and clear.
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Adding item notes
00:01Almost all drawings have some sort of notes calling out information that cannot
00:04be relayed in the views.
00:06Common information is materials, finishes, extra processes, special features or packaging.
00:13SolidWorks has a Note tool that allows us to type out notes and even has some
00:16auto-indent and numbering functionality.
00:18Additionally, these notes can be saved in the Design Library for future use.
00:22I'm going to click on the Note command here and go up in the upper left hand
00:25corner and just place a note.
00:26I'm just going to start typing it out, and I type a 1 and I can give it a finish
00:33or something like this that I want to finish.
00:36As soon as I click on OK, I'm going to have the 2.0 and notice it adds the
00:41numbering for me and auto-indents it for us and then wherever I place that
00:45note now is going to be on my tool tip, so I can just place it somewhere else in the drawing.
00:48If I hit Escape I can get out of that and just delete those notes and I
00:52happen to have a note already saved from a text file, I'm going to just paste
00:55in here, and you can paste things from any text file or a Word document
01:00directly into Notes, pretty easy.
01:01Then if I want to go save this note to the Design Library, I'm going to click
01:05over here under Design Library and notice I've got some folders called
01:09annotations, assemblies, features and this is where we have a lot of other
01:13blocks and surface callouts and that's where I'm going to save my note.
01:16So I'm going to say Add to Library, first I'm going to select it and then I am
01:20going to say Add to Library.
01:21It's going be Note<1> that's being saved, and I'm going to call this one N1 for
01:26Note 1, okay and I'm just going to Save it in annotations and click OK and there it is.
01:31So N1 is now in that library.
01:33If anytime I want a new note I can just delete this one now and I can go
01:36and grab a note and just drag and drop it in and place it on the screen, quick
01:40and easy, very nice.
01:42Also under the Note command is the ability to add some little boxes or triangles
01:48and that's under this thing called Border.
01:48So I'm going to click on Border and then click on Box and I'm going to make it
01:53just like a 1 Character box, and notice where I place that box and I can fill out
01:57like a number, like 1.
01:58Okay so then have 1, and notice once I have this box here I can add a Leader to it.
02:04So I can go to back to Leaders and I can add a Leader here, then I can then
02:08relate this or link this back to a drawing and move it around and grab the
02:12tip of it and attach it to like a hole or something that and then we can have a note.
02:16So this would relate from Note Leader 1 to the first Note in your drawing.
02:20Now let's take a look down here in the bottom right hand corner of our screen.
02:24We have the block and we have some information that we can fill out like the
02:29title of the drawing, number
02:30and the revision, material, finish.
02:32So we could just go up here and grab this Note box and start typing if we wanted to.
02:36However, a lot of that information is actually in the part behind the scenes here.
02:40So instead of filling this out directly, let's go back to that part and open it up.
02:45So inside of this part here the first thing we're going to look at is the
02:48material, and up here in the left-hand corner we have this little material box
02:51and right now we've got AISI 304 stainless steel.
02:54If I right-click on that, I've got a whole listing of different materials that I
02:57can select from to quickly change that.
02:59If I do change something, it changes the material, color, and all of the
03:03material properties.
03:04In fact if I go over here to the right, I click on Mass Properties;
03:07I can go find out what those properties are, the density, the mass, the volume,
03:10a lot of information.
03:11Okay, so if I do want to go and change the material I can also go over here and
03:14say Edit Material to get the full listing.
03:17You can see we've got a lot of different types of steels, irons, aluminums, and if I pick
03:21one of those like a steel, and I go to 304 stainless I get the mechanical
03:25properties, I got the appearances, hatching; a lot of information and if I don't have
03:29that in my list of Favorites I can always just click and add it, but I do have it
03:32here at the bottom, so I don't need to add it.
03:34Now that I have the material I've got it selected, I'm going to go up here and
03:38add some custom properties.
03:39So click on File Properties.
03:41The first tab here is called Summary and I can type in the author, keywords
03:45or comments, and some information down here about when the last time I saved this file was.
03:49Under Custom Properties is actually where we're going to start filling out that
03:52information we want on the drawing.
03:53I'm going to click on Description and I'm going to call this one PLATE and then
03:57I am going to go down here to part number and I'm just going to name it
04:01the same as the file name, which is the 19.1-1, and then maybe Revision we'll fill
04:08out, revision A, and then we can also link to properties.
04:14So I come down here to like material, instead of typing it out I can actually
04:18click on this little drop-down arrow here and link to a property value.
04:21Notice we got a lot of different things in here.
04:23I'm going to select the material which is the top one and notice it gives us
04:27this Malleable Cast Iron exactly what we selected over here.
04:31And then we're going to go down to Weight and select weight, and we'll click it
04:34to Mass, so now we got the mass of that property as well.
04:37So we are linking these values from the solid to the drawing.
04:41So click OK when we got all that done and now let's jump back over to our drawing.
04:46And notice this information is now filled out, so the description, the revision,
04:50the drawing number, the material, a lot of stuff is filled out.
04:53Some things aren't filled out though, like finish and drawn by or the date, so
04:57there's actually values hidden behind there that we haven't filled out yet or dealt with.
05:02I can look at those by clicking on View > Link > Annotation Link Errors.
05:07And if I right-click and say Edit Sheet Format, I can actually go in here and
05:11hold my mouse over one of those, and it will tell me which of those I'm actually
05:14linking back to and that's kind of a cryptic notation that it uses is at dollar
05:18prompt $PRP, which means the part and then the company name.
05:21And I get the same thing if I go over any one of these other ones here.
05:24So you can go see where these things link back to.
05:26You might be saying, well it'll be really neat if I could actually make my own, and you can.
05:30So I'm clicking on Note, I just drop a note up here.
05:34I actually have the option to make a hyperlink here first, or I can click on this
05:37one here Link to Property.
05:38If I click on that, I got a couple of choices here as far as how do I want to link them.
05:42I want to use a second one here, which is the model in view.
05:45I'm going to click on that.
05:46I've got all these different values, and I'm going to link to Author, but I can link
05:49to anything I want, click OK, and it shows me what I'm actually linking to.
05:55And once I'm happy with that I might say hey, why is it not there?
05:59Well, we have to make sure we fill these values out back in that part or
06:02they won't show up.
06:03So I'm going to go back to the part now and I'm going to look at this part.
06:06Go back to the File Properties and I'm going to fill out my name under Author.
06:13Click OK and then go back to the drawing.
06:16Here is the drawing, and notice there it is, my name popped up and for some
06:20reason if it did not show up we can always go up here to Rebuild to make it pop-up here.
06:25And notice we also have these errors showing up.
06:27So if I don't want to view those, I can always go to click on View >
06:32Annotation Link Errors, and make sure those aren't showing right now.
06:35All good drawings should always have some sort of drawing notes.
06:38Use the notes to further explain complex operations or to callout specs for
06:42post-finishing operation.
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Drawing revisions
00:01Revisions are best handled at the part level, and we link our drawings
00:04to that part revision.
00:06The custom properties of the part will generally have some revision property
00:10that we can fill out.
00:11From there we need to make sure our drawing template is linking to that property.
00:15Once we have a revision, we might also want to add a revision table that says,
00:19what has been changed and at what stage.
00:21We have a part here that doesn't have any revision data in it at all.
00:24So we are going to do a little review and add a revision to it. And we'll go back
00:28here to the part and click on the File Properties at the top, and click here and
00:33we want to go to the Revision.
00:33That's all we are going to add to this one and we are going to add Revision A.
00:37Click on OK, and now we have added that, let's go back to the drawing and we
00:41should show up with Revision A.
00:43Now we want to go up here and add a Revision table.
00:46So anytime we are making a drawing change, we are going to put those
00:49changes into the table.
00:50Now most of the time when you start with a drawing table, we are just going to have --
00:53especially Revision A, it is just going to say this is the initial release of the drawing.
00:56So to do that, I am going to say Insert > Table > Revision Table.
01:01These are some of the options we can use, but most of these are just the defaults, so just
01:05click OK and it's just going to drop that table, and now I can move this table
01:09around a little bit and we can resize it by just dragging things out and make
01:13sure we got enough space here.
01:15Once you have got your table looking the right way, you probably want to add it
01:18to your sheet format.
01:19So every time you open up a new drawing, that revision table is already going to
01:23be there. It's already going to be formatted in the right way.
01:24So we will go here and just snap up to the upper corner and let's bring it
01:29in just a little bit.
01:31There we go, it looks nice.
01:33Okay, now we're going to add a revision. To do so, we are going to right-click and say
01:36Revision > Add Revision.
01:39And it goes ahead and adds that, and notice my tool tip is a little marker.
01:43I can go and add something that the revision pertains to, but generally in our
01:46first revision there is not going to be anything that changed because it's the first
01:49time you are releasing the drawing.
01:50So hit Escape to just turn that off.
01:52Then I can go in here and edit this row.
01:55Just because I want to make the fonts a little bit bigger and I do so by
01:58clicking on this document font thing, and I am going to go up here to maybe 16
02:02point, or 14 point is probably a little better, makes it a little bigger, easier to see.
02:06Now imagine we make a change to this drawing, actually this part.
02:10To make a change to the part, we want to sure we go and roll the revision forward.
02:13So to do so, I am going to go back to the part, there is some part that got
02:17changed, and I will go back up to the File Properties and make sure I am changing
02:20this to Revision B now.
02:22So I am going to click on that, now we have a revised part, go back to the
02:25drawing and now we have a Revision B drawing.
02:28So we want to make sure we reflect any changes in the table.
02:31Let's go back up here, right-click on it again, say Revisions > Add Revision, and
02:35it's going to give us Revision B, and notice we have that tool tip.
02:37So now if I have something maybe like this hole down here, it has changed, I can
02:41click and place a revision symbol.
02:44Now I also have a zone, so I have -- if you look at these numbers here, 26 and 7 and I
02:49have a zone b over here, or
02:50AB so I can give it like a B7 zone.
02:54So somewhere in this zone here that change happens and I can actually write
02:58that number right in here if I wanted to and then I can describe what I am
03:02changing. If I changed maybe the hole size to this from this size to that size.
03:05We don't have to search around the drawing to figure out what's got modified.
03:10Revisions are very important in design and even more important in manufacturing.
03:14Each time a part is changed, the revision should be updated in the
03:17corresponding drawing.
03:18Failure to roll the revision of parts is a leading cause of manufacturing errors,
03:22mostly from not being inspected or made to the latest changes.
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20. Assembly Drawings
Adding assemblies to drawings
00:00Drawings can be made from assemblies, just like we make drawings of parts.
00:04However, most of the time, in an assembly drawing, our focus is different.
00:08On the part side, we show the dimensions and the finishes.
00:12On the assembly side, we're more concerned with what parts are in the assembly
00:15and how they're connected together.
00:17Some of the tools specific to assemblies are balloons, builds and materials, and weld callouts.
00:23We'll be covering it in the next few movies.
00:26In this movie, let's get the assembly drawing started and add some views.
00:29I've got an engine that we've designed and it's got a lot of components here,
00:33I just want to show first before as we're making the drawings for it.
00:37Over here in the tree, you can see we've got a lot of different items, and in
00:40fact, we even have folders in here with even more items as far as the hardware.
00:43We've a lot of things here.
00:45So we're not going to get started with entire assembly drawing, and we can even
00:49see that we've got other subassemblies built inside of here, so quite a complicated model.
00:54Now let's look at the view here and I'm going to take this part here and click
00:57and say Change Transparency.
00:59I can see inside there and I can just show you that if we zoom in a
01:03little bit, spin it around, I can move this engine around and all of the
01:07components move around;
01:08the engine, the pistons, the crankshaft, the valves, everything moves just like
01:12it was a real engine and in fact, this is a scale model of an engine.
01:16So if you hooked it up, it actually works.
01:19Spin it around a little more, you can see all the detail here and all the different
01:22fasteners and different features we've added together.
01:25So, the part we are going to make an assembly drawing for of this is just a
01:29space here, and I have that opened up, and here it is and there is the base.
01:33You can see, here is all the parts to make that up and a bunch of
01:36different hardware.
01:37A couple of these are the same parts, so we got two of these, two of these, and
01:42you got a top and then you get the hardware.
01:43So let's go ahead and make a drawing of this assembly.
01:46So let me go to File > Make Drawing from Assembly, and it's going to open up the
01:51same template we've been using. Click OK.
01:54Now over here on the right, I've got a couple of different views that we can use,
01:57and I'm just going to choose the right hand view and just drag that into the
02:00screen, and as soon as I do that, obviously, I'm in the Projection mode and I'm
02:04going to just going to drop a couple more projections.
02:06Now that I have the projections on the screen, I'm going to move things around a
02:09little bit and lay it out.
02:12Our focus generally when we're working in assemblies is not to add a lot of dimensions
02:16to our parts into our assemblies.
02:18We're really more concerned about which parts are here and how they're
02:21connected together. So we might be detailing out the hardware, giving up building
02:25material as far as where things are, ballooning out the different items, so we
02:29know where each item is in our assembly.
02:32The same tools are available for both parts and assembly drawings.
02:36However, when we're making an assembly, the documentation should focus on what
02:40parts are in the assembly and how they are attached.
02:43Hardware generally plays a big part in assemblies and good descriptions
02:47can really help out.
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Including a bill of materials
00:00A bill of materials is a shopping list for the items that make up an assembly.
00:04Many times this list is made up of parts that you or members of your team
00:08design, parts from outside vendors, downloads and/or hardware.
00:13Keeping track of all these parts and part numbers can be a big job.
00:16Different companies have various standards, some add internal part numbers,
00:20some just use vendor part numbers.
00:21Hardware can be called out in many ways and it's all about the user preference.
00:26There's no correct answer, it's just a matter of preferences.
00:29So first off let's go ahead and add a bill of materials to our drawing.
00:33Now we have this same assembly we we're using in the last movie
00:36open and I'm going to go up here to Insert > Tables > Bill of Materials.
00:40When I first click that, I get this little window on the side over here that
00:45gives me a bunch of different options.
00:46First one is do I want top-level only parts, do I want parts, or do I want them
00:50indented with the top-level and the parts.
00:52So I'm going to just use top-level, it's fine, and then I can go down here and
00:56have a few other options as far as how I want to display these items, I can
01:01change the way I want to number the different items of the bill of materials as well.
01:04But I am going to just use the basic one, click on OK, and notice it gives me a
01:08little table that I can drop anywhere on my screen.
01:10I want to drop it just over here.
01:12So then I can modify that a little bit, I am just going to move these things
01:15around so we get a little bit more space.
01:18And I can grab this lower corner and drag the table out a little bit, and notice it
01