Assembly overview

- Up to this point we have modeled a number of parts and used a variety of commands and techniques. What we will turn our attention to next is to assemble all our parts into a SolidWorks assembly. I've placed all the assembly parts that we will be using in the assembly components folder found in the lessons folder for easy access. I have prepared additional models, which we will be using during the assembly process. Assemblies were covered in the introduction to SolidWorks series found here at Lynda.com.

And if you have not spent much time in the assembly environment since working through that series, it would be a good idea to go through the relevant sections again. For now, I want to note that what we do in the assembly environment is to assemble parts or other assemblies, which are then referred to as "sub-assemblies." These parts and sub-assemblies are created in the Feature Manager in the same way as Part Features; however, we can call any part inserted into the assembly a "component." Assemblies can have their own features, but is outside the scope of our project.

Secondly, note that instead of a "Feature" tab, we now have an "Assembly" tab at the top left of our Command Manager, where all our assembly commands can be found. For our assembly process we will use a process known as "Bottom-Up" assembly design. Which, simply means we will add our parts after creation to the assembly and then constrain them according to our design. We will keep this process as simple as possible. And reinforce some of the techniques available, while working within the assembly environment.

Now with that, let's get to the next video and start assembling our design.