Import an existing PCB file - SOLIDWORKS Tutorial

- [Instructor] Before we actually start building our enclosure firstly we're going to import the PCB step file that we previously downloaded and then we're going to use that PCB model as a starting point to build the rest of the enclosure. Open SolidWorks by double clicking on the icon. Depending exactly how you've got it set up, when it opens you might get a welcome or a recent documents window pop up and if you do we can just ignore those. All we need to do is go to the top, click on File and press Open. Navigate to your project folder and if you don't see the step file in there, then you might need to go down here and click on here and go all the way to the bottom of the list and just choose All Files and now we can see the step file. So select that and press Open and we should now get a progress bar as it imports into SolidWorks. And depending on the speed of your computer this might take a few minutes but eventually you should see the PCB model like this. If you're working with a different version of SolidWorks to me such as SolidWorks 2020 then you may get a new SolidWorks document dialog box pop-up here. If so, then just press Ok and your file should open as per the video. We can hold down the mouse scroll wheel and move the model around and we can also zoom in and out with a scroll wheel to zoom in and out on the model. If your model looks a little bit grey like mine, we can click up here in the middle on Display Style, and then choose the very top option which is shaded with edges and you can see immediately that gives your model a little bit more definition. So looking at the model, here we have the actual circuit board and then we've just got some representative parts so here we have a USB socket, HDMI socket, headphone socket and then on the end here we've got the power socket, SD card slot and just a small LED on top. We're going to be making an enclosure that fits around this PCB with cutouts for these different ports and some other details. So this could be something like a Raspberry Pi PCB, an off-the-shelf PCB or it could just be a custom project that you've made yourself. And one of the beauties of SolidWorks, is that it's quite easy to adjust models and change parameters. So hopefully this course will show you the principles of making a case and then you can really customize it to suit your own needs. So looking back at our PCB model, over here on the left we can expand the assembly and we can see all the sub-parts which make up the assembly. Depending on your version of SolidWorks, your interface might look slightly different to this and you might have some small warning triangles but you can just ignore those. What we're going to do is save this assembly as a single SolidWorks part file which will make it easier to work with. And to do this all we need to do is go up to the File menu again and choose Save As, make sure you're in your project folder again, you can keep the default file name but before we click Save, click down here Save As Type and let's just change it from assembly to part up here near the top and then you can press Save and this part will be saved as a single part with all of these sub-parts merged together. So then we can close this assembly and you don't have to worry about saving it so you can just click Don't Save there.