Starting a route

- [Instructor] Now that we have the basic tools under our belt, it's time to start creating some routes. We'll start by manually creating some pipe, and then we will explore some shortcuts that SolidWorks has that can make it a bit easier. Our first step for creating a route is going to be placing a flange on both the start and ending points for our route. I've already placed a flange on this end of the tank, so we're going to go ahead and place a flange on the end of this tank as well. We're going to pull the flange out of our design library, which you can access the same way we have in past videos by going into the Flanges folder, and then clicking on the one that we would like and dragging and dropping it onto the end of our tank.

Now, we can select whatever configuration we would like, but we're going to go ahead and stick with the standard that it inputted here. Now since we don't need any more flanges to be added on, we can go ahead and click this X mark up here and stick with our two that we have now. Now, to actually begin the route, I'm going to go to that flange that we just added and right-click on the center point of that flange. Now I'm going to go down into the dropdown menu here and under Routing, select Start Route. I'm going to go ahead and save these, and save them internally inside the assembly.

Now you'll see that we have Route Properties that's come up on the left of our screen. I'm going to point out a few things in here that are important to note before you start actually creating your route. First of all, you can take a look at this routing template that's been selected. This is going to make some determinations on some of the other options that you have down below. Now, we also have a pipe that's already been selected for us, which is a five-inch Schedule 40. You can make some other changes to that if you'd like. It's making a determination for you based on the flange that you've added to the end of the tank.

So let's stick with the five-inch Schedule 40. It also automatically selects a wall thickness for us, as well as unchecks both of these, but we can also add weld gaps and use standard lengths if we would like. Some of these things can be added in again later. Now, we're also going to use form bends this time for our route. You can also use elbows when making a route, and we'll look at adding those in manually a little later as well. So let's put a bend radius of 7.5 inches for this route.

Then, you can also add a covering, if you would like, such as tape or rope, but if you're not sure which you would like right now, you can always add this in again later. Now, since I'm happy with all these options, I'm going to go ahead up and select the OK. And now we have a starting point, a starting stub length, for our route. However, now we also need to add in the stub length at the ending point. So I'm going to do the same thing as I did before to start the route and right-click on the center point of our other flange.

I'm going to now pick Add To Route in this dropdown menu, and we now have two stub lengths that have been added. Now, I'm going to go down and change my units, 'cause if you note, these have been changed to Custom, and I want to keep this in inches, since we're working with pipe. That might not happen to you, but just something to keep in mind as you're working through the process. Now I'm going to right-click back on the route that I was generating and select Edit Route to go back in and keep working with my sketch. So the main thing we want to do now is connect these two lengths of pipe, so we're going to go up into Sketch, and select the Sketch Align function.

I'm going to click on the ending points of both of these stub lengths, and you'll see we've actually had some elbows that have been automatically generated for us as well as the middle length. And I'm going to hit Escape, since I'm good with that for now. Also note that you still can make adjustments after this has already been done and go back up into the Smart Dimension tab, and you can dimension the beginning lengths as well as make any changes to your elbow that you need to now at this point, so I'm going to go ahead and make this 10 and I'm going to dimension the other one as well and make that 10, and hit Escape, now that I'm happy with that.

And so you've now created your first segment of route. Congratulations, and you can go ahead and exit out and see your completed pipe, and then exit out again one more time and see your full assembly all the way done. In the next section, we're going to work on building onto routes, adding elements, and look at some other ways that we can use our 3D sketching knowledge to make a little bit more of complex routes.