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One of the advantages of selecting features in the FeatureManager design tree is that all faces of the selected feature highlight in the graphics area. There are times, however, when it's easier to select what you want from the graphics area directly. The problem with that is you only see a highlight for the face you selected, not all of the geometry made by the feature; see the examples of this default behavior below:
In SOLIDWORKS, you can have all edges of a selected feature highlight when you select the geometry of a feature in the graphics area. To enable this behavior, go to Options, System Options, Display/Selection and activate "Highlight all edges of a feature selected in the graphics area."
Now, when you select a face on a model, all edges made by the feature the selected face belongs to will highlight, as seen below:
Now you can see entire features highlighted even when picking in the graphics area!
By: John Setzer, Training Coordinator
Electrical Currents
Part 2: Building Up Your 2D Layout Library
Now that you’ve begun working with the 2D cabinet layout feature, the first question you will have is “where do I get the part graphics to place in my 2D layout?”
The first place to look is the SOLIDWORKS Electrical content portal.
As of April 2016, there were over 20 million parts available in the electrical content portal, many of which have 2D symbol representations. The site has expanded capabilities as well, allowing you to search for an individual part or series, displaying the results of downloadable part information, symbols, and 2D representations. And you can always browse the portal by manufacturer, downloading entire series. The available content covers most of the bases to get you going and save loads of time over creating from scratch, but there are ALWAYS some unique needs, and 20 million is scratching the surface of how many parts are actually out there.
Continue reading "Electrical Currents - Part 2: Building Up Your 2D Layout Library" »
Electrical Currents
Part 1: Understanding Your 2D Cabinet Layout Tool
As an engineer, you are on a never ending quest to efficiently produce meaningful designs to generate amazing and profitable results. On your quest, you must be resourceful and sometimes have to use new methods and learn new skills to get where you’re going! There are also rules along the way that will help you get where you’re going with much less hassle and strain…never starting land wars in Asia comes to mind.
An important tool on your quest as a SOLIDWORKS Electrical user is the 2D Cabinet layout feature. It’s no surprise that the 2D cabinet layout tool in SOLIDWORKS Electrical is quite proficient at laying out your cabinet enclosures filled with ducts, rails, and all of your design components. But recent versions of SOLIDWORKS Electrical have made the feature easier to use and also much more versatile, so much so, that the “2D Cabinet” name of the feature can be a bit...misleading.
First, the layout of your design parts can drive the wire cabling order based on their relative position. I don’t know about you, but less time spent manually ordering wires is a win! You can also get creative, using the space as a scalable area for laying out harnesses, placing tables, connection label information, or describing special relationships between design locations. But before you dive into the possibilities, you need to know the background and settings that influence your results.
2D cabinet parts have their own Library section. You can use existing symbol geometry (copy, paste, and change symbol type), maybe you had a connection label or a line diagram symbol that you can use the geometry from. As soon as you change the symbol type, that 2D cabinet symbol will ONLY be available in the 2D cabinet library manager.
Inserting parts into 2D cabinet layout can be as simple as right clicking on your part in the 2D cabinet layout feature and inserting, finding the viable 2D symbol. You can insert non-electrical parts directly to your location such as enclosures, rails, ducts, and wire management accessories. Anything added with a part assigned in this way will show up on your final BOM reports as well!
On your quest, however, you may encounter “POUS”, or “parts of unusual size”. Conquering these buggers can seem intimidating at first as your parts can come in looking scaled or warped. Both instances are by design, so fear not, the fix is not far away!
First, the layout will obey the scaling you’ve set for the 2D cabinet layout tool. You can change this setting on the fly, and the elements on the page will scale accordingly.
The second thing to check is if the 2D part dimensions as defined are accurate as these dimensions will override the drawn symbol and scale it inappropriately. When you have made the changes to the dimensions, update the 2D symbol drawing. **As a side note, if these dimensions are correct but no specific symbol has been applied to a particular part, inserting the 2D footprint can be represented by a simple box with the dimensions following the part size settings.
Once your parts are properly proportioned and you’ve finished assembling your space including your 2D electrical component footprints, you may also use the “Optimize Wire Cabling Order” command to reset your wire numbering order based on the proximity and location of the parts in your 2D layout drawing.
Not only will it re-order the wiring in your design, but it pays dividends in 3D as the routing algorithms will need fewer iterations to process the results. The larger the design, the more this benefit will have a positive impact.
Next time, with the background of the feature in hand, we will take a look at the specifics of filling up our library with the specific parts used on a day to day basis in your designs.
By: Evan Stanek, Electrical Applications Engineer
Just the other day I stumbled upon something while running a flow simulation that I never knew was there and thought I'd share it with you all. I frequently run flow simulation with the solver window opened up showing my goals. I like doing this because I can then see whether the goals of my simulation are converging like I would expect or not. If you're not familiar with a goal plot while running a flow simulation, this is what is looks like.
Well the other day I was watching my analysis progress and just happened to accidentally click my right mouse button while hovered over the graph portion of the goal plot, and to my surprise this dialog popped up!
With this dialog now I actually change how I'm able to view my goal plot. For example, if I'm running a time dependent study rather than a study state, maybe I want to look at how my goals are changing with respect to the physical time I sent my study up for rather than just the iterations which doesn't tell me much. With these options, I can just change my X-axis units to physical time rather than iterations and I'm good to go. There are lots of useful options in here, but the other one that I think I will use a lot is the field called Length Scale. There are often times where an analysis will run for a very long time and have many iterations. This often results in a goal plot graph that is very stretched out and it's hard to get a good picture of how the goals have converged because you have to scroll from left to right to get a good picture of this. With the Length Scale though, you can reduce that X-axis scale so that you're able to see a more zoomed out picture of your convergence plot.
I know this isn't anything earth shattering but hopefully it's a tid-bit that maybe you didn't know!
By: Chris Olson, Simulation Applications Engineer
It seems our resident SOLIDWORKS ace, Sol, and his intrepid sidekick, Sal, have awoken from their Christmas season food coma and subsequent President’s Day mattress-shopping spree, and are back at work, diligently working away in their favorite CAD application. Let’s eavesdrop, shall we?
“Nice assembly, Sol. That was several parts to draw.”
“Which assembly is that, Sal?” Sol asked succinctly.
“The one right below here, in Figure 1, Sol” Sal sighed serenely, shepherding Sol’s eyes screenward.
Fig. 1
“Oh, that one. What if I told you each one of those parts only took several seconds instead of many minutes?”
“Get out!” Sal screamed. “Oh, you already had them built, and just assembled them.”
“No, Sal, with SOLIDWORKS Weldments, all I had to was draw the simple routes, select from a gazillion default industry standard profiles, choose my corner treatments such as miters, overlaps, and weld bead gaps, and voila! This really just took a few minutes!”
“Well, I’ll be…” Sal’s once shrill voice slowly subsided. “And here I thought that the SOLIDWORKS Weldments module just let you add the Weld Beads and Symbols to your model, y’know, like this.”
“Like what, Sal?”
“Oh, sorry” said Sal sheepishly. “Like in Figure 2.”
Fig. 2
“Well, it does that too!” Sol seemed increasingly excited. “I can’t tell you how much time this has saved me!”
“I bet now you’re going to tell me it automatically calculates Cut Lists, Weld Bead length and mass, and all that other stuff!”
Sol, stymied, stared astonishingly at his sometimes startlingly shallow sidekick, but soon softened. “You guessed it, Sal!”
“Say, Sol, where do you learn about all these cool SOLIDWORKS things?”
“Why, Graphics Systems’ SolidNotes, Sal. Graphics Systems’ SolidNotes.”
You can see several more of Sam’s somewhat serious series of Sol and Sal’s serial spree of SOLIDWORKS shenanigans here and here and here and here….
By: Sam Hochberg, CSWE, Applications Engineer
Watch the video to see how bb7 is using 3D printing to span several applications including concept modeling, ergonomic studies, functional modeling, and more!
bb7 is a product development firm that has been providing fully developed solutions since 1944.
With talent and capabilities found nowhere else, we transform problems into profitable products. Our elite team of super-developers — from artists to rocket scientists — can tackle any problem, launch your products (into space if you want) and guide you to brand dominance. Our teams have worked on subatomic particle research equipment in Antarctica, integrated Nobel Prize-winning technology into a medical device, resurrected an iconic machine that hadn’t been re-designed since the Kennedy administration and so much more.
For bb7, using both FDM and PolyJet technology throughout the product development cycle has been extremely beneficial. To better understand why this is so useful, let's define what each of these processes are.
FDM, or fused deposition modeling, creates parts layer-by-layer with thermoplastics. This process is ideal for creating complex geometries and functional parts such as prototypes, jigs, and fixtures. FDM parts are also very durable and can withstand physical testing. For bb7, FDM is used early on in the process to test fit, form, and function. Since the parts are durable, they can also begin physical testing on a 3D printed model.
Learn More About FDM Technology
PolyJet technology uses UV light to cure liquid photopolyers. This process is ideal for creating realistic, high-resolution models and can even contain multiple materials in a single build. Since the PolyJet technology offers very high resolution and a detailed surface finish, bb7 uses this technology later in the development cycle when the details are being refined.
Learn More About PolyJet Technology
By: Katie Vanden Heuvel, Digital Media Coordinator
Have you ever wanted to customize a CommandManager tab to add a tool button group? Make the text for a button move to the side instead of below the button, or just not show text at all? Wonder no more! Here's how that can all be done.
First, right-click on any tool button on your Command Manager and choose "Customize" from the pop-up:
Next, right-click on a tool button you'd like to modify. The pop-up will show options for Show Text and Text Below.
If you want to make a new group of buttons (have a "divider" added to the toolbar), right-click on the tool button where you want to add the divider and choose Begin a Group.
Below you can see my finished changes to a tab I created, from left to right: three buttons with no text, a button with text below that also begins a new group, and a button with text not below the icon.
Now you can change up your CommandManager tabs to look just the way you want!
By: John Setzer, Training Coordinator
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