You may not think it's much but the fine folks over at SolidWorks, with every new release, try to squeeze in just a little more ease-of-use to make our everyday Simulation experience all the better.  Take for example the need to know ahead of time what faces need to be split in order to apply, correctly, loads or restraints. Bolt connectors can automatically split faces but what about a bearing load?

When applying the load or the restrain, select the Split tab and click "Create Sketch." Here I've placed a vertical sketch line on the outer, planar face of the cylindrical feature. The face gets split as I exit the sketch.

 

As you toggle back to the first tab, SolidWorks uses the newly split face and allows you to place the load or restraint accordingly.  This saves you time and effort and this is why I like Simulation in SolidWorks 2009.

 

Chris Schaefer, Applications Engineer
Graphics Systems Corp.

Did you know that you have the power to control a Toolbox part as a standard SolidWorks part or visa-versa? SolidWorks provides us with an executable program called sldsetdocprop.exe that allows us to change the internal flag of a Toolbox part.

This internal flag holds two possible states:  [Yes] Toolbox part or [No] standard SolidWorks part. Once a file has been added and the property state selected, you can click the Update Status to apply the changes.
                                          
This utility is most commonly used when altering ToolBox parts so that SolidWorks PDM no longer treats the parts as Toolbox parts.

"To be or not to be" may be one of the most well-know quotations in world literature, but by applying this knowledge at the workplace you too can be famous.

 

Graphics Systems Corp.

InspectionXpert balloons your SolidWorks drawing with unique numbers for dimensions, geometric tolerances and notes on your SolidWorks drawing and then exports the information to an Excel based quality inspection form in the blink of an eye.

Attend this webcast to learn how InspectionXpert First-Article can save you time and money.

 

Are you tired of spending weeks, months, even years in product development only to run into tolerance-related quality issues during implementation?

 

Come to our free webcast and learn about CETOL 6 Sigma Version 8.1 for SolidWorks. CETOL 6s v8.1 is a tolerance analysis and optimization tool, enabling engineers to precisely represent real manufacturing and assembly variation and the effect on the robustness of a product.