SolidWorks^® 2011 Assemblies Bible^®

SolidWorks^® 2011 Assemblies Bible

Matt Lombard

SolidWorks^® 2011 Assemblies Bible

Published by
Wiley Publishing, Inc.
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Copyright © 2011 by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana

Published by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana

Published simultaneously in Canada

ISBN: 978-1-118-00276-6

Manufactured in the United States of America

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About the Author

Matt Lombard is an independent engineering consultant specializing in plastic parts and complex shapes. He also writes a blog on SolidWorks, which you can find at www.dezignstuff.com/blog. Matt lives in the picturesque Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, where he enjoys reading the classics and fishing.

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Acknowledgments

I would like to acknowledge the efforts of the staff at Wiley for their dedication in editing the text of these books. It can be a difficult job making sure that a technical subject is treated properly. I'd also like to thank Charles Culp, the technical editor, for taking the time out of his schedule to make sure the material is accurate. Thanks also to Kim and Zoey, who help with the details in life allowing me to do this kind of work.

Introduction

SolidWorks is a huge, sprawling topic. There is a lot for you, the reader, to know, and for me to write about. As a result, with the 2011 edition, I have taken this book from a single volume of an immense scope to two individual volumes, each still fairly large, one covering parts and part drawings, and the other covering assemblies and assembly drawings. There is some overlap between these topics, but I have tried to divide the material evenly and in a way, that makes the most sense for the reader. Depending on your needs, you will probably find both volumes to be very useful references.

This book is primarily meant as an encyclopedic desk reference for SolidWorks Standard users who want a more thorough understanding of the software and process than can be found in other available documentation. As such, it is not necessarily intended to be a guide for beginners, although it has elements that beginners would find useful. Nor is it necessarily intended as a classroom guide, but I have seen people use it for that as well.

Beginners will find the step-by-step tutorials useful. However, because you are only a beginner for a short period of time, the book is intended to be most useful when you reach an intermediate level, as it takes a more conceptual approach to explaining functionality. I try to help you make the decisions about how to apply the tools to your tasks rather than demonstrating simple tasks that you will never need to do again. You will not learn to model a teapot in this book, because in your work, knowing how to model a teapot will probably not help you. However, you will learn how to make decisions that should enable you to model just about anything you want, including teapots.

To keep the size of the book manageable, I have tried to avoid topics found only in SolidWorks Professional or Premium, although I do talk about these topics when they are relevant.

While the book does point out limitations, bugs, and conceptual errors in the software, and from time to time ventures into the realm of opinion, in every case this is meant to give you a more thorough understanding of the software, and how it is applied in the context of everyday design or engineering practice.

The overall goal of this book is not to fill your head with facts, but to help you think like the software, so that you can use the tool as an intuitive extension of your own process. As your modeling projects become more complex, you will need to have more troubleshooting and work-around skills available to you. Along with best practice recommendations, these are the most compelling reasons to use this book.

Thank you for your interest.

About This Book

You will find enough information here that this book will grow with your SolidWorks needs. I have written tutorials for most of the chapters with newer users in mind, because for them, it is most helpful to see how things are done in SolidWorks step by step. The longer narrative examples give more in-depth information about features and functions, as well as the results of various settings and options.

This book includes many details that come from practical usage and is focused on the needs of professional users, not on student learners. My approach is to teach concepts rather than how to push buttons.

How This Book Is Organized

This book is divided into six parts.

Part I: Introducing Assembly Basics

This part explores basic concepts and terminology used in SolidWorks. You need to read this section if you are a new SolidWorks user, especially if you are new to 3D modeling or parametric history-based design.

Part II: Working with Assemblies

This part takes a deeper look at creating parametric relations to automate changes.

Part III: Creating and Using Libraries

This part examines the functionality within the 2D drawing side of the software. Whether you are creating views, making tables, or customizing annotations, you will find these chapters useful.

Part IV: Creating Assembly Drawings

This part examines several types of advanced techniques, such as surface modeling and multi-body modeling. This is information you won't find in other SolidWorks books, and is explained here by someone who uses the functionality daily.

Part V: Using Specialized or Advanced Techniques

Specialized functionality, such as sheet metal and plastics, requires detailed information. This part includes the topics that are key to unlocking all the power available in SolidWorks.

Part VI: Appendixes

The Appendixes in this book contain additional information, such as the contents of the DVD and other sources of help.

Icons Used in This Book

This book uses a set of icons to point out certain details in the text. While they are relatively self-explanatory, here is what each of these icons indicates:

Caution

The Caution icon warns you of potential problems before you make a mistake.

Cross-Reference

The Cross-Reference icon points out where you can find additional information about a topic elsewhere in the book.

New Feature

The New Feature icon highlights features and functions that are new to SolidWorks 2011.

Note

The Note icon highlights useful information that you should take into consideration, or an important point that requires special attention.

On the DVD

This icon points you toward related material on the book's DVD.

Tip

Each Tip provides you with additional advice that makes the software quicker or easier to use.

The SolidWorks 2011 Assemblies Bible is unique in its use of the following two icons:

Best Practice

The Best Practice icon points out recommended settings or techniques that are safe in most situations.

Performance

Each Performance icon elaborates on how certain settings, features, or techniques affect rebuild speed or file size.

These icons point out and describe techniques and settings that are either recommended or not recommended for specific reasons. Best practice is usually considered very conservative usage, where the stability of the parametrics and performance (another way of saying rebuild speed) are the ultimate goals. These two aspects of SolidWorks models are usually weighed against modeling speed (how long it takes you to create the model).

You should take Best Practice and Performance recommendations seriously, but as guidelines rather than as rules. When it comes right down to it, the only hard and fast rule about SolidWorks is that there are no hard and fast rules. In fact, I believe that the only reason to have rules in the first place is so that you know when you can break them. Parametric stability and modeling speed are not always the ultimate goals and are often overridden when work-around techniques are used simply to accomplish a geometric goal.

Because not everyone models with the same goals in mind, a single set of rules can never apply for everyone. You must take the best practice suggestions and apply them to your situation using your own judgment.

Because I actually use the software in my work, I viewed it from a practical standpoint while writing this book. I approached the software objectively as a tool, recognizing that complex tools are good at some things and not so good at others. Knowing the strengths and limitations of the software is helpful to you. Pointing out negatives in this context should not be construed as criticizing the SolidWorks software, but rather as preparing you for real-world use of the software. Any tool this complex is going to have imperfections. I hope that some of my enthusiasm for the software also shows through and is to some extent contagious.

Terminology

An important concept referred to frequently in SolidWorks is design intent. As a practical matter, I use the phrase design for change to further distinguish design intent from other design goals.

You will need to be familiar with some special terminology before continuing. In many cases, I use a SolidWorks vernacular or slang when the official terminology is either not descriptive enough or has multiple meanings. For example, the word shortcut can mean several things in the SolidWorks interface; it is used to describe right mouse button (RMB) menus as well as hotkeys. As a result, I have chosen not to use the word shortcut and instead substitute the words RMB and hotkey.

I frequently use RMB to refer to right mouse button menus, or other data that you access by clicking the right mouse button on an item. The word tree refers to the list of features in the FeatureManager.

Differences are frequently found between the names of features on toolbars and the names in the tool tips, menus, or PropertyManager titles. In these cases, the differences are usually minor, and either name may be used.

Most functions in SolidWorks can work with either the object-action or the action-object scenarios. These are also called pre-select and select, respectively. The Fillet feature shows no difference between using pre-selection and selection, although for some fillet options such as face fillet, pre-select is not enabled. Most features allow pre-selection, and some functions, such as inserting a design table, require pre-selection. Although you cannot identify a single rule that covers all situations, most functions accept both.

Frequently in this book, I have suggested enhancement requests that the reader may want to make. This is because SolidWorks development is driven to a large extent by customer requests, and if a large number of users converge on a few issues, then those issues are more likely to be fixed or changed. Again, the enhancement request suggestions are not made to criticize the software, but to make it better. I hope that you will join me in submitting enhancement requests.

SolidWorks is an extremely powerful modeling tool, very likely with the best combination of power and accessibility on the MCAD market today. This book is meant to help you take advantage of its power in your work and even hobbyist applications. If I could impart only a single thought to you, it would be that with a little curiosity and some imagination, you could begin to access the power of SolidWorks for geometry creation and virtual product prototyping. You should start with the assumption that there is a way to do what you are imagining, and that you should be open to using different techniques.

Because I wrote this book to help you look beyond simply asking what different buttons do, I hope that it will help you develop an intuition for thinking like the software. Jeff Ray, CEO of the SolidWorks Corporation, has said that the goal is to make the software as “intuitive as a light switch.” While most people will agree that they have some work left to achieve that particular goal, I believe that approaching the interface intuitively, rather than attempting to remember it all by rote, is the best method. Good luck to you.

Contacting the Author

If you want to contact me, to ask a question about the book's content or to make a suggestion for improving future editions, the best ways to do this are through e-mail (matt@dezignstuff.com) or my blog (http://dezignstuff.com/blog). On the blog, you can leave comments and read other things I have written about the SolidWorks software, CAD, and engineering or computer topics in general. If you want to contact me for commercial help with a modeling project, my e-mail address is the best place to start that type of conversation. I always look forward to hearing what real users think about the material.

Thank you very much for buying and reading this book. I hope the ideas and information within its pages help you accomplish your professional goals.

Part I: Introducing Assembly Basics

In This Part

Chapter 1
Understanding Assemblies

Chapter 2
Navigating the Assembly Interface

Chapter 3
Visualizing Assemblies