Hawk Ridge Systems Blog 
Dayne McGuire-Lavallee Dayne
Dayne is an applications engineer at Hawk Ridge Systems in the Edmonton Office. He has a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Alberta. 3D Printing: Creating Fully Functional Medieval Armour Part 1March 1st, 2018 by Dayne McGuire-Lavallee Dayne
Here at Hawk Ridge Systems, we have three digital manufacturing labs which are a great place to experience additive manufacturing. The lab’s house some awesome technology in the form of 3D Scanners and Printers. They recently just got the new HP Jet Fusion 3D and asked some of us application engineers to make some designs that they can print. After hearing this I took full advantage of the situation because, how often do you get to use production quality machine for your own amusement? The new HP machine is unique and revolutionary because of its immense speed, precision, recycling capability, and cost. The material it prints with is called VESTOSINT, which is a Nylon 12 Polyamide, and each print can use up to 80% recycled powder. HP generates a product that is almost isotropic with only 6 percent difference in tensile modulus for the Z print direction. This is achieved by using a fusing and detailing agent and saving the fusing process till near the end of the print. SOLIDWORKS: Improving Assembly Performance with Simplified ComponentsFebruary 23rd, 2018 by Sean Marrs
One way to increase assembly performance is by using simplified configurations that can be selected when opening an assembly. Simplified configurations reduce the amount of data that must be loaded into RAM which increases graphical performance by requiring fewer edges and details to be displayed. When simplifying components general guidelines are useful for determining what can be removed and what is important to retain. Read the rest of SOLIDWORKS: Improving Assembly Performance with Simplified Components What’s New SOLIDWORKS 2018: Unconsumed Sketches in 3D InterconnectFebruary 19th, 2018 by Jacob Ames
3D Interconnect made its debut in 2017, providing users with a fantastic new method for importing and collaborating with non-SOLIDWORKS models. Without the need for translation, models imported via 3D Interconnect come with fewer errors, while maintaining face and edge IDs and even establishing a parametric link back to the original model in its native format. That’s right – changes made to 3D Interconnect models in the native CAD program will propagate to SOLIDWORKS. For all the fine details on working with 3D Interconnect, please see this three-part series.
Read the rest of What’s New SOLIDWORKS 2018: Unconsumed Sketches in 3D Interconnect HawkLive 2018 – Module 1: SOLIDWORKS 2018 OverviewFebruary 14th, 2018 by Ricky Huynh
Every year, Hawk Ridge Systems offers live Launch events for its customers to introduce the new enhancements of that year’s release. What if you were unable to make one of the 2018 live sessions? Don’t worry – we have you covered! We recorded the live stream (HawkLive 2018) of our first Launch event and separated it into 8 modules so you can easily digest what’s new in SOLIDWORKS 2018! Even if you’ve attended a launch in another city (besides San Jose, where this one was recorded), it’ll be different and exciting content! In today’s blog article, we’ll introduce some of the main topics we covered in Module 1, which includes a brief introduction to Hawk Ridge Systems, what to expect from the upcoming modules, and SOLIDWORKS customer’s we’re using to demonstrate the new enhancements of SOLIDWORKS 2018. Introduction to Hawk Ridge Systems Before we dive into the content, did you know that Hawk Ridge System offers:
What’s New in SOLIDWORKS 2018 Nearly half of the development projects SOLIDWORKS undertakes are based on quality and performance, which means, speeding up tasks, stability improvements, and bug fixes. The other half is the new features and enhancements that will be introduced in this blog and video series! There are over 230 pages (239 pages, to be exact) in the What’s New 2018 PDF, alone. It’d be nearly impossible to cover every single enhancement, but our team hand-picked some of the best ones they believe could benefit SOLIDWORKS users the most. Here’s a run-down of the 8 videos and what they’ll be covering:
Read the rest of HawkLive 2018 – Module 1: SOLIDWORKS 2018 Overview What’s New in SOLIDWORKS 2018: How to Set the Material for Individual Bodies of a Multi-Body PartJanuary 23rd, 2018 by Mark Dolinar
There are numerous benefits for creating your part design as a multibody part ranging from performance to file management in SOLIDWORKS. However if you have tried to apply a material to a multibody part you will notice that the materials folder of the feature manger will apply the same material to every single body in your design. This works fine if you have a weldment structure which is all made out of steel, but most designs use a combination of materials to accomplish their design goals. In this example for a conveyor belt, there could be aluminum, steel and even rubber. One material could be applied to the entire design, however our mass property and simulation results would be inaccurate. Useful Keyboard Shortcuts and Workflow Customizations in SOLIDWORKSJanuary 5th, 2018 by Mark Dolinar
Using the standard SOLIDWORKS tools and features from the CommandManager is already an extremely efficient method to quickly bring concepts into a three dimensional model. However, many users prefer to leverage a variety of both standard and custom shortcuts through hotkeys or context menus for an even faster workflow. This article covers many of the most impactful default keyboard shortcuts in SOLIDWORKS, and describes how to customize them for maximum time savings. While using SOLIDWORKS, all of the standard Microsoft keyboard shortcuts are available. As expected, CTRL-O can be used to open a document, CTRL-S will save the current document, and CTRL-Z will undo the most recent action. However, many additional SOLIDWORKS-specific keyboard shortcuts exist that can make potentially tedious point-and-click commands obsolete. A few of the more popular shortcuts include using the spacebar to bring up the Orientation menu, which provides access to many standard views, as well as any custom views that have been saved. Pressing the R key will display a list of recent documents, and specific documents can even be pinned to the list permanently. Another great shortcut is CTRL-B, which will automatically rebuild your model. A table of some of the most popular default SOLIDWORKS keyboard shortcuts has been provided below:
One exceptionally popular keyboard shortcut is the S key. This opens a context-sensitive shortcut menu for rapid access to your favorite commands. Since the menu is context-sensitive, different menus will be presented depending on whether the part, assembly, drawing, or sketch environment is active. An example of this menu is shown below:
The tools found on this menu can be customized by right clicking on the menu once it has been activated and choosing Customize, or by simply clicking the options dropdown and choosing Customize. The resulting dialog is shown below, and several tabs are available for customization.
The Keyboard tab, shown above, can be used to modify existing shortcuts or create custom ones for any SOLIDWORKS command. Simply click in the Shortcut(s) cell for the command and type the keyboard shortcut to apply it. Multiple hotkeys can be added if desired. The Shortcut Bars tab can be used to modify the shortcuts available in the S key shortcut menu. Commands can be dragged and dropped both on and off of the menus as needed, and the shortcut bar for each environment can be customized individually. Additionally, mouse gestures are another great way to optimize workflow. Similar to shortcut bars, mouse gestures can be customized by dragging and dropping commands onto the context-sensitive wheels. To activate mouse gestures, simply hold the right mouse button and drag the cursor in the direction of the desired command. The customization menu for mouse gestures is shown below:
These shortcuts are an excellent way to optimize your workflow, ensuring that designs are created as efficiently and effectively as possible. For more information, get a SOLIDWORKS 3D CAD quote or contact us at Hawk Ridge Systems today. Thanks for reading! What’s New SOLIDWORKS Plastics 2018: Improved Realism With Temperature-Driven Short ShotsDecember 22nd, 2017 by Damon Tordini
Any plastic part designer knows that one of the biggest worries in an injection molding process is a mold that won’t properly fill- commonly known as a “short shot.” While there are a handful of machine parameters that a molder can tweak to fix this, it’s always preferable to find such issues early in the design process- perhaps even when there’s still time to change the design of a part. Sometimes, short shots are also intentionally run on a mold to try and visualize the filing process- something I had the opportunity to do at the injection molding lab at California State University at Chico. While the real-world part matched our simulation fairly well, SOLIDWORKS Plastics 2018 provides a great chance to examine the short-shot prediction more closely. To predict the filling pattern and compare it to a real-world short shot, we simply need to take a solid-body .SLDPRT file, such as the container handle below, and create a mesh with SOLIDWORKS Plastics:
Previous versions of SOLIDWORKS Plastics would predict a short-shot phenomenon with an easy-to-compute criteria: as the molten plastic cooled and the flow rate of the melt into the mold fell below a certain % of the maximum (by default, 1%), the part would be assumed “frozen” and the short-shot warning would be triggered. In reality, we know that the actual shape of a part, regardless of whether there’s a short shot, results from where and when the plastic cools and solidifies. So, in SOLIDWORKS 2018, there’s a new “Temperature Criteria for Short Shots” option, which is enabled by default with the Glass Transition Temperature automatically pulled from the SOLIDWORKS Plastics material database. This means that the actual shape of the flow front will be based on where the molten plastic has cooled over time, providing for better realism. SOLIDWORKS: Continuity and CurvatureNovember 22nd, 2017 by Rony Godoy
I like nice curves and I cannot lie. And in SOLIDWORKS we can control exactly how smooth our curves are. When it comes to curves in SOLIDWORKS, there is a difference between what is smooth and what looks smooth. This blog will discuss how we can analyze our curves and control how smooth they really are by using surface evaluation tools and different spline tools. The quality of a great surface lies within the curve that defines it. These curves are ideally created and controlled through splines. The spline sketch tool creates a smooth curve through the position of control vertices, or CV’s. Controlling the quality of our splines will ultimately control the quality of our surfaces. Splines can be analyzed using the curvature combs tool. The curvature combs tool graphically shows the amount of curvature at a given point on a sketch element. A smooth curvature comb is desired to produce the smoothest surface. As shown below, both splines look the same until we look at their curvature combs. The spline with the smoothest curvature combs (i.e. no flat spots or dips exist) will produce the smoothest surface.
To create smooth curvature combs, splines should be created with the least amount of points possible. Just as seen above, both of these splines are identical. The difference in curvature combs is due to the fact that the spline on the left was made with just 2 points, whereas the spline on the right was made with 5. What’s New in SOLIDWORKS 2018: Touch/Pen Input for SketchingNovember 20th, 2017 by Vince Farrell
Warning: Undefined array key 3 in /www/www10/htdocs/blogs/wp-content/plugins/embedded-video-with-link/embedded-video.php on line 176 Warning: Undefined array key 3 in /www/www10/htdocs/blogs/wp-content/plugins/embedded-video-with-link/embedded-video.php on line 218 Hi everyone! In this blog, I’m going to showcase a brand-new feature available in SOLIDWORKS 2018 to help you design faster! Have you ever had an idea and either not had a mouse or wanted to sketch it freely rather than using a mouse? With this new release and your Windows 10 touch-enabled device, now you can live out those wants with Touch Based sketching. I’m working on the gas cap for my RC car and I’ve decided that I want to really make it unique by adding a design to the front of it. I’m going to put a cloud to symbolize a gas cloud (and because there’s a reason I became an engineer instead of an artist.) I also found a picture that I want to use as a sketch picture and that’s in a sketch that I’ll unhide.
The first thing I want to point out is the new Sketch Ink Command Manager tab, which where all of my touch sketch commands will be. This can be turned on like any other command manager tab, right-click on an existing tab and select it from the list.
I’ll start my cloud sketch by selecting the gas cap face and hitting Sketch. There’s a pulldown to allow me to select a 2D or 3D sketch, touch sketching works with both. Next, you can customize your pen color and thickness. Use the slider to adjust the latter.
Next to that is an eraser tool if you need to delete any errant strokes, and the select tool to select geometry. The eraser works similarly to Power Trim, where swiping over existing geometry with it turned on erases it. The select tool turns your stylus or finger into a mouse pointer.
The Touch button is next to that. I’m using a stylus, but you can use this mode with your finger. Without that button pressed, swiping on my screen causes the model to move around. Therefore, to start sketching I’m going to click that button. Next, there are 2 ways to sketch entities: Auto Shape and Auto Sketch Entities. I’ll use Auto Shape to sketch the cloud, converting my pen strokes to smooth geometry. These are just conceptual, but I can use Select and hit Update to Entities which will change them to sketch entities.
If you prefer to go straight to sketch entities, use the Auto Sketch Entities button. I’ll switch over to that and sketch a lightning bolt. This will also imply sketch relations. Now I have a sketch that I can use to create a feature like a boss or cut, or a split line.
As you can see, touch sketching can bring more of your ideas to life with pretty minimal effort. For more information, check out our YouTube channel, get a SOLIDWORKS 3D CAD quote or contact us at Hawk Ridge Systems today. Thanks for reading! YouTube Direkt What’s New SOLIDWORKS 2018: 3D Interconnect Imports Custom Properties and MaterialNovember 13th, 2017 by Sean Marrs
New enhancements to 3D Interconnect in SOLIDWORKS 2018 allow for the import of custom properties and materials of third-party CAD Files. For those that don’t know, 3D Interconnect is an awesome tool added in SOLIDWORKS 2017 which makes it possible to work directly with third-party CAD files, rather than using the standard import and translation methods. 3D Interconnect allows SOLIDWORKS to directly read these parts and assemblies without translation, removing the possibility of translation errors that Import Diagnostics would need to fix. It also creates a parametric link to the original part or assembly file, allowing it to update if the file is changed in its third-party CAD software. Finally, 3D Interconnect maintains face and edge IDs so that when the file is updated, any mates or additional features added inside of SOLIDWORKS are preserved. File types that currently work with 3D Interconnect are:
*File types now supported in SOLIDWORKS 2018 Read the rest of What’s New SOLIDWORKS 2018: 3D Interconnect Imports Custom Properties and Material |
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Figure 1: Gas Cap Isometric View
Figure 3: Sketch Ink Command Manager.
Figure 5: Remaining Sketch Ink Commands
Figure 6: Cloud drawn using Auto Shape.
Figure 7: Update to Entities command.
Figure 8: Updated Entities.
Figure 9: Using Auto Sketch Entities.
