Hawk Ridge Systems Blog Posts Tagged ‘SolidWorks’SOLIDWORKS: Tips for Creating Organized Title BlocksThursday, March 29th, 2018
There’s a lot that goes into creating SOLIDWORKS drawing templates – sheet formats, linked custom properties, document properties, and more. With all of this, one topic that often gets overlooked is how to keep your title blocks neat and organized. Here are some tips to help. SOLIDWORKS: Continuity and Curvature Part IISaturday, March 24th, 2018
In Part I of this series, we looked at how the smoothness of curves can be analyzed and controlled. Now we’ll be taking a look at some additional analyses tools to further evaluate our surfaces as well as ways to improve our curvature continuous connections.
The zebra stripes tool (view>display>zebra stripes) allows us to see small changes on a surface that may be hard to see with a standard display. This tool mimics the reflection of long stripes of light on a very shiny surface. With zebra stripes, we can verify that two adjacent faces are in contact, are tangent, or have continuous curvature. As can be seen in the image below, the zebra stripes for contact do not have the same direction or size. The zebra stripes for tangent have the same direction, but change sizes where the tangency occurs – there are two points of tangency. And the curvature continuous stripes share the same direction and the same size throughout the entire surface. SOLIDWORKS Flow Simulation: Solving the Bucket ChallengeTuesday, March 20th, 2018
For all the SOLIDWORKS designers and engineering enthusiast out there, I’m sure you have seen something like this come across your social feeds at one time or another cause I know I have. The question is which bucket will fill up first if water is poured continuously into the first bucket. I have spent some time in the comments sections of these puzzles and been baffled by some people’s logic and responses. Most of the time there is a trick like a closed drain or hole in a bucket but some people were so confident in their wrong answer that I started to doubt my own intuition. So I decided to make a puzzle of my own and verify my intuition with SOLIDWORKS Flow Simulation. The modeling was very easy with some revolves and thin extrudes and below is what I came up with. If you were at any of our rollout events this should look familiar.
I modified the problem statement a bit with some assumptions so everyone can understand the intent of the problem and to potentially combat any over-analyzed responses. Water will be poured into bucket 1 at a slow enough flow rate that it will drain before it begins to fill. The system is open at the ends so there will be no buildup of air. Which bucket will fill first? I had to modify the problem statement for a couple of reasons because if I dumped the ocean into the problem bucket 1 would fill first so we are assuming the flow rate is ideal for the buckets drain faster than they fill. This cross-sectional view shows lids on the buckets and those are only there to help define the boundaries in the flow simulation but are considered pipe openings so there will be no air buildup. I challenge you to examine this puzzle and determine which bucket will fill first. Before I give you the answer I am going to talk about the free surface flow simulation that I used to solve this puzzle. Free surface lets you simulate flows with a freely moving interface between two immiscible fluids. It’s like water flowing in an open channel or a half full pipe. It uses the volume of fluid method for tracking and locating the free surface interface of gas-liquid or liquid-liquid pairs. Any phase change, rotation, porous media, or fans are not allowed. For more information and an additional example of free surface flow inside of SOLIDWORKS flow simulation check out this BLOG.
So now I present the solution brought to you by SOLIDWORKS Flow Simulation. I am happy to say that the simulation went just as I planned, giving me a lot of confidence in my own intuition and the capabilities of SOLIDWORKS flow simulation. For more information, check out our website to get a SOLIDWORKS Flow Simulation Quote or contact us at Hawk Ridge Systems today. Thanks for reading!
Dual Graphics Cards Causing Issues with SOLIDWORKS Graphical DisplayWednesday, March 7th, 2018Note: This blog is intended for users who have a combination of either onboard Intel HD Graphics + NVIDIA graphics cards or onboard Intel HD Graphics + AMD graphics cards on their computers. Let’s start this blog post with a little story. I was so excited when I found out I was going to be getting a new laptop that had better performance specifications. Mainly what mattered is that I was going to get better performance for my SOLIDWORKS designs. After security and antivirus program installations were done, it was time to install SOLIDWORKS! The software managed to install itself with a smooth sail and my next step was to download my SOLIDWORKS settings from my previous computer using the Copy Settings Wizard that comes with any standard installation of SOLIDWORKS. With my customizations set in place, I was ready to play! So, my final step was to open my model and keep adding more details to it but I encountered a graphical issue I did not expect. Every time I would try to rotate or move the model, my screen would get really glitchy and the graphics didn’t want to update and I became frustrated very fast. My first thought was that I did not have the latest driver for my NVIDIA graphics card. In order to do this, there are two options how a user can check the latest driver available for their graphics card: 3D Printing: Creating Fully Functional Medieval Armour Part 1Thursday, March 1st, 2018Here 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 ComponentsFriday, February 23rd, 2018
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. What’s New SOLIDWORKS 2018: Unconsumed Sketches in 3D InterconnectMonday, February 19th, 2018
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.
HawkLive 2018 – Module 1: SOLIDWORKS 2018 OverviewWednesday, February 14th, 2018
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:
What’s New in SOLIDWORKS 2018: How to Set the Material for Individual Bodies of a Multi-Body PartTuesday, January 23rd, 2018
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 SOLIDWORKSFriday, January 5th, 2018
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! |
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