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MattW

Would this do what you want?

MattW

We had the opportunity to head a few hours south this weekend and enjoy the Texas Hill Country. It always surprises me how much a few hours drive can make in what season you are in. Our bluebonnets are just starting here in the Dallas area, but the ones down near Fredericksburg, TX are well are the...

MattW

@AlexLachance where in Quebec are you located? I am probably going to be in the Montreal/ Laurentians area for a week or so this summer.

MattW

We are on 2021. Templates are in PDM, and the only location in File Locations. going to new... gets this screen. image.png The home screen is the same as the one in the first post, ie, Part, Asssembly, Drawing. Clicking on those opens the template listed in file locations, in spite of the label on t...

MattW

The screen goes black or the device is unresponsive? I seem to recall my screen occasionally going out, but I don't use the screen much and haven't seen that in a while. Space Pilot pro, not Space Mouse.

MattW

I think this shows up by default when you click on a part

MattW

JSculley your link didn't work, saying there is no SPR80312, but it did lead me to this: https://support.3ds.com/knowledge-base/?q=docid:SPR803012 QUESTION For Hole Wizard hole types, how are near side and far side countersink values calculated; is it possible to customize them? ANSWER By default, ...

MattW

Not countersunk screws, the edge break on the holes:

The values come from someplace, and are linked to the hole size, usually, but I can't figure out where. My experiments with 'favorites' aren't quite getting the behavior I would like.

MattW

Opening the custom properties tab does exactly that.

MattW

MattW

I don't know what you want the macro to do, but our templates have no custom properties and we use the custom properties tab and the property tab builder to control the addition of custom properties. These are customizable and will probably do what you want.

MattW

Working on my picture frame game, which needs it.

MattW

I was doodling with weldments and lofts, and this is what it looked like: image.png Then I noticed there was a file MakeProjectedPlanarWire.x_t in the folder. I didn't know what it was, so opened it up, and this is what it was: image.png It is a surface from the inside face of the box. I have no ide...

MattW

I think your drawing is getting worse, but it sounds like you are doing what your are told.

A jig like this would verify alignment and hole minimum size and represent probably less than an hours worth of work. There might be good reasons to not do this.

MattW

I know I am preaching to the choir here, but you say that hole alignment matters but it isn't called out at all. It sounds like you are attempting a manufacturing document and hoping that controlling the edge of one flange relative to the other will get you you the results you want, which it might. ...

MattW

I am wondering if some of those patterns aren't actually generated by a pattern or pattern like feature, but something more like a macro.

MattW

The two methods I would look at for the patterns shown would be curve driven pattern and sketch driven pattern, and I would guess for sketch driven pattern, at least, you will need a way to calculate sketch points outside SW and import them. It looks like the patterns shown use a combination of tech...

MattW

The biggest problem with McMaster Carr models is the visual properties are maxed out.

Setting these two sliders in the middle will cut the file size to 30% of what it is initially. Suppressing the helix will cut that in half again.

I have a macro for reducing image quality.

MattW

In a part or in an assembly? It may not take much to create a circular reference in an assembly.

MattW

All fasteners from McMaster-Carr also have some other bloat stuff as well, which makes the file open slowly even if you get rid of the threads. Which is why I cycle everything I get from them through what @zxys001 has referred to in the past as a "Parasolid wash". Suppress the threads, sa...

MattW

For some reason, it doesn't want to let you make your hole locations coincident from within the hole wizard. You can, however, just put some hole locations on the surface, then exit the hole wizard, and then go back into the 3d sketch and make the points coincident.

MattW

I suspect the appearance is applied at the body level. Your appearance hierarchy is showing appearance at the feature level, but I think that is coming from it being an imported part. If you click on a face, you should be able access an appearance hierarchy display like this: image.png and it will t...

MattW

That doesn't look like features as such, it looks like a bunch of imported bodies, and the appearance is applied at the body level. It looks like there is much more to the part than what you are showing. If you can share the part, I will take a look.

MattW

JSculley wrote: ↑Thu Jul 21, 2022 3:11 pm Assembly Open Progress Indicator:

image.png

Didn't have that one listed, but there was one listed for "Drawing open Progress Indicator". That seems to have done it.

MattW

mike miller wrote: ↑Tue May 24, 2022 10:09 am I don't know how SWX records it, but I know it can be way off the deep end sometimes.

2022-03-10 15_14_53.jpg

I could use this information now, and I have apparently dismissed this message. I am not seeing it my dismissed messages in System Options. Anyone know what this is called?

MattW

I suppose it depends on what you want to accomplish. I would start by saying do not put horizontal or vertical relations in your sketch, make them parallel and perpendicular, minimize external relations in the sketch, and make sure external relations you do use are not consumed by feature.

MattW

If you can, I would contact them and ask, because it is a good question. I wouldn't be surprised if the answer is along the lines of "we have always done it this way." The other reason I could think is if they use a macro that looks for a CS, since maybe you can't refer to the default sinc...

MattW

I am currently using something else, but considering you probably already have Solidworks CAM, I would think it is worth turning it on and seeing if it would work for your needs.

MattW

image.png Select All-> and then Change Transparency. My limited testing shows that this will set everything to Transparent or not. Before finding out that that would work, I set up an Advanced Select (at the bottom of the list above) image.png you have to save the name of the search. Go to the Mana...

MattW

I have only done composites on a simple hobbyist level, but I haven't seen a mold approached this way. I don't know the scale of the part, but that tab looks like a problem if you are planning on using cloth, unless you are going to make that separately and then bond it in. Given the amount of work ...

MattW

If you are making lots, then that would be true. I am not a moldmaker, but I think the reality is all surfaces will be be surface machined anyway.

MattW

I am guessing what you really want is good solid model of the part. Ed Eaton gave a good presentation on using scan data to build a model at SWW a couple of years ago. https://dimontegroup.com/solidworks-world-2017-using-3d-scan-data-effectively-model-curvy-stuff/ I tried just doing the base-revolve...

MattW

Thanks for checking. We are on 2021, but I seem to recall checking earlier and not finding it. I'm wondering if it is because we have toolbox in PDM and it justs get updated and not reinstalled and so doesn't have the new standard.

MattW

There are some blog posts when SW2018 came out detailing how Torx fasteners were now included in toolbox in the ISO standard. We have ISO standard in our toolbox, but I am not finding the hexalobular folder. Has this been removed or is there a problem with our installation?

MattW

Do you mean the hiding and showing of constraints? Or do you mean the display size? Hiding and showing. The issue is, seeing constraints can be useful. But they can also be in the way a lot, especially if you find them too big. So a quick toggle to turn them on when you need them and off when you d...

MattW

I'm not answering your question directly, but I have a mouse gesture to toggle constraint display and it gets used a lot.

MattW

Late to the party, but- if you have a solid model, a sketch can be extracted pretty quickly. If you have a model (or dxf) post it up.

MattW

I can't help with your request, but I am interested in hearing how this comes out. Doesn't your cylindricity callout greatly exceed your straightness callout? Making a guess, I would not be surprised if breathing on this part will cause it to go out of spec.

MattW

SPerman wrote: ↑Thu Oct 28, 2021 2:44 pm I tried mirroring the block. It didn't work.

Can you share the block? Mine mirror fine.

MattW

I think I will just recreate the block with the sketch oriented properly. I was hoping there was a simple fix. You can mirror the block like any other sketch entity. If you go through the mirror command first, there is an option for the mirror to be a copy, or not. Otherwise, you can just delete th...

MattW

It holds a transducer. I have the good fortune of mostly cutting parts I designed, so any problems are my fault. The electrical guy I am working with on this project is saying scary things, like 200V at 20 MHz IMG-4313 r.jpg IMG-4314 r.jpg IMG-4316 r.jpg All the pics originally showed up upside down...

MattW

I would like to see a sample .step if you could share one.

MattW

Eliminate as many external references as you can. If dimensions are important, setup some contstruction geometry and dimension that, and then align the construction geometry to whatever features you want. Pre aligning isn't possible as far as I can tell, it is going to follow whatever orientation th...

MattW

I just wish it were easier to use. Why isn't there a "follow tangent" option? Why can't I select using a window? I have to select each line segment individually, and hope I don't accidentally click on something that causes it to screw up. There is a 'Select Tangency' in the right click menu

MattW

That gets the pattern to work, but loses the associativity of the end condition. I am at a loss to explain why the chamfer has to be in tree above the pattern but can't be selected as part of the pattern. I am going to chalk this up to bug that I would guess isn't easily understood.

MattW

I could have sworn I tried patterning the faces (which might be a better way of doing it anyway) and also have it not work. It is working now, I may have missed selecting a face. Having "Offset from Surface" bamboozle the feature, when that surface doesn't yet exist, makes sense, and also ...

MattW

I don't think I have seen something like this before- I want to pattern the boss and backside pocket, along with the fillet and chamfer. If I select all four, the pocket part of the pattern goes away, although it shows in the preview. If I don't pattern the chamfer, I get it back. If I move the cham...

MattW

Round tripping is so quick that it is the first thing to do when encountering import errors. Export in a neutral format and reimport fixes an impressive amount of problems. I have had it work even when exporting to the same format that had the problems initially.

MattW

I just tried this and it changed the font in the sketch. I would guess you need to change it in the template if you want it to be permanent.

MattW

I think this is a source file issue and not a SW issue. I think that under the hood the units for parasolids is meters, regardless of what units the user is using. I would guess that .step files are the same way. I believe there are neutral formats that do not specify (or assume) a unit, and just a ...

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