In this week’s post, we’re going to talk a bit about how you go about creating, and working with, assemblies. Remember, these aren’t hard and fast rules, they’re more guidelines. As anyone who has used SolidWorks for any length of time knows, there are multiple ways to get from point A to point B. When …
Category Archive: SolidWorks Tips
May
15
SolidWorks Crashes and Slowdowns, Part 4
This week, let’s talk about your PC. There are things you can do, and should do, to help keep your PC running smoothly. Hopefully, a lot of this will be old news for many of you. Keep your hard drive clean. Clean out your temp directories and defrag monthly. I like to use ccleaner to …
May
05
SolidWorks Crashes and Slowdowns, Part 3
I’m typing this up with, what may be, a broken thumb. As it turns out, it’s the thumb I use most on my spacebar, so it’s wreaking havoc not being able to use it. You never understand how much you depend on something until you can’t use it. I digress, again, though. Today, we’re going …
Apr
21
SolidWorks Crashes and Slowdowns, Part 2
Last week, when I started this “mini-series”, I talked mostly about your network. (Awesome post, btw. You can check it out here.) Today, let’s talk a little about crashes and what can cause them, shall we? You have SolidWorks open and you go to insert a drawing view. You can hear your computer crunching all …
Apr
14
SolidWorks Crashes & Slowdowns: It’s Your Fault
You like that title? I did when Richard told it to me. It’s also the title of a new presentation I’m working on. Richard had done a similar presentation back in ’04 and, realizing it was right up my alley, bequeathed it unto me. After much updating, it’s almost done. I’m hoping to be presenting …
Mar
23
3DContent Central – Have you been lately?
When was the last time you meandered over to 3D ContentCentral®? Have you ever been there? Whenever people jump onto one of the forums looking for a model, 3D ContentCentral is where they’re inevitably sent. Why? Because there’s over 500,000 CAD users registered. If each of them has contributed just 2 models, that’s a million …
Dec
16
Dealing with imported data
This will be a short post but, hopefully, a useful one. Have you ever imported a non-native SolidWorks file only to see errors? If you right click on one of those errors, you’ll see an option called ‘Import Diagnostics’. Choosing that will bring up a new dialogue box that gives you a list of the …
Sep
24
Let’s Talk Sheetmetal
I really like the Sheetmetal functionality in SolidWorks. I like that it’s fairly intuitive and does a nice job of creating your part. There is one aspect of it, however, that many people seem to miss. That would be the unfold/fold commands. When you have a part that’s been bent, and you need to cut …
Jul
31
Stumbling onto “new” things
So I’ve stumbled onto a couple of things in SolidWorks that I thought I’d share. I’m hoping that these weren’t common knowledge… First, have you ever brought a huge piece of equipment into a new assembly only to find that the assembly template’s planes are miniscule? Did you know you can right click on the …
Jul
17
Weldments and my IPod
What do Weldments in SolidWorks and my IPod have to do with each other you might ask? Nothing, aside from the fact that I’m listening to ITunes as I write this post. I finally broke down and bought an IPod Nano a few weeks ago and have now spent more money on song downloads than …
About Jeff’s Tool Shed
While most of what I write about will be about SolidWorks, or its partner products, from time to time I have been know to go off on random rants.
Legal B.S.:
The thoughts, opinions and commentary posted herein are mine and mine only. I speak only for myself and no other persons or entities, real or imagined.
To satisfy FTC disclosure rules:
I am provided with non-commercially licensed software and hardware for review by companies, including Dassault Systemes. While reviewing said software and hardware, I am in contact with employees of the companies involved and, occasionally, asked for feedback. I am not compensated for any of this.
DS SolidWorks Corporation has paid for my travel, accommodations, and some meals, for various user group events including SolidWorks World.
Questions, comments or complaints can be posted in the 'comments' section of each post or you can email me directly.
Thanks for reading!
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