The industry's top engineers, designers, and additive manufacturing experts offer their best advice, research, how-tos, and insights—all in the name of helping you level-up your 3D designs and engineering skills.
When creating a First Article Inspection report, it’s sometimes necessary to specify characteristics that will be inspected on a pass/fail basis. This may result from inspecting with dedicated tooling or gauges like a Go/No Go thread gauge, or by performing a functionality check with other mating … [Read more...] about Pass/Fail Criteria for Characteristics in SOLIDWORKS Inspection
If you’re a user of SOLIDWORKS, you’re probably aware that Dassault Systèmes also offers a family of products that go beyond just CAD without having to leave the familiar SOLIDWORKS design environment. SOLIDWORKS Flow Simulation is one example of this, allowing any design engineer to test fluid … [Read more...] about Solution-Adaptive Meshing in SOLIDWORKS Flow Simulation
Have you ever manufactured a part only to find it doesn’t fit properly in an assembly? Or perhaps you’ve completed an assembly only to discover that components don’t have adequate range of motion for proper function. It happens to the best of us, and you likely already know how frustrating the lost … [Read more...] about How to Check Interference and Range of Motion in SOLIDWORKS
DriveWorks makes enhancements to the software every year, and this past year was no different. In this blog post, we will cover the top five design automation improvements. These improvements cover an array of things such as time-saving changes, new features to promote ease of use, completely new … [Read more...] about Top 5 Design Automation Features in DriveWorks
Looking for ways to hide and show components in an assembly in SOLIDWORKS? These tricks are especially useful when trying to apply mates or seeing what’s hidden under a component without changing its transparency. We’ll be looking at hiding and showing components with the ‘eye’ icon, Display Pane … [Read more...] about How to Hide or Show Components in SOLIDWORKS Assemblies
With the launch of Inconel 625 and D2 Tool Steel, the Markforged Metal X is now able to print parts in five different metals. With these five available materials, it is easier than ever for users to print parts with a metal that fits their application. In today’s blog, we’ll be taking a closer look … [Read more...] about Material Properties and Uses of the Markforged Metal X
National Pipe Thread Taper, commonly known just as NPT, is a U.S. standard for tapered threads used on threaded pipes and fittings. This standard is widely used all over North America. Pipe thread sizes are usually based on the inside diameter (ID) or flow size. The way to read an NPT size is the … [Read more...] about Creating NPT Threads in SOLIDWORKS Using the Hole Wizard Feature
Creating a part to be as realistic as possible allows us to make accurate models in SOLIDWORKS. If an accurate value for mass is needed, how can that be achieved? What about coordinates for center of mass, or design volume? Assigning Mass Properties Luckily, the simple and convenient Mass … [Read more...] about Exploring Mass Properties in SOLIDWORKS
