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.
Recently at Hawk Ridge Systems, one of our customers, Keir B. from L-3 Communications Sonoma, contacted the technical support team for some help with a validation example that he set up in order to better predict what would happen with a more complex real-world model. Keir wanted to make sure he was … [Read more...] about SOLIDWORKS Simulation: Thermal Expansion
I was at the Pacific Design and Manufacturing show in Anaheim this year helping out in the SolidWorks booth and while there, I was approached by an Enterprise PDM user who had an interesting situation. Basically, his company has a couple different types of “Projects” and when a new project comes in, … [Read more...] about SolidWorks EPDM – Tip #1: Templates for Multiple Serial Numbers
One of the great advantages of Enterprise PDM is that it can be linked to Active Directory accounts for user authentication purposes. This means that users will have the same login for EPDM as they do for their computer and with just 1 login to remember, there is generally less confusion and the … [Read more...] about Auto Login with SolidWorks EPDM
Have you ever sat at your desk, digesting the results of your most recent Simulation study, and wondered: "Is this right?" If you're like most engineers, the answer is, (and probably should be), yes. While incorrect Simulation results can be caused by anything from a typo in your pressure load to … [Read more...] about SOLIDWORKS Simulation: Achieving Convergence of Results
For the new Simulation user (and even for the experienced user) meshing an assembly model can be a real headache. Real-life assemblies, are complex, have detailed areas, and often have thin or small parts that need to be incorporated in the mesh. While SolidWorks has one of the most robust meshers … [Read more...] about SolidWorks Simulation – Curvature-based vs. Standard Mesher
Recently one of my colleagues was speaking with SolidWorks on the topic of Auto Logoff in EPDM and we learned a few things that we didn’t know before about how the process worked that I think are worth passing on. The standard explanation is that after 30 minutes of “inactivity”, that user can be … [Read more...] about Tips for Auto Logoff in SolidWorks Enterprise PDM
Customers ask me if there is a tolerance analysis tool for SolidWorks. The answer is… “There is, and you may already own it.” Anyone who has SolidWorks premium has an add-in call TolAnalyst that is included with this package. This tool leverages information put in by the free DimXpert tool … [Read more...] about Did you know you have a Tolerance Analysis Tool in SolidWorks?
SOLIDWORKS FEA Not a week goes by that I don’t get some sort of list sent to me from a CAD journal, website or spam email that promises to tell me“Ten great ways to improve your productivity”, “Five reasons why design projects go over budget” or “The top ten ways to procrastinate on the internet” … [Read more...] about SOLIDWORKS FEA – Simulation Analytics: 3 Golden Rules
