My Top 5 Enhancements in SolidWorks 2009

Posted on November 28th, 2008 in Assemblies, Configurations, Dimensions, Models, Productivity, Sketches, SolidWorks by The SW Geek

Hey Geeks! I hope everybody had a great Thanksgiving. Let me start off by apologizing to all of my readers for my most recent absence. I have been knee deep in a project that will be extremely important to the future of the SolidWorks Geek. When the right time comes, I will tell you more about it in detail. So on to the fun stuff… Last week I installed SolidWorks 2009, so as of today The SolidWorks Geek blog has gone to the new version. I wanted to start the transition off with telling you about some of my favorite new additions to SolidWorks 2009. I can spend hours telling you about all of my favorite additions, so to keep you from falling asleep on your keyboard I decided to narrow it down to 5 features.

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Building a Stapler - Arm Spring

Posted on September 26th, 2008 in Configurations, Design Tutorial, Dimensions, SolidWorks, Stapler by The SW Geek

After missing a week, we are finally back to building our stapler. The last time we were here, we made a multi-configured spring for the anvil without using a Design Table. Today we are going to make another spring but this time we are going to be creating a simple design table to configure the spring. So let’s see what we need to do…

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Standards Wednesday - Limits of Size Pt2

Posted on September 24th, 2008 in Dimensions, Drawings, GD&T, Standards by The SW Geek

Today will be a short article continuing on where we left off last week when we covering the Limits of Size. Section 2.7 of ASME Y14.5-1994 only relates to the Limits of Size and limits of size do not control the orientation or location of features. Section 2.7.3 goes into detail about this and we will quickly examine the contents of this section today.

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Standards Wednesday - Limits of Size

Posted on September 17th, 2008 in Dimensions, Drawings, Standards by The SW Geek

Don’t you just love Wednesdays? Monday is a distant memory, Friday is just in sight and of course…Standards Wednesday. If you have never heard of Standards Wednesday…where have you been? On Wednesdays, I try my best to break down different standards and specifications that impact our daily life as engineers, designers and drafters. For the past few weeks we have been taking a detailed look at ASME Y14.5-1994, and this week is no different. Today we will get knee deep into Section 2.7, Limits of Size; try not to get any on your good shirt.

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Standards Wednesday - Tolerance Accumulation

Posted on September 3rd, 2008 in Dimensions, Drawings, Standards by The SW Geek

We are back this week with some more ASME goodness after taking a short break. This week is all about Tolerance Accumulation per Section 2.6 of ASME Y14.5. You maybe asking yourself right now, “What is Tolerance Accumulation?”. Tolerance accumulation, or tolerance stack-up, is the dimensional variance between two features of a part based on the tolerance range of the intermediate dimensions. How you apply dimensions and tolerances to features on a part can have a huge effect on the finished part. Today we will look at some simple parts and how different methods of dimensions can give you dramatically different results.

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Standards Wednesday - General Tolerancing Pt2

Posted on August 20th, 2008 in Dimensions, Drawings, Standards by admin

Last week I started covering Section 2 of ASME Y14.5-1994, General Tolerancing and Related Principles, with the post Standards Wednesday - General Tolerancing Pt1. This week we will continue to explore this section of the ASME Y14.5 with Section 2.3, Tolerance Expression; Section 2.4, Interpretation of Limits and Section 2.5, Single Limits. Section 2 is a pretty hefty section and it will take us a few weeks to go through but we really need to cover it before we move on to GD&T.

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Standards Wednesday - General Tolerancing Pt1

Posted on August 13th, 2008 in Dimensions, Drawings, Standards by The SW Geek

Another Wednesday is upon us and it’s time for another installment of Standards Wednesday. This week we get to jump in right into Section 2 of ASME Y14.5, General Tolerancing and Related Principles. If you are new to Standards Wednesday, let me explain it to you. Every week I take a different part of an ASME standard and do my best at breaking it down into easy to understand English and try to relate it to SolidWorks.  Over the last couple of weeks I covered Section 1 and if you missed anything, I highly recommend going back and read them…they were pretty good.

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Standards Wednesday - Location of Features

Posted on August 6th, 2008 in Dimensions, Drawings, Standards by The SW Geek

It’s Wednesday and you what that means…another Standards Wednesday! Woo-Hoo! What better way to celebrate the hump day then with some ASME goodness? Last week we finally completed our four part series on dimensioning of features per Section 1.8 of ASME Y14.5M-1994. This week we move onto the next section, Section 1.9, Location of Features. Section 1.9 describes the methods used to dimension the location of features. Basically there are two main methods to dimension the location of features; rectangular and polar coordinate dimensions. Today we will dig into both of these two methods.

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I Got Lazy!

Posted on August 1st, 2008 in Assemblies, Configurations, Customize, Dimensions, Drawings, Instant3D, Mates, Selection Tools, ToolBars, User Interface by admin

Okay, I know some of you are expecting the next model for the stapler. To be honest, I needed a day off. So I took a page from Josh’s book and decided to do a summary post for all of my new subscribers. If you are new there are a few good tips you may have missed. Today, I will introduce you to some of my favorite post.

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Standards Wednesday - Dimensioning Features Pt4

Posted on July 30th, 2008 in Dimensions, Drawings, Standards by admin

There’s been a whole lotta shakin’ going on here in SoCal but it’s going to take more then a little rumbling to keep me from bringing you some ASME goodness. This week we finally get to finish up on dimensioning features per Section 1.8 of ASME Y14.5M-1994. Make sure you go back and read the previous post, if you missed any of them. Let’s go ahead and jump right into the fun before we get hit with an aftershock.

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