Part II: Building Intelligence into Your Parts 428 FIGURE 11.24 Deviation analysis of an existing part Select RMB then select tangency FIGURE 11.25 Rolling back to just after the spiral Chapter 11: Editing and Evaluation 429 5. Try to draw a horizontal line from the outer end of the spiral. You will notice that you cannot reference the end of the spiral. Tip Curves that are absorbed into other features are notoriously difficult to work with. Generally, you need to select them from the FeatureManager to do anything at all with them. Also, if you need to reference an end of an absorbed curve, you are better off using Convert Entities to make it into a sketch entity. n 6. Notice that you cannot select the spiral from the graphics window. Even when selected from the FeatureManager, it appears not to be selected in the graphics window. Ensure that it is selected in the FeatureManager, and then click the Convert Entities but- ton on the sketch toolbar. 7. Draw a horizontal line from the outer end of the spiral and dimension it to be three inches long, as shown in Figure 11.26. FIGURE 11.26 Preparing for the Fit Spline 8. Select both the converted spiral and the line, and click Tools ➪ Spline Tools ➪ Fit Spline. Set the Tolerance to .1 and make sure that only the Constrained option is selected. Click OK to accept the Fit Spline. Test to make sure that a single spline is created by mov- ing your cursor over the sketch to see whether the whole length is highlighted. Note The Fit Spline feature fits a spline to a set of sketch entities within the specified tolerance. It can be a useful tool for smoothing out sketch geometry. n Part II: Building Intelligence into Your Parts 430 Caution Do not exit the Fit Spline by pressing the Enter key as you do with other commands, because it simply exits you out of the command without creating a spline. n 9. Right-click on spline and select the Curvature Comb. Notice how the comb is affected by the transition from the spiral to the straight line. 10. Exit the sketch, and create a new plane. Choose Insert ➪ Reference Geometry ➪ Plane from the menus. Select the Right plane from the Flyout FeatureManager as the first refer- ence and the outer end of the Fit Spline that you have just created as the second refer- ence. Click OK to accept the new plane. This is illustrated in Figure 11.27. FIGURE 11.27 Creating a new plane 11. Drag the Rollback bar down between Sketch3 and Loft1. If it goes beyond Loft1, then you need to navigate back to this position again. 12. Right-click Sketch3 and select Edit Sketch Plane. Select the newly created Plane1 from the Flyout FeatureManager, and click OK to accept the change. 13. Notice that the loft profile has moved to a place where it does not belong. This is because the sketch has a Pierce constraint to the spiral, and there are multiple places where the spiral pierces the sketch plane. Edit Sketch3 and delete the Pierce constraint on the sketch point in the middle of the construction line. Create a Coincident relation between the sketch point and the outer end of the Fit Spline, as shown in Figure 11.28. Do not exit the sketch. Chapter 11: Editing and Evaluation 431 FIGURE 11.28 Sketch3 in its new location 14. One of the goals of these edits is to smooth out the part. Remember that the Deviation Analysis told you that the edges created between the lines and arcs in Sketch3 were not very tangent. For this reason, it would be a good idea to replace the lines and arcs in Sketch3 with another Fit Spline. Right-click one of the solid sketch entities in Sketch3, and click Select Chain. 15. Create another Fit Spline using the same technique as in Step 8. Exit the sketch. 16. Drag the Rollback bar down one feature so that it is below the Loft. Notice that the Loft feature has failed. If you hold the cursor over the feature icon, the tooltip confirms this by displaying the message, “The Loft Feature Failed to Complete.” 17. Edit the Loft feature. Expand the Centerline Parameters panel if it is not already expanded, and delete the Spiral from the selection box. In its place, select the Spiral Fit Spline. 18. If the loft does not preview, check to ensure that the Show Preview option is selected in the Options panel, at the bottom. 19. If it still does not preview, right-click in the graphics window and select Show All Connectors. Position the blue dots on the connector so that it looks like Figure 11.29. 20. Click OK to accept the loft. The loft should be much smoother now than it was before. In addition, the spiral feature should no longer be under the loft; it should now be the first item in the design tree. 21. Drag the Rollback bar down to just before the Shell feature. Notice that Fillet5 has failed. Move the mouse over Fillet5. The tooltip tells you that it is missing some refer- ences. Edit Fillet5 and select edges in order to create fillets, as shown in Figure 11.30. Part II: Building Intelligence into Your Parts 432 FIGURE 11.29 Positioning the connectors Position connector dots in approximately corresponding locations on the two loft profiles 22. Right-click in the design tree and select Roll To End. This causes the FeatureManager to become unrolled all the way to the end. 23. The outlet of the involute is now longer than it should be. This is because the original extrude was never deleted from the end. Right-click the Extrude1 feature and select Parent/Child. The feature needs to be deleted, but you need to know what is going to be deleted with it. 24. The Shell is listed as a child of the extrude because the end face of the extrude was chosen to be removed by the Shell. Edit the Shell feature and remove the reference to the face. (A Shell feature with no faces to remove is still hollowed out.) 25. If you right-click Extrude1 and select Parent/Child again, the Shell feature is no lon- ger listed as a child. 26. Delete Extrude1, and when the dialog box appears, press Alt+F to select Also Delete Absorbed Features. Chapter 11: Editing and Evaluation 433 FIGURE 11.30 Repairing Fillet5 Make selections to fillet edges 27. Edit the Shell feature and select the large end of the loft. Exit the Shell feature. The results up to this step are shown in Figure 11.31. FIGURE 11.31 The results up to Step 27 28. Drag a window in the design tree to select the four fillet features. Then right-click and select Add to New Folder. Rename the new folder Fillet Folder. 29. Click the Section View tool, and create a section view using the Front plane. 30. Reorder the Fillet folder to after the Shell feature. Part II: Building Intelligence into Your Parts 434 31. At this point, you should notice that something does not look right. This is because creating the fillets after the Shell causes the outside fillets to break through some of the inside corners. The fillets should have failed, but have not, as shown in Figure 11.32. FIGURE 11.32 Fillets that should have failed 32. Choose Tools ➪ Options ➪ Performance, and select Verification on rebuild. Then click OK to exit the Performance menu and press Ctrl+Q. The fillets should now fail. 33. Click Undo to return the feature order to the way it was. 34. Save the part. Summary Working effectively with feature history, even in complex models, is a requirement for working with parts that others have created. When I get a part from someone else, the first thing that I usu- ally do is look at the FeatureManager and roll it back if possible to get an idea of how the part was modeled. Looking at sketches, relations, feature order, symmetry, redundancy, sketch reuse, and so on are important steps in being able to repair or edit any part. Using modeling best practice techniques helps ensure that when edits have to be done, they are easy to accomplish, even if they are done by someone who did not build the part. Evaluation techniques are really the heart of editing, as you should not make too many changes without a basic evaluation of the strengths and weaknesses of the current model. SolidWorks pro- vides a wide array of evaluation tools. Time spent learning how to use the tools and interpret the results is time well spent. T he chapters of Part III detail the tools you need to be familiar with in order to get the most from your assemblies. Of these, Chapters 12 and 16 are my favorites. These are loaded with best-practice suggestions and tips for efficient workflow. Chapter 16, the in-context chapter, is particularly important for SolidWorks users from many different fields who need or want to make parametric relations between parts. A lot of erroneous information floats around the SolidWorks community on this topic, and this chapter will help you cull the reliable information. IN THIS PART Chapter 12 Building Efficient Assemblies Chapter 13 Getting More from Mates Chapter 14 Controlling Assembly Configurations and Display States Chapter 15 Using Component Patterns and Mirrors Chapter 16 Modeling in Context Working with Assemblies Part III [...]... edited in the context of the assembly, but they cannot cross any document barriers (links must remain within a single document) Renaming Equations update with new part names regardless of how the part is renamed Names of subassemblies also update when assembly files are renamed This includes renaming a document using the Save As command, using SolidWorks Explorer, or using Windows Explorer It also includes... functions of your SolidWorks assembly model Is the assembly intended primarily for design? For visualization? For documentation? For process documentation? When used primarily for design, the assembly is used to determine fits, tolerances, mechanisms, and many other things As a visualization tool, it simply has to look good and possibly move properly if that is part of the design As a documentation tool,... older versions of SolidWorks (such as SolidWorks 2001+), mates used to be split up into multiple mate groups, which represented the groupings that mates were solved in This was forced by mating to the history-based features in the assembly FeatureManager SolidWorks no longer displays mate groups, but the groups are still used in the background to solve mates This is another change that SolidWorks has... separating the BOM from the assembly structure rather than building an assembly that makes other SolidWorks functions difficult This ensures that the BOM becomes a manually maintained document Alternatives to this approach would be to make configurations or entirely new assembly documents to drive the BOM n 452 Chapter 12: Building Efficient Assemblies Grouping subassemblies by relative motion A more... assembly process Manufacturing and assembly processes need to be documented as well as individual part design You often need to create exploded-view assembly instructions for manufacturing or service documentation at each step of a multi-step assembly process Figure 12.9 shows a page of this type of process documentation FIGURE 12.9 Assembly process documentation This is certainly a task that is different... not enter proper descriptions for the parts, and SolidWorks used the default description in the templates The tire and spokes use configurations, which display in the figure 459 Part III: Working with Assemblies FIGURE 12.14 An example of what can occur when you do not enter proper descriptions for parts Using Component Reference per Instance SolidWorks 2010 adds Component Reference capabilities In the... the RMB menu, SolidWorks highlights the component you clicked on, and makes all parts that mate to that component transparent Any parts that are not related are hidden SolidWorks also opens up a small dialog box with the list of mates touching the component you clicked on 461 Part III: Working with Assemblies Figure 12.17 shows this arrangement using the Bible Bike assembly If you are a SolidWorks veteran,... drawings Figure 12 .5 shows first the SpeedPak PropertyManager, which you access by right-clicking an active configuration, and selecting Add SpeedPak Each configuration can have only one SpeedPak Figure 12 .5 also shows the configuration list with the SpeedPak listed indented under the Default config, and the entire assembly The final image shows the SpeedPak inserted into an assembly document, consisting... control 451 Part III: Working with Assemblies FIGURE 12.7 Creating a flexible subassembly Organizing for the BOM The Bill of Materials, or BOM, is a table that is placed either into a drawing of an assembly or in an assembly itself This table shows the parts used in the assembly and includes other information, such as part numbers, quantities, descriptions, and custom property data Cross-Reference SolidWorks. .. as BOM inclusion and numbered balloons Ghost data displays as gray on the drawing, while geometry in the Include list is black 447 Part III: Working with Assemblies FIGURE 12 .5 Managing SpeedPaks Model of Garmin assembly from the SolidWorks demo sets 448 Chapter 12: Building Efficient Assemblies Using Subassemblies The primary tool for organizing assemblies is the subassembly A subassembly is just a . before the Shell feature. Notice that Fillet5 has failed. Move the mouse over Fillet5. The tooltip tells you that it is missing some refer- ences. Edit Fillet5 and select edges in order to create. existing part Select RMB then select tangency FIGURE 11. 25 Rolling back to just after the spiral Chapter 11: Editing and Evaluation 429 5. Try to draw a horizontal line from the outer end of the. particularly important for SolidWorks users from many different fields who need or want to make parametric relations between parts. A lot of erroneous information floats around the SolidWorks community