This functionality has been long time requested by SolidWorks users like you, as a quick way to determine the smallest box you can package your model in.

Watch this video and tell the good news SolidWorks 2013 brings to your colleagues from the estimating and shipping departments.

They will love you for that!

Update: After I finished creating this video I realized that this new functionality will be priceless for users involved with 3D Printing by minimizing the support material and the printing times.

I am pretty sure you have spotted the same opportunity, but, just in case you are in doubt, I will try to prove this point next week with a second video on how to use the new bounding boxes enhancement for saving time and money while 3D Printing.

The post Alin’s SW2013 Pick of the Day – Bounding Boxes (1) appeared first on SolidWorks Tech Tips, Videos & Tutorials from Javelin.

Let’s say I was recently given a project to work on and it was very similar to an old project. After reading an article on Javelin’s blog about Pack and Go, I decided I was going to use this handy tool within SolidWorks to make a copy of the old fileset and update all the references in it. However, when I went to print the drawings, I found an annoying problem that I’d not considered:

Who are these people???

The fields are controlled by Custom Properties

Our title blocks use Custom Properties to complete fields that indicate who was responsible for the initial design of the old project. As these are Custom Properties, they are not modified during the Pack and Go. Of course, this is an old drawing (the dates are all 2007, before I started working for this company). N.P. and P.K. have left the company and nobody I’ve asked even knows who R.R. is. Therefore, if the shop floor has any questions about the design they’ll have no one to turn to. I want to update this, but there are nearly 600 drawings associated to this project, and to do this manually would take hours (2 hour 30 minutes, assuming 15 seconds per drawing). Luckily, SolidWorks has another handy tool to help make my life easier:

Start > All Programs > SolidWorks 20__ > SolidWorks Tools > SolidWorks Task Scheduler

SolidWorks Task Scheduler allows me to automate a variety of tasks that would otherwise be tedious and time-consuming. Please note that with SolidWorks Standard, not all functionality will be available. However, since I have SolidWorks Premium (or Professional), I have access to the full functionality of this tool. Behold:

SolidWorks Task Scheduler in action

I first click on the task I wish to run, in this case Update Custom Properties. Then I specify which files I want to run the task on by clicking Add Folder and browsing to my working folder.If I wish, I can schedule the task to run right now, or at a later time (such as when I’m on lunch, in a meeting, or after I’ve gone home). If I’m running it now, I usually remind myself at this point to close SolidWorks. If I’m running it later, then I’ll set an alarm on my computer to remind me before.

Manually complete this form

Since I’ve not run the files through Task Scheduler, it doesn’t know what Custom Properties exist. Therefore I need to populate it by manually typing in the values. These need to match what was in the file in SolidWorks. The advantage is that I need only do this once. I’ve decided to clear out the other fields as well, since it would be sloppy and unprofessional to claim that former employees checked an approved my work before I started here. I’ve placed a space in the Value column for these properties. If I don’t, it will give me a warning that “Some of the custom property items are missing. Enter the missing items”

Result!

After I’ve run the task, I open my drawing. All 600 drawings show that they are not approved and were created by me with today’s date. I had a busy day!

The post How to Use SolidWorks Task Scheduler to Modify Custom Properties appeared first on SolidWorks Tech Tips, Videos & Tutorials from Javelin.

With computers, file management is comparatively easy to real life. Windows can tell you with the timestamp how old a file is, which makes finding the newer file easy. All the files are stored in logical places and it’s easy to do a search for a specific filename. With PDM, you can get even more information about a file. Of course, when you go to print this drawing, all that organization goes out the window. You can’t right-click on a piece of paper to get its properties (and if trying to right-click on a piece of paper is your first instinct, you’re spending too much time on the computer). If only there was a way to do this…

Oh, but there is!

As you know from reading our blogs, you can insert a note in a drawing and link it to a custom property, or automatically populate portions of your titleblock. These can easily communicate information necessary to manufacture the part on the drawing, but they do nothing to help with document management. But what if I wanted my printed drawing to show things like the date, the filepath, the last person to make a change? For example in the figure below the vertical line of text ‘PRINTED ON 2013-08-22 BY jpeltier C:\Users\jpeltier\Desktop\Draw1′ denotes when the document was printed, by whom, and where the document is located on disc.

PRINTED ON info added

Having that information on the drawing would be ideal, but typing that out manually every time would be a pain! Instead, I can add the note to my titleblock and use certain SolidWorks properties to control the fields that appear. Behold:

Click the image to enlarge

Afterwards, it’s just a matter of formatting the note to put it in a less intrusive location. Now, people on the shop floor know where the file is stored, when it was printed, and who the last person to save it was (and by extension, who to chase after for missing dimensions).

Something worth mentioning is that the format of the properties SW-Short Date(Short Date) and SW-Long Date(Long Date) are driven by your Windows settings. If you use DD/MM/YY, and your colleague uses MM/DD/YY, then you could run into problems. It’s best to standardize these types of things. I always recommend YYYY-MM-DD (ISO format) because there’s absolutely no ambiguity, and the last thing you want on an engineering drawing is ambiguity.

The post Who Printed This Drawing? And When? And Where is it Stored? appeared first on SolidWorks Tech Tips, Videos & Tutorials from Javelin.

In an ideal world, we would have just one system of measurements. However, we do not live in an ideal world. SolidWorks does its best to compensate by doing conversions automatically and effortlessly for you, but the one area it falls short in for the time being is in BOM’s. You get stuck using the units of the drawing. You can switch the units on the drawing, but then your dimensions all get switched, too. However, despite the half-dozen Enhancement Requests for the functionality of units on a BOM, there is no easy way to do this.

But there is a way, and if you’ve set up some custom properties in advance, then it can be easy. Watch this!

It may have been a bit hard to see, but the syntax I typed in at the end of the equation is {}” IN”{}

The entire equation reads {2}`Length`/25.4{}” IN”{}

Now, apparently in newer versions of SolidWorks, the {} before and after the ” IN” are no longer required! One of the things with newer versions of SolidWorks is that the old workflows still work! This workflow will work in older versions as well as current versions, but chances are you won’t need the {}. Test it on your own machine!

The same procedure applies to the mass column, except that the multiplier would obviously be different. I had mentioned that there were some Enhancement Requests for this functionality. Please see below for the list I found:

Vote for one of these if you would like this functionality to be even easier!

The post Showing or Switching Units in a BOM [VIDEO] appeared first on SolidWorks Tech Tips, Videos & Tutorials from Javelin.

If you’ve ever dealt with legacy parts or imported parts, then you have probably experienced adding Custom Properties manually. In fact, when you’re adding Custom Properties to a series of parts, then you may have used Task Scheduler to automatically add or modify these properties. But what about when half of your assembly already has the Custom Properties that you want and the other half doesn’t. This would quickly become a very time-consuming task of opening each part and adding the Custom Properties to each one.

However, a little trick that you can use next time you find yourself in this situation is to modify it directly from the BOM! I will explain how:

Imagine that you work for a company and as one of your “continuous improvement initiatives,” you are now adding the preferred supplier to a custom property called “Supplier.” This is easy enough to include going forward. Your templates have been modified to include the new property, your procedures have been updated, but what about all the parts you previously had designed? They all lack the Supplier property.

Three down, thirty-three to go…

All you need is to have ONE part that has the Supplier property and you can add it as a column in my BOM. Parts that do not have this property will simply be blank in the BOM. If you double-click on any of the blank cells, SolidWorks will give you the following message:

If you select Keep Link, then enter a value into the field, SolidWorks will add a Configuration-specific Custom Property to that part that equates to whatever you enter in the table. While you still have to populate the fields one by one, you save a lot of time by not having to open each part and add the Custom Property manually.

Hint: Do not use the mouse to navigate from cell to cell. Just press Enter after inputing each value in order to move to the next row.

The post SolidWorks: Adding Custom Properties Using the BOM appeared first on SolidWorks Tech Tips, Videos & Tutorials from Javelin.

The ability to Link a custom property to an instance of Sketched Text within a drawing is a feature we have had since this capability was introduced in the 2010 release of SolidWorks. The video below will show you how to do just that!

The Suggestion for this tech tip was made by Graham Brown of CARBER Investments Inc. during one of our recent JOLT courses

The post Link Sketched Text to a File Property [VIDEO] appeared first on SolidWorks Tech Tips, Videos & Tutorials from Javelin.

When configuring the SolidWorks Toolbox, you can enter “Description” and “Comment” values for each fastener’s size. These values are populated to configuration specific custom properties in the SolidWorks part files. But what if you wanted to enter more property information than just these two values?

Toolbox Part Custom Properties

This can be done by setting up additional custom property columns in the Toolbox Settings tool.

To add additional custom properties:

Step 1. Launch the Toolbox Settings tool from Start > All Programs > SolidWorks 20XX > SolidWorks Tools > Toolbox Settings. Click on “2. Customize your hardware”.

Step 1

Step 2. Click any in the greyed area at the bottom of the screen.

Step 2

Step 3. Click the “Add new Custom Property” button.

Step 3

Step 4. Type in the new configuration specific property name. Make sure that the option “Add as a configuration specific property” is selected.

Step 4

Step 5. Select the Toolbox Standard or Standards that you with to apply the new configuration specific property to, then click the checkbox beside the property name to apply it.

Step 5

Step 6. Click Save to apply the settings that you have saved.

Step 6

Step 7. Navigate to the toolbox component that you wish to add the custom property information for and enter the value into the text box in the column.

Step 7

Once entered into the box, the value will be populated to the “Configuration Specific” tab of the Properties dialogue box.

Configuration Specific Custom Property

The post Creating Configuration Specific Properties in Toolbox Parts [VIDEO] appeared first on SolidWorks Tech Tips, Videos & Tutorials from Javelin.

There are some occasions where you may need a single Custom Property value to have multiple lines.  The Custom Property dialog only has one line and hitting enter will just evaluate the value for a single line.  However you can have multiple lines by copying the values in from Notepad.

Copy Multi-line Property from Notepad

The Evaluated Value column in the Custom Properties dialog will only display the first line, however if you link a Note to this property, it will display all the lines.

Link to Property

Here is a video demonstrating the workflow:

More Custom Property Techniques

To learn more about working with SOLIDWORKS Custom Properties you can take our 2 day SolidWorks Custom Properties Management live online training course.

The post SOLIDWORKS Multi-Line Custom Properties [VIDEO] appeared first on SolidWorks Tech Tips, Videos & Tutorials from Javelin.

The SOLIDWORKS 2016 Property Tab Builder is a great tool to easily add Custom Properties to your SOLIDWORKS part directly from the task pane. With SOLIDWORKS 2016 there has been some very cool enhancements that I think you are going to like! The latest Property Tab Builder now supports:

• Additional Radio Buttons for features, you can now have up to 10 radio buttons rather than just 3 in the previous version.
• Conditional lists is a new feature that lets you define and administer lists once, and eliminate errors by automating the population of dependent properties. For example, you can create a parent list of different materials and a second set of lists of finishes, where the availability of a finish is dependent on the selection of a material. Users select a material, then select a finish from the options that are available for their material.
• Updated List Attributes you can populate a list by typing values or importing them from a text file or a Microsoft™ Excel spreadsheet.

Check out the video below for a demonstration of the new features and how to use the Property Tab Builder to add custom properties to a part document:

Learn more about SOLIDWORKS 2016

To learn other what’s new tip in SOLIDWORKS 2016 you should watch a recording of our recent launch event broadcast.

The post SOLIDWORKS 2016 Property Tab Builder [VIDEO] appeared first on SOLIDWORKS Tech Tips, Videos & Tutorials from Javelin.

Here at Javelin we are witness to a wide variety of ways that customers manage their custom property data. Often, we also get to see  which of those values become the most important details to a project.

Some versatility that SOLIDWORKS offers us in regard to custom property metadata isn’t so obvious. Take the “Description” field within the “Save As” dialog for example.

SOLIDWORKS Save As dialog description field

You can link a Custom Property to the Save As dialog description field so that SOLIDWORKS will push this value into any of the custom properties available.

This can be accomplished by entering the settings dialog, under System Options > General > “Custom property used as component description“.

Custom Property used as component description setting

Once adjusted the value typed within the “Save “as” dialog will then be pushed to the chosen custom property in any new files.

Custom Property connected to the description field

The post Link the SOLIDWORKS Save As dialog description field to a Custom Property appeared first on SOLIDWORKS Tech Tips, Videos & Tutorials from Javelin.

With ECO’s/ECN’s, consistency of data input can be ensured by populating the ECO’s/ECN’s with Variables (Custom Properties) entered through Data Cards. These ECO’s/ECN’s are often in the form of a Word or Excel documents. In this article we will look look at creating a link between a property in Excel to a data card variable.

This article will assume that the appropriate variable has been configured for Excel xls and/or xlsx file types and that the variable has been mapped to the the data card. If you have not done this and do not know how this is done, please refer to the SolidWorks Enterprise PDM Administration Guide.

In Excel, select  a cell or a range of cells that will be linked to the Custom Property.

From the Formula tab, select Define Name.

Enter the Name and select the appropriate Scope

Left click the Microsoft Office Button, select Prepare and then select Properties.

Select Advanced Properties.

Click on the “Custom Tab to add/select a property and assign a Value to the property. Next select Link to Content and press Add. Once this is done press OK.

The Excel document can now be used as a template, so that information entered into the Data Card, will populate the appropriate cells.

Please refer to my blog article ‘EPDM – Mapping Variables to Microsoft Office‘ to see how this process can be applied to Microsoft Word.

The post EPDM – Using “Link to content” to Define custom file properties in Excel appeared first on SOLIDWORKS Tech Tips, Videos & Tutorials from Javelin.

In complicated drawings where there are many details to represent, you may want to label specific SOLIDWORKS coordinate points in your drawing views. If only a few labels are required then two dimensions can be used, one for horizontal and the other for vertical distance. Alternatively, Chain or Ordinate dimensions can denote XY coordinates with a measured distance from an origin point on the sides of a drawing view as shown in the example below:

Ordinate Dimensions

However, if there are too many points and you would like to eliminate the dimension lines in order to prevent crowding the view, there is another possibility to show the XY coordinate of any point in a drawing view with respect to a defined origin. Here is how:

1. Add points to the desired locations in the model. Points could be added using 2D or 3D sketches. Then, dimension the points to an arbitrary origin.

Add points in the Part environment

2. From File > Properties, add a custom property using the two dimensions made in the previous step as demonstrated in the following image:

Add a custom property

3. In the drawing, select the points and link them to the custom property which were made in the part properties:

Link the points to the custom properties

4. The result shows the X and Y coordinate of each point with respect to the specified origin. The values are parametric and therefore will update in case of modifications in the part environment:

SOLIDWORKS coordinate points label

Where Coordinates Are Measured from:

• The origin from which the distances are measured could be specified by a text in drawing. Alternatively, turning on the origin symbol in drawing allows demonstrating the origin of measurements.
• The added coordinate in the drawing is made of a Note command which is editable. For instance, adding units, description of where that point is, etc.

Show origin & units

Learn more about Drawings

To gain a better understanding of using dimensions you should plan to attend our SOLIDWORKS Drawings training course either online or in a Canadian city near you.

The post How to identify and label X & Y coordinate points in a SOLIDWORKS Drawing appeared first on SOLIDWORKS Tech Tips, Videos & Tutorials from Javelin.

The best practice for populating a SOLIDWORKS title block is to have the fields linked to model custom properties. So when your part or assembly model is dropped into the drawing the title block will be populated automatically.

But not everyone wants to work this way, so let’s assume that you have a part or assembly that does not contain custom property data and you need to make a drawing for it.

One option is to edit the sheet format, double-click on each text box, and type in the information directly. However, editing the sheet format always carries the risk of moving the text around, using the wrong font, and messing up the template settings. Fortunately, there is a better way to fill out the title block without going into the sheet format.

How to Setup the Template

The following steps provide the method to create a template without custom property linking.

Step 1: Right-click on the drawing sheet and select “Edit Sheet Format” from the shortcut menu as shown in the following image:

Edit Sheet Format

Step 2: Build up a title block table with all the required fields and probably your company logo. Then, add text boxes using the Note command to all fields and leave them empty (see following image). Place the text boxes where you want the final text to appear. You may need to align them properly to be in a column or in the center of each field.

Add Text Boxes Using the Note Command

Step 3: Now right-click again on the drawing sheet and select “Title Block Fields…”.

Activate Title Block Fields

Step 4: Add the text boxes created in the last step to the title block table. The order of selected boxes is important and for that reason, there is a set of up/down arrow on the left side of the selection space under “Text Fields” to re-arrange the order of the selected text boxes. The order is important because the boxes could be filled out one after the other starting the first text box by hitting “TAB” key.

The settings for scale, sheet number, and other drawing document related information could be set the same way as settings for any other drawing templates. Finally, the drawing template and sheet format could be saved to be recalled later.

Add Text Boxes to Title Block Table

How to Use the New Template

Once the drawing views are in the new template, there is no need to worry about the properties settings at the part/assembly level. Also, there is no need to go into the sheet format. All you need to do is double-click on of the boxes that you added to the Title Block Table. Then, start filling in the boxes and hit the “TAB” key to jump to the next field until. Once all fields are filled out, hit the green check mark to complete the modification. The following images show the steps right after double-clicking on one of the text boxes, filling out the field, and the completed title block.

Text Boxes are highlighted by double-clicking on one of them

Note that the whole editing happens in the drawing sheet level. The drawing views are shown but the sheet format content is inaccessible.

The Title Block is filled out at the Drawing Sheet level.

The Title Block after populating the fields

Link to Custom Properties

In this technique as well, the content of the text boxes could be linked to custom properties in the part or assembly file that is inserted into the drawing. For that purpose, when the text boxes were created in the template (step 2), do not leave them empty. Add the custom property text: $PRPSHEET:”NameOfCustomProperty“. The result is that every time you fill out the title block, the custom properties are generated in the associated part/assembly and become updated with the information provided at the drawing level.

Use $PRP Commands in Text Boxes

The post Edit your SOLIDWORKS Title Block on the fly! appeared first on SOLIDWORKS Tech Tips, Videos & Tutorials from Javelin.

A new capability to sort SOLIDWORKS components in the assembly tree by the time it takes to open the component file has been added to SOLIDWORKS 2017.

The file size of a SOLIDWORKS part file may not be considered very important unless many of them are inserted in a large assembly. Among many files found in a large assembly, some have a larger file size due to their specific design. Having a good understanding of which components take longer to load allows us to have a closer look at specific files; in order to simplify or even remove it from the top-level assembly. This will help you to decrease the overall time for opening your large assembly file.

Assembly Visualization

With an assembly file open in SOLIDWORKS, you can select Assembly Visualization from the Evaluate tab or under Tools > Evaluate > Assembly Visualization. As shown in the following screenshot, the SW-Open Time column shows the time in seconds to load each component. Plus, a Value Bar can be turned on to provide a visual indication of the open time to make identifying parts with the longest open time even easier.

SOLIDWORKS Sort Assembly Components by Open Time

Sort Components Based on Ascending/Descending Open Time

Clicking on the SW-Open Time column column header will sort the components by ascending values; and clicking on the column header for a second time changes it to descending values. In the figure below the values start from 0.23 sec. down to 0.02 sec.

Sort based on descending open time

Add More Columns to Assembly Visualization

As shown in the following image, it is possible, in the Assembly Visualization, to add various columns such as Total Weight, Density, and Volume. This capability allows monitoring the feature tree components all in one place. Clicking on the “More” will open up Custom Column window which allows us select a number of other possibilities for columns.

Add More Columns

Custom Columns

SOLIDWORKS 2017 Resources

Access our resources page to get everything you need to learn what’s new in SOLIDWORKS 2017; including tech tips, demonstrations, and upcoming product webinars.

WHAT’S NEW RESOURCES

The post SOLIDWORKS 2017 Assembly Visualization Sort Assembly Components by Open Time appeared first on SOLIDWORKS Tech Tips, Videos & Tutorials from Javelin.

I am always surprised when I discover that a long time SOLIDWORKS user does not know about the SOLIDWORKS Property Tab Builder.

During training courses at Javelin, we always emphasize the importance of building strong standards across your teams. It helps to organize information input and facilitates tasks across the user base. One thing I see often in many industries are designers being too busy to create standards and share them with their teams. An example of that is custom property insertion, such as Description, Weight, Materials etc.

There is an easy way to create a list of user defined standard properties as a template that a SOLIDWORKS user will be presented with right in the SOLIDWORKS interface, the user can then input the values when a model is created, which eliminates the extra steps of select File > Properties, and then manually typing in property names and values.

Javelin has developed a specialized training course geared specifically towards the FASTEST WAY to input Custom Properties to all components of an assembly and how to utilize the Custom Properties tab to speed up your data insertion by at least 60%. Below are the steps to take to start your very first properties tab if you haven’t used it before.

To create the property tab, you will need to first create a new file inside of SOLIDWORKS. Then, go to the task pane on the right hand side.  The second to last tab is the location to create the property tab.

Create New Custom Properties

A new application window called the Property Tab Builder will pop up. The Builder is a stand-alone utility used for creating a customized interface for entering custom properties into SOLIDWORKS files.

• The left column is a list of types of properties can be used.
• The middle column is what will be shown in SOLIDWORKS when the property tab is ready.
• The right column is the options/settings for each parameter.

When the entire middle column is highlighted (red outlined box), users can choose what type of template it is on the right hand side.  There are different template for different file types, (part, assembly, drawing, and weldment.)

SOLIDWORKS Property Tab Builder

By default, when you open the Property Tab Builder, a groupbox is automatically included in the middle column.  All the property types under groupbox have to go inside a groupbox.  Additional groupbox can be created by double-clicking or drag-drop onto the mat (middle column).  When a groupbox is highlighted, it can be either expanded or collapsed. When any of the boxes are selected, in this example, the textbox.

The caption on the right hand side is just the name which appears above the text input field. You can change this name for the actual property name which is stored in the model.  This is similar to manual input in the properties page in SOLIDWORKS.  A pre-defined value can be used. This will automatically setup the property with the value when a model is created.

Property Tab Builder overview

When you are finished and all the properties are setup, the location where the file is saved needs to be known by SOLIDWORKS in order to use it. This is done the same way you would for your custom templates. But instead you’ll select the “custom property files” in System Options > File locations. Read our Property Tab Builder Templates article to learn more.

System Options

Learn More

If you would like to learn more about the advantages of this tool, attend our SOLIDWORKS Custom Properties Management training course either live online or in a Canadian classroom near you and become a Pro!

The post Is repetitive Custom Property insertion taking too long? Try the Property Tab Builder appeared first on SOLIDWORKS Tech Tips, Videos & Tutorials from Javelin.

When going through the process of creating an assembly drawing, it is beneficial in most cases to make use of Custom Properties listed in individual Bill of Materials (BOM) columns. These could be a Part Description, Part Number, Manufacturer, etc. Sometimes, it may be beneficial to combine multiple part Custom Properties into one column in a BOM.

For the purposes of this example, an assembly was created using two screws. Individual Custom Properties were made that detailed the thread diameter, length, and type of each screw. When we make a BOM with these column headings, it appears as shown below:

SOLIDWORKS BOM

Each of the custom properties is contained in its own column. In this case, we may want to summarize the information in these custom properties in a single column. The three pieces of information would work very well as a description for this particular part. To do this, we will reference each Custom Property. To reference another custom property, the format below should be used:

$PRP:”custom property name”

In this case, our custom properties are THREAD DIAMETER, LENGTH, and SCREW TYPE. Therefore we can enter the data into each of our part’s “Description” Custom Property as follows:

$PRP:"THREAD DIAMETER" x $PRP:"LENGTH" $PRP:"SCREW TYPE"

Resulting in a BOM appearing as below:

Modified BOM with combined custom property values

The post How to combine multiple Custom Properties in a SOLIDWORKS Bill of Materials appeared first on SOLIDWORKS Tech Tips, Videos & Tutorials from Javelin.

When a drawing annotation has a link to a Custom Property based on the ‘View specified in the sheet properties’, it references the Custom Property from a view on that sheet.

Link Custom Property to View specific in Sheet Properties

The Sheet Properties by default is set to use the properties from the model in the drawing view which was first added to the sheet (Default).  Though you can choose a specific view on that sheet.

SOLIDWORKS Drawing Sheet Properties

In the event that you have a multi-sheet drawing with each sheet referencing different models, again the first view on each sheet is referenced as the source for the properties (by default).  In this example, Sheet1 has a view of the assembly “BEVEL ADJUSTER” and the text is linked to the Filename model in the default view on this sheet.

SOLIDWORKS Drawing ‘Sheet1’ Linked to Assembly Filename

On Sheet2, we only have views of the part “bevel adj knob”.  Therefore the text pulls the Filename from the first drawing view, being of the “bevel adj knob”.

SOLIDWORKS Drawing Properties on Sheet2

However if you are finding that the linked properties on additional sheets are still referencing the views from the first sheet, it may be due to an option you have enabled.  This option forces linked annotations on all sheets (set to ‘Drawing view specified in sheet properties’) to reference the property of a specific sheet in the Document Properities.  In some instances this could be useful where a drawing Titleblock should have the same information through each sheet, but some sheets may have views of different models.

SOLIDWORKS Multi-sheet Custom Properties Source

However you still have the ability to override the setting on each individual sheet if need certain ones to reference the model in that particular sheet.  Uncheck ‘Same as sheet specified in Document Properties’ and then you can select a specific view on this sheet (or leave it as Default).

SOLIDWORKS Specific Sheet Override of Multi-sheet Option in Document Properties

The post SOLIDWORKS Multi-sheet Drawing Custom Properties Source appeared first on SOLIDWORKS Tech Tips, Videos & Tutorials from Javelin.

Let’s take a look at a common scenario that crops up after a design is complete – the design of packaging!

Item to be packaged

While some designers may be savvy and experienced enough to embark on their own packaging design, others will need to speak to someone with some expertise in the packaging arena.  One of the first questions that will be asked from the packaging designer will most surely be “How large is the Item”.

While this question could throw us into a wide variety of discussion topics, I am going to focus us on the super-practical aspects of getting an immediate report upon a volume of a box that encloses my part.

In order to perform this operation in prior releases of SOLIDWORKS, one would have had to be working with a weldment or sheet metal component in order to make use of the “Bounding Box” functionality.  This tool has been brought into the mainstream in SOLIDWORKS 2018 as you can make it available from it’s location within the reference geometry toolbar.

Upon entering a few quick values, taking an automated approach or judging the enclosed area against a custom reference surface or plane. We can choose weather or not we would want hidden bodies or surfaces included in the bounding box envelope.

The resulting bounding box will leave a feature within the model’s feature tree, just below the origin of the part.

As you may have expected, our bounding box for this particular component, turned out to be something like this:

SOLIDWORKS Bounding Box applied

The unexpected bonus to the “Bounding Box” tool is the reported dimensions that are carried into the Configuration Specific Tab of the Custom Property Manager!

Configuration specific properties

With the values reported within the Custom Property Dialog, they should also be available for varied use throughout the rest of the designers work with the component.

Thank you for taking a look at our SOLIDWORKS 2018 content, check back often for additional updates and articles on new and existing SOLIDWORKS functionality.

The post Apply a Bounding Box to any Model using SOLIDWORKS 2018 appeared first on SOLIDWORKS Tech Tips, Videos & Tutorials from Javelin.

Starting with SOLIDWORKS 2018 you now have much more precise control over Linked Custom Properties in derived parts.

Previously, when creating a mirrored or derived part, it was possible to Transfer the Custom Properties from the source file to the new file that was being created.  But it was an all or nothing operation, there was no way to control which properties would be transferred to the new file, all Custom Properties were transferred.

Custom Properties transfer in SOLIDWORKS 2017

Once the Custom Properties were transferred to the new file, they were locked, “Linked to Parent Part”, so even if some of those properties should be different in the derived part file, there was no way to modify them.

Locked custom property in SOLIDWORKS 2017

Now in SOLIDWORKS 2018 however, we have individual control over each of the Linked Custom Properties that is transferred by this operation.  This is possible because of the new “Linked” column.

New “Linked” column for custom properties in SOLIDWORKS 2018

To edit an individual Custom Property, just uncheck the checkbox in the “Linked” column.  Once this is unchecked, the “Value/Text Expression” field can be edited.

Uncheck the “Linked” column to edit an individual Custom Property

Unfortunately, this new functionality ONLY works with files created in SOLIDWORKS 2018.  The source can be an existing file created in a previous release, but the mirrored or derived part must be created in SOLIDWORKS 2018 for the new “Linked” check box to be available.

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