How do you create an assembly structure that makes sense to other people? How do you keep large assemblies from becoming sluggish and unworkable? I’ll share my insights on SolidWorks assembly modeling in this post.
Category: Best practices
A good 3D model in SolidWorks should have a logical structure and the least amount of features necessary to tell the story. The sketches, parts and assemblies should be easily understandable so that anyone jump into them and be able to modify and maintain them.
But how do you do all that?
In these articles, I collect ways of working that me and the people that I work with deem proper. They are not hard truths. Do you think a certain topic is missing? Please let me know so I can create an addition.
Best practices: Part design
In my previous post I listed some of the best practices when creating sketches in Solidworks. I decided to tackle the topic of parts next, because it is the next logical step in the design of, well, anything. Have you ever bought an assembly without parts?
Best practices
Design before you sketch
If you want to create a good design, you have to know what you are going to draw up before you open up SolidWorks. You can’t iteratively design a part without having a clear image of the overall design. If you do start modeling immediately, chances are that you end up with an optimal design of a poor solution. So turn off your monitor, grab a drawing pad and test your first ideas on paper first.
Best practices: Sketches
Good old sketch mode. You use it every time you create a part (except when you import one, that is). It was present in SolidWorks 95, the very first version of Solidworks, and it already worked roughly the same as it does nowadays. Back then it looked something like this:
Do you guys remember that? I surely don’t, I was nine years old at the time! Now that I’m close to ten years of using SolidWorks, here are some of the lessons that I’ve picked up along the way on how to properly use sketch mode.