Before I bought Solidworks, I saw this cool video where someone laid out a basic outline of a building(bus shelter) and then replaced the lines with channel of different sizes and added on tabs and used glass as fill ins etc.
I would like to do something similar. But I can neither find the video nor written instructions.
I have Solidworks Pro, which I got assured has the right features to do that kinda stuff.
Help/Instructions please?
Hi Sabine
Try doing some tutorials. ie, weldments and sheetmetal
inserting channel onto sketch lines is a weldment tools feature called Structural Member.
Then you can add tabs via sheetmetal tools features.
Hi Sabine,
Weldments is most definitely thewhat you need to use. If you want to look at the tutorials you can find them by going to the help drop down in solidworks and clicking on solidworks tutorials. Once you click on this a side pane to the right will appear and show you numerous different tutorials about aspects of the software.
The weldments tutorial can be found by clicking on the basic techniques tab located in top centre row of the right hand pane and by then clicking the weldments window.
Once this is done it will take you directly to the start of the tutorial and will direct you how to download anything you require.
If you do not have the weldments toolbar active in solidworks you can activate it by right clicking on any tab i.e where it says 'features' or 'sketch' on the toolbars and a pop up will appear left click on the weldments line and this will add the wanted toolbar with the features you need.
below I have attached a photo of the pop out that should appear.
Hope this is of help
thanks tom
Will this also work for dimensional lumber?
And
Can I change a single object into an assembly by cutting that single object into several pieces?
For example: a drawer. I can draw it as a single piece. but then I would like to cut it up so I have the individual components I need to make the drawer. I realize this is the exact opposite of how solidworks is generally used, and I can do it the "normal" way, but if I could do it my way, it would be so much faster.
I experimented with weldments/structural but didn't find they were perfectly suited to woodwork (edit: I know they'd be great for certain jobs), although my VAR told me yesterday that we might be able to create some library feature for the joints. I don't know promises, promises..
You can still use the weldment feature without using the structural member feature.
I do like to work in the multibody technique. I attach a very simple model that might get you thinking.
Here I have given different configurations for each part, although if you don't need separate parts why bother. You can achieve the same thing(ish) through display states, or Solidworks can create an assembly for you INSERT>FEATURES>CREATE ASSEMBLY.
I find the advantage is faster modelling, no files all over the place, access to a wider array of cuts than in the assembly environment...
Have a play, do it your way, but make sure its not tooooo different from everyone else.
edit:
a lil tip - for fast switching of configs, turn on the config toolbar
re-edit: If you have standard profiles yes I would take a close look at custom weldment profiles, my works generally too varied
Please let me know if the promises ever come true, lol.
Thank you for your sample and detailed explanation. I will take a good look at it and see how I can apply it to my designs.
Thank you all of you. I would like to mark them all "correct answer", because they all are, unfortunately, that seems not possible.
Hi Sabine,
Weldments is most definitely thewhat you need to use. If you want to look at the tutorials you can find them by going to the help drop down in solidworks and clicking on solidworks tutorials. Once you click on this a side pane to the right will appear and show you numerous different tutorials about aspects of the software.
The weldments tutorial can be found by clicking on the basic techniques tab located in top centre row of the right hand pane and by then clicking the weldments window.
Once this is done it will take you directly to the start of the tutorial and will direct you how to download anything you require.
If you do not have the weldments toolbar active in solidworks you can activate it by right clicking on any tab i.e where it says 'features' or 'sketch' on the toolbars and a pop up will appear left click on the weldments line and this will add the wanted toolbar with the features you need.
below I have attached a photo of the pop out that should appear.
Hope this is of help
thanks tom