Hello,
I recently asked and was advised to check the box that mandates a fully defined sketch before rebuild or addition of a feature. I am fine with this and like having a fully defined sketch. However, I am getting very frustrated. All I try to do is draw a simple sketch and put in smart dimensions and craziness happens (overriding sketch, over defining, etc.). What I do is go to every yellow entity (conflicted) or blue (under-defined) and select it. I edit the line properties (relations > hor, vert, fix) and then the line is defined. What does fix do. The whole thing just doesnt make sense to me. I have to go to properties and hit fix. None of the properties change from what I wanted. Solidworks attempt to explain the fully define process is not enough. Any help with something I am missing or where to go to search this concept is greatly appreciated. Drawing a fully defined trapezoid should not be a hard thing or time consuming thing to do. I have been drafting a long time with other programs and never had such problems.
THanks,
Brian
I'll try to help. First of all, I understand that you've used other programs without these problems. When learning SolidWorks I had what I believe was the advantage of no previous CAD or 3d modeling experience, so I didn't have any habits to un-learn. With that being said, a fully defined trapezoid is very simple to sketch without problems. It's just a matter of learning how this software works. I didn't get a lot of specifics from your post, but I suspect that what may be causing some of the problems is un-intended automatic relations. If you agree, you might try holding down Ctrl while placing sketch entities, since this disables automatic relations, and see if that will help.
By the way, you mentioned the "Fix" relation. It just locks a sketch, making it sort-of fully defined. I almost never use this. Only occasionally if I'm tracing a sketch picture to lock sketched entities so I don't move them un-intentionally.
Another thing you might check is at Tools > Options > System Options > Sketch > Over-defining dimensions, select "Set driven by default". (See this discussion for a screenshot: https://forum.solidworks.com/message/388388#388388.) That setting will set extra dimensions as driven, preventing them from causing a sketch to be over-defined. As discussed in that post, it occasionally un-checks itself for some people, so you might keep an eye on it.
Anyway, to sum up this rambling post, try to be patient and learn how the software works and work with it, instead of fighting it and getting frustrated because it doesn't work the way you think it should. And if you have any specific situations you would like help with please post them, preferably along with the actual file that's causing you problems. Traffic is generally slower here on the weekends, but I'm sure someone will be glad to help.
Good luck
Glenn