TriMech Blog

TriMech has had the complete Desktop Metal Studio System for over five months now, and we’ve had the opportunity to create some incredible parts with it during that time. One of our favorite parts so far is a heatsink, which utilizes the Studio System’s Bound Metal Deposition (BMD) printing technology to its advantage, in order to print a captured hollow cavity that requires absolutely no support or post-processing, which can’t be machined and is impossible for other metal printing technologies on the market to create.

We hear a lot about going from concept to design, and with SOLIDWORKS CAD that’s the easy part. But what’s next? What tools do you need to pitch your design and get that first prototype made? In other words, what tools do you need to go from concept to reality?

Once you have your CAD complete in SOLIDWORKS, the three tools that help you make a concept a reality are: SOLIDWORKS Composer, SOLIDWORKS Visualize and SOLIDWORKS Visualize Pro. With these tools you can showcase how your design will look and how it will work, capturing the essence of your idea before it’s even made. The best part is these are all linked to the SOLIDWORKS CAD model, meaning any changes to the model are automatically updated; saving you substantial time and frustrating effort.

All three tools put your model on a stage so you can easily share your designs, but what exactly are the differences? In this article, we break down each of the features of the tools, so you can know exactly why and when to use them.

Incorporating anything new into the curriculum can be daunting. 3D printing is becoming a necessary skill in tomorrow's workforce and it is crucial that students learn it in the classroom. Here are the best practices to ensure the transition is successful. 

TriMech is fortunate to work with clients from Maine to Florida and out to Arkansas, offering a range of engineering solutions. This week's client story showcases building and testing an innovative 3D printer in-house using SOLIDWORKS.

From an engineering perspective, if you’re looking into the world of Model-Based Design (MBD) or have already been shifting that way, you’ll want to start research some of the new standards that are being developed by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME). In particular, the new standard that they are developing as a product definition for additive manufacturing. In this article, we will provide a quick list of the standards being looked at this year and touch on how you can apply these and other standards in a SOLIDWORKS workflow.

Recently, I had the opportunity to attend the Model-Based Enterprise Summit at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in Gaithersburg, MD. This was the 10th annual MBE Summit and was focused on highlighting the practical implementations of MBE in the world, with the main theme being Democratizing the Implementation of MBE.

This event was possibly the most in-depth technical summit I have ever been to. The amount of applications for model-based engineering is amazing and getting to see how people are leveraging this technology is truly eye-opening. The list of speakers was staggering and humbling. It was truly exceptional to see so many experts in their field speak to how digital engineering has been completely transforming their businesses. As a mechanical-minded person focused on technology and interconnected systems, I believe there are certainly some exciting leaps coming in the future.

It is becoming increasingly important for innovative companies to accelerate new product time to market without compromising quality. In order to do this, teams need to easily perform more complex simulations that are reliable, have easy access to validation tools for quick evaluation of designs and be able to share all these results and ideas with other teams. To meet these demands, Dassault Systèmes has introduced SIMULIA Structural Simulation Engineer (SSE).

When 3D printing, you can sometimes run into issues trying to work with extremely thin features. Most of the time, good design practices can help to fix these issues. Two GrabCAD tools, the Thick and Thin Wall Command and the Variable Width Fill Command aid in resolving these issues more efficiently, leaving you with a sturdy, high-quality design.
In this video, Application Engineer Ricky Shannon demonstrates just how to utilize these built-in tools on a multi-bodied SOLIDWORKS part using a straight 3D CAD file.

This month Stratasys announced that their PolyJet J735/J750 successfully passed the rigorous requirements required to make it the world’s first and only PANTONE validated 3D printer. Designers and manufacturers around the world are rejoicing! This changes the game for 3D printing as design and prototype colors can now be matched with 100% specificity, making the process from concept to final product even more accurate.

Decals make all the difference with your models. They are the little details that truly elevate your design from good to great and most models aren’t complete without them. So, what are decals and how do you use them in SOLIDWORKS?

Today marks the release of the fifth movie from LAIKA studios “Missing Link.” This movie studio is known for their use of stop-motion animation in major feature films, but most don't know that they use PolyJet 3D printing technology in their production process.

“It’s really kind of an insane process that we’re doing, where we’re taking 3D printing and we’re fusing it with this really old technique of stop-motion and replacement animation and forcing these two technologies and techniques together to come up with some amazing performances and amazing results,” said Brian McLean, Director of Rapid Prototype at LAIKA.

Stratasys' GrabCAD Print is a sophisticated 3D printing app that allows designers and engineers to prepare, schedule and monitor 3D printing jobs. Since its release, GrabCAD has continued to make exciting updates to this software; and we will be updating you every other month on its new features. In this set of release notes, we will be looking at versions 1.26, 1.27, and the just released 1.28.