TriMech Blog

The set of standards used for drawing and dimensioning your parts in SOLIDWORKS is known as the Drawing Template, similar to Part and Assembly templates. SOLIDWORKS drawings consist of two distinct layers, the sheet and sheet format. These both make up the drawing template. In addition, any changes you’ve made to the Document Properties will also carry over to the drawing template once that template is saved. The drawing template, sheet and sheet format all combine to make up the drawing file (*.slddrw). In this blog article, we show you how to set up your Drawing template.

Having spent some time working at a local battery company started from Carnegie Mellon, I saw firsthand as a SOLIDWORKS user how companies in the energy sector utilize the software. It would be very narrow-minded to exclude the totality of this industry. There are many products in the SOLIDWORKS portfolio, if leveraged properly, that can be powerful for those in the industry, from oil/gas, hydroelectric power generation, hydrogen power and many more. During my time at the battery company, I utilized the SOLIDWORKS mechanical design suite of products including the basics with sketching, product and assembly design to the more advanced capabilities and SOLIDWORKS validation products. In this blog, I go through a very high-level overview of the tools most likely to be used by a designer in this field.

As a SOLIDWORKS user, I am always excited when new software features and enhancements are released every year. The more I use the software, the more I realize how valuable these updates are and how much they improve my experience. Features such as customizing mouse buttons or accessing drawing arcs help me save time and add more details to my designs. In this blog post, I share with you my top ten personal favorite SOLIDWORKS features and why I am thankful for them.

Electrical and mechanical engineers can collaborate to design printed circuit boards (PCBs) that fit and function in SOLIDWORKS assemblies, bridging the collaboration gap between Electrical Computer Aided Design (ECAD) and Mechanical Computer Aided Design (MCAD). Using add-on tools, such as CircuitWorks, designers and engineers have the ability to read ECAD files in SOLIDWORKS. In this blog, we'll go over what CircuitWorks is and the benefits of using this add-on.

Past SOLIDWORKS updates are the building blocks for all future improvements and feature additions. However, with all of the changes that are applied every year it can be hard to remember and keep track of everything that has happened. What if there was a new feature you could be using right now, but it flew under your radar? To help with this, during our TriMech 20 for 20 event we provided a little refresher with four on-demand webinars focused on the progress and upgrades of previous SOLIDWORKS enhancements. 

The Tucker Carioca 1955 car was an idea that Preston Tucker dreamed of, but never built. Unfortunately, he died before he had the chance to do any engineering and bring his dream to reality. At Rob Ida’s shop, Ida Automotive, Rob and his team are working to pick up where Preston left off to build the very first Tucker Carioca.

Michael Souders from TriMech and Mike Sabocheck from SOLIDWORKS traveled to Rob Ida Concepts to help work on this project. Michael brought a couple of tools to scan items with him: the Artec Eva and Artec Space Spider.

So many improvements in SOLIDWORKS 2020, so little time! With the vast amount of upgrades and additions they make each year, it can be overwhelming trying to sift through them all, and often, useful tools and changes are missed. To ensure you are getting the most of your software, we are providing twelve on-demand webinars full of demonstrations, updates, explanations and explorations of SOLIDWORKS. 

It’s STEM Day! In case you are new to this concept, STEM stands for science, technology, engineering and mathematics. The purpose of STEM is to provide young students become familiar with new technologies available and the challenges they pose for the future. Students in STEM classrooms take time to cover significant topics and fun activities in these fields, present ongoing projects or just discuss the importance of these areas in today’s world. In honor of National STEM Day, I want to share a topic that has always been interesting to me, flying. In this blog, I will cover some of the physics and mechanics involved in making things fly and how they can be tested using SOLIDWORKS 3D CAD.

Here at TriMech, we fancy ourselves the jack of all trades or the wearer of many hats of the engineering world. With extensive experience with the different facets of CAD, 3D printing, 3D scanning and training, we know that your business probably doesn't just stick to one lane, either. With that in mind, we are bringing you four on-demand webinars focused around 3D innovation, full of ideas and tools to bring your company to the next level!

By now you’ve probably seen the headlines of the great new enhancements to SOLIDWORKS with the latest release – SOLIDWORKS 2020. Sure, there are some real game-changing additions to the toolset, like envelope publisher, detailing mode for drawings and G3 continuity to name a few. But with countless enhancements and hundreds of pages of release notes, there are some that don’t get as much attention but are still welcomed additions to SOLIDWORKS. Here are the top enhancements you might have missed in SOLIDWORKS 2020. It’s the low-key features we’re sure you’ll be excited to use as soon as you get your hands on SOLIDWORKS 2020.

SOLIDWORKS Simulation Premium enables you to virtually test real-life scenarios more accurately. It provides you with a wide variety of material models for nonlinear analyses. Elastomers such as rubber, neoprene etc. are materials that go through large deformation very rapidly with relatively a low value of stress or applied load. In this article, we go over the different hyper elasticity material models available in SOLIDWORKS Simulation and how to use them to work with these types of materials. 

Struggling with getting your designs out on a deadline? Getting tired of using the same time-consuming 3D CAD tool workarounds to get the results you need? In this blog article, we go over the most important points you need to know about changing your 3D CAD platform, how to make the case for the switch, and why we believe SOLIDWORKS is the best choice on the market.