TriMech Blog

“This is how we’ve always done it.”

Your current process might have helped define your success years ago, but is it honestly still relevant in today’s global and more technology-empowered competitive landscape? How much time and effort could you save by taking a fresh look at something as simple as communication between your product development teams? A lot, as it turns out!

FeatureWorks is a SOLIDWORKS Standard, Professional and Premium add-on that allows engineers and designers to directly interact with and edit imported part data in a SOLIDWORKS part file. Imported models, or “dumb solids”, become useable parts within the SOLIDWORKS 3D CAD environment.

Ready to maximize your efficiency in the new year? These free resources are great for identifying small improvements for your day to-day task or finding solutions that address an engineering, design or manufacturing challenge. We have compiled a list of helpful options when it comes to learning more or just needing a reference. Whether you only have a few minutes or you are ready for a week long course, we have resources created by industry experts at your fingertips.

Instead of struggling to convert CAD files from third-party systems, 3D Interconnect is used as an add-on feature to SOLIDWORKS Professional and Premium that allows users to interact with third-party CAD data directly inside of SOLIDWORKS.

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.