Technical Communication Page 1

“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!

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.

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. 

Artificial computer-simulated environments give users the feeling of being in a different dimension instead of the one they’re actually in. The idea is to trick the brain into thinking that that’s your new reality. In the new extended reality (XR) file type in SOLIDWORKS 2019, you’ll have an amazing new way to experience your designs. SOLIDWORKS XR describes the process of viewing and interacting with your models in augmented reality, virtual reality or mixed reality experiences.

SOLIDWORKS Product Data Management (PDM) solutions are ideal to help you keep your project data organized and the latest version available for multiple teams during development. SOLIDWORKS Composer is used to create digital materials, documentation and technical publications all with the intent of giving customers and company stakeholders a better understanding of your product information earlier in the design process, lowering costs and speeding time-to-market. In this blog article, we look at how SOLIDWORKS PDM and SOLIDWORKS Composer work together to create more accurate output while saving more time when compared to a traditional product development workflow.

When creating Product Manufacturing Information (PMI) for industry standards, designers and engineers benefit from being able to add annotations on their 3D models. Thanks to SOLIDWORKS MBD, they can annotate and organize 3D data such as dimensions, tolerances, surface finishes, notes and Bill of Materials (BOM). This application helps in the automation of manufacturing processes such as tolerance analysis, machining and inspection. In this article, we will provide different examples through which the use of MBD was critical to creating designs for the military, compliant with the new MIL-STD-31000 A+B standard.

Stratasys 3D printers offer two main technologies through which multi-color printing can be accomplished. PolyJet technology is the most widely known that allows you to 3D print multi-color, multi-material parts and is known for its detailed and realistic results. Surprisingly, many people do not know that single-print, multi-colored prints are also possible when using Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM) technology. Using Stratasys 3D printers and GrabCAD Print software, the process is actually very simple.

With so many software options out there, it’s hard to know which combination is right for your custom manufacturing needs. With the SOLIDWORKS family of integrated products we’re spoiled for choice, but that doesn’t make understanding all the options any easier to someone looking at it for the first time. We’ve taken a look at all the options and put together a summary of what we think is the “ideal” manufacturing bundle. In this blog post, we’ll go over all the top-level benefits for each product and what you’ll be taking with you.

Prior to the SOLIDWORKS 2018 updates, you were capable of saving a SOLIDWORKS assembly as an SMG file, however, there were no export options for SMG files and the default export option was set to exclude surface bodies. Due to this, users preferred to open SOLIDWORKS file directly through Composer, where import options can be customized as they need. Since the SOLIDWORKS 2018 updates, new SOLIDWORKS export options for SMG files have been added that allow full control over what information is saved to SOLIDWORKS Composer. These new options provide many advantages to Composer users that will be explained in this blog. 

SOLIDWORKS Education Edition is the perfect solution for preparing students for a career in engineering. With more than 200,000 jobs posted a year seeking employees with SOLIDWORKS experience, investing in their training will not go to waste. There are many questions regarding the Education Edition and what all is included. Let's dive into those questions as well as the updates to the 2019-2020 version. 

Manufacturing technology seems to catch on much slower than other technological leaps; it’s 2019 and I still train students every month coming from 2D drafting into the 3D world! Is this because of the companies, the designers, the machinists or none of these? There is a huge difference in how a job shop, or even a large-scale production facility, work versus how we think. We’re going to take a look at this much too common disconnect and what options are out there to improve shop communication and efficiency.

SOLIDWORKS is not just a CAD application. The integrated add-ins and supporting applications make it a complete engineering solution. I recently took advantage of these tools to complete a project that has been at the back of my mind for some time. It was a great opportunity to show how to use the SOLIDWORKS integrated platform from design all the way through the manufacturing and post-manufacturing process.