Solidworks assembly-level features you likely haven’t used…

(Note that this is list is relative. An Olin student who hasn’t taken Design Nature yet, or worked with CAD outside of this class at all would have a very different list.)

1. – Speedpak!

A feature new to Solidworks 2009 is an excellent way to reduce the size and load time of a large subassembly. Chances are your assemblies aren’t large enough to get the kind of benefit that big corporate CAD projects would get, but you can still open an assembly in “Lightweight” if Speedpak isn’t for you. Speedpak creates a simplified configuration of an assembly without losing references. You can create Speedpak for specific configurations and select any number of faces and/or bodies to “keep.” What you don’t select will only be stored as graphics, and the result is that you can make Speedpak configurations with the important faces/bodies you plan to mate to while allowing the part/subassembly to still look like it would. Below are five snapshots of what making a Speedpak looks like. Also, a Youtube description of Speedpak NOT in English . Here is a video description in English. Below is what the creation of a Speedpak configuration looks like. Notice that a handful of faces (3) and a body has been selected. The rest will not be stored in memory for the speedpak configuration.

2. –Hole Series

Hole series is an assembly feature which creates hole features which extend through parts/subassemblies in the assembly which intersects the axis of the hole. If you need to create holes that extend through multiple parts, instead of creating holes in each part, or even holes that are created using geometry from the other parts to ensure they will update accordingly (better than the first approach), use hole series! The holes you create are contained in the individual parts as externally referenced features. You can see in the picture taken from Solidworks’s help directory (<–very helpful by the way. Use it!) how the hole series extends through three different parts. Smart Fasteners allows you to very quickly drop in standard bolts, nuts, washers, and the like to all the hole series created holes, which saves you not only the job of making and organizing these for each hole, but also mates all of the fasteners in and allows for easy editing of your fasteners.

3. – Smart Fasteners

Smart Fasteners allow you to very quickly drop in standard bolts, nuts, washers, and the like to all the hole series created holes, which saves you not only the job of making and organizing these for each hole, but also mates all of the fasteners in and allows for easy editing of your fasteners. Note: using this assembly feature requires you have Toolbox loaded in as an Add-in first. Tools >> Add-ins >> Toolbox & Toolbox Browser should be enabled. You can load in Smart Fasteners from the Assembly toolbar, or you can add them directly from inside the Hole Series property manager menu. You can see in the picture below (also from Solidworks Help Menu) the red smart fasteners that were dropped into existing holes at the assembly level. Useful, though not exactly something the average Olin student doing Design Nature, or even our new Mechanical Prototyping course would use because those projects tend towards laser-cut assembly construction.

Next time: useful dimensioning tools!
-Marco