Into the “real” world.

Hello my name is Joe.  I have been working in the Engineering industry for about 7 months and been at my current job for almost 3 months. After graduating from Northwest Technical Institute in February of this year I had a vast amount of jobs to choose from. There are so many different possibilities in this field that I found myself not sure what to do or even what type of job I wanted. For most it seems that the starting pay is what drives them to decide on a certain job. I wanted to find a job that paid well and used a program I enjoyed using. I am from Minnesota, right around the Minneapolis area where there is a technical jungle of drafting and design jobs for entry level candidates to choose from. I was lucky enough to be offered an internship while I was still attending school so I was able to explore many options. Only one out of the 6 job offers I had used SolidWorks so I was more than willing to give them a chance. I couldn’t be happier with my decision, I work with some really great people and I love what I do.

After being in the industry for a while I began to realize how much I never learned in school about SolidWorks. I did some online research and I couldn’t believe how many resources were available to me. I found out about using macros to automate SolidWorks and have actually been helping my company develop a standardized way to do drawings and fill in title block/bill of materials information using macros. With the help of Matt Lorono and other online resources I have been able to customize macros and actually am able to understand a lot of the code it takes to make one.

If you are fresh out of school be sure to explore every option available to you, take every job interview you can. This will serve you greatly in the future because you are not only seeing what else is available to you but you are building relationships and networks of people that may want to hire you down the road if things don’t work out where you end up.

I’ll continue to document my journeys and keep you updated!

Order of Business: Possibly Rename Resources Site

I am considering renaming Lorono’s SolidWorks Resources website.  I’ve not made up my mind if I want to or should.  So, let me ask others.  What do you think of the name?  Does it represent that website?  Should I associate it more closely with SolidWorks Legion (Legion SolidWorks Resources; SolidWorks Legion SolidWorks Resources) or modify and enhance its identity in some other way?  Do you have any thoughts about this?  In fact, what are your thoughts about Lorono’s SolidWorks Resource website in general?

Correction on Rib/Draft on Curved Surface Article

I stand corrected on a previous article.  I originally made a misstatement regarding the capabilities of SolidWorks to create drafts on ribs based on curved surfaces with controlled root widths.  As far as an explanation for this oversight, I can only say what didn’t work for me last week worked this week, and that my VAR has some new inexperienced people on their phone support.  Here’s the basics that didn’t work before but work today.

SolidWorks does allow one to control the root width of a rib feature on a curved surface with the draft feature.  This means that draft will diminish from the ribs base, even if it is from a curved surface.  To apply a draft to such a rib, simply use the parting line option and pick a perpendicular plane or a parallel line/entity for the direction of draft.  For the parting line, choose each of the edges where the rib intersects its curved surface base.  If necessary, toggle the direction of draft.  That’s it. 

Of course, this method is still imperfect.  The question is, why doesn’t the draft feature just know that I want to pull it from the root?  It seems illogical to require a neutral plane at all since each rib has only two ends.  Why not just ask the user for the end to draft from?  I guess if someone wants to use draft to add angle to a rib long its left to right/up to down, then making this assumption wouldn’t work.  I doubt that would be much of an issue however, since that is not what a rib nor a draft is supposed to be.

The alternative method I posted last weekend should be referenced as a case of bad practice that works and should only be used if nothing else does.  Edit: however, it is a good demonstration of how to get a line along a curved surface into a sketch.

Order of Business: New Members

First, I would like to welcome two new members to the SolidWorks Legion.

Roland Schwarz (aka TheTick) will be making an appearance from time to time as a guest author, though I’m not going to stop him from posting articles daily if he wishes. 🙂  However, he may be a little too busy for that since he has recently started his own blog Tick Talk on EsoxRepublic.com.  His is a major contributor to forums such as eng-tips.com and SolidWorks Forum.  I am elated to have him on board.

I also welcome Joseph Aisawa to the SolidWorks Legion.  He brings with him a fresh perspective about SolidWorks and our community.  I look forward to having him relate experiences from school and things he has discovered since.  This may help newer SolidWorks users by letting them know they are not alone (or even what to expect once they are out of school), and help long-term users by giving them a window into how our field is developing from the perspective of the next generation.

Control Root Size of Drafted Rib on Curved Surface

*This article makes some inaccurate statements regarding the capability of SolidWorks.  Please see the correction article for details.  Inaccurate statements have been crossed out.  The methodology described in this article should be referenced as an example of bad practice that should only be employed if traditional methods fail.  Edits to this article appear in this color.*
*Additional comment: this article does demonstration a good method for getting a line along a curved surface into a sketch. *

Good mold design means that one must take care to control the root width of a rib.  How does one do this if the rib is based on a curved (non-prismatic) surface? 

SolidWorks has many powerful features for making injection molding parts.  It has both rib and draft features.  Unfortunately, these two features together have one important limitation.  When applying a draft to a rib based on a curved surface, SolidWorks does not allow the user to hold the root width of that rib.  SolidWorks requires a prismatic surface to use as a neutral plane from which to start a draft.  This means in this case, the draft can only be started from the top of the rib, not its root.  If one wishes to hold the rib root constant along a curved surface, one cannot use the rib or the draft features.

SolidWorks does have an arsenal of other features and tools to allow one to build an alternative strategy to workaround this limitation.  

Basic shelled part with curved surface

This first figure shows a fairly simply shelled injection molded part with a complex curved surface.  To make drafted ribs using this method, first create an axis that can be used as an directional guide. You can choose to use features on the part itself for this purpose, instead. I prefer to create a special sketch at the location where I plan to add a boss.  Regardless of the method used, the directional guide should be parallel to the direction planned for the ribs.

 Setup Sketch for Directional Guide

The second step is to start a new sketch above the curved surface.  In that sketch, draw the outline of the rib.

Sketch outline of ribs

If there is a series of ribs needed in one direction, try creating a sketch pattern the other instances.  Make sure to turn sketch entities of the other instances into construction lines.

Project outline using Split Line

Use Split Line to project that outline onto the curved surface.  Split Line will only project one contour per sketch.  This is why it is important to turn all other instances of the rib into construction lines.  Having those other instances pre-drawn will save time when making the other ribs (covered in Part 2 of this article). 

Next, start a 3DSketch.  Use Convert Entitles to bring the Split Line curves into the sketch.  Drag the end points of the curves so they are coincident (on the surface) of the outside surface of the outer walls, or some othe appropriate location.  Then, close the contour by drawing lines to connect the curves at each end. 

Convert split line edges in 3DSketch

Extrude this sketch.  Use the previously drawn axis from the first sketch as the direction.  Use the top surface of the cavity (or whatever is appropriate) as up-to-surface entity.  Turn on Draft and specify the desired angle.  Here’s the funny part.  Be sure to extrude a small amount (smaller than the wall thickness of the part) in the other direction without draft.   If this isn’t done, a zero-point error will pop up preventing the completion of this step.

Use previous setup to set extrude of 3DSketch

The end result will be a drafted rib with a controlled root width.

Final result

Part 2 of this article will detail how to create repeated and crossing ribs using this same technique.  Again, please note this is not a best practice method.  See the correction article for details.