Tag: controlled radius

Plug for Enhancement Requests

In past articles, I’ve mentioned some enhancement requests (ER’s) for SolidWorks.  Most (All?) of the enhancement requests I’ve made are now SPR’s, which are slated for some action at some time in the future.  To get the ball rolling on these requests, I’d like to invite others to vote for these changes in the Customer Portal.  I’m not going to provide links to my requests, as they wouldn’t work anyway with the Customer Portal’s java script.   I will mention a brief description of each change, and bold keywords which may be used to easily find the open SPR’s in the Customer Portal.  These are my requests, many of which I’ve talked about prior to submitting them to the ER system.

  • Support new ASME Y14.5-2009 symbols on drawings and models.
  • Option to force captilization (note the misspelling) of annotation notes on drawings (original article).
  • Add CR (Controlled Radius) symbol (original article).
  • Support External Threads as an actual feature similar to Hole Wizard (original article).
  • and a new one (no SPR yet), the ability to auto insert angle dimensions and values in sketch mode, just as we can already do with linear dimensions.  (This was inspired by a recent article by Deelip Menezes, in which he apparently misjudged SolidWorks dimension capabilities in sketch mode, but ended up finding a good candidate for an ER anyway.)

I have other SPR’s, but these are the ones that are actually enhancement related (as opposed to bugs or workflow annoyances).  Please visit the Customer Portal soon.  Choose “Enhancement Requests”.  In the ER search field, enter the bolded keyword(s) for each of the requests above.  Then pick and vote for the associated SPR.

Controlled Radius

It’s been many years since ASME Y14.5M-1994 introduced the controlled radius symbol.  Yet, we will still frequent find individuals in the industry who have never seen the symbol, nor know what it is.  The symbol is CR. 

It’s been many years since ASME Y14.5M-1994 introduced the controlled radius symbol.  Yet, we will still frequent find individuals in the industry who have never seen the symbol, nor know what it is.  The symbol is CR.  Really, a controlled radius is actually just a radius that is a fair curve, with no reversals.  I’ve not read ASME Y14.5-1982 in a very long time, but I believe this is actually similar to the original definition of a plain ol’ radius from the older standard.

Since ASME Y14.5M-1994, a simple radius has no fair or reversal limitation.  As long as the arc of the radius feature’s profile falls within the tolerance zone, it is considered acceptable.  These are represented by R.

So much time has gone by since the introduction of CR, I am left wondering why so many people have never seen it.  The reason CR was created, as it seems, was to allow engineers to specify a radius without the need for it to be fair or non-reversed.  This is good for breaking edges or filling corners.  A CR would be more useful when fit and/or function is important, such as guiding features.  In this way, the added expense of a creating a fair and non-reversed curve would only be employed when it is necessary for function.

Controlled radius vs radius