Friday 30 December 2016

New Technology from SolidWorks for Quality Inspection

Quality Inspectors examine products and materials for defects or deviations from specifications. Quality inspectors mark tag or note problems. They may reject defective items outright, send them for repair, or fix minor problems themselves. If the product is acceptable, the inspector certifies it. Overall, Quality Inspector plays a key factor in delivering products faster and ensure error free production in an organization.

Quality control inspectors typically do the following:
• Read blueprints and specifications
• Monitor operations to ensure that they meet production standards
• Recommend adjustments to the assembly or production process
• Inspect, test, or measure materials or products being produced
• Measure products with rulers, calipers, gauges, or micrometers
• Accept or reject finished items
• Remove all products and materials that fail to meet specifications
• Discuss inspection results with those responsible for products
• Report inspection and test data

Quality inspectors ensures quality standards for nearly all manufactured products. Specific job duties vary across the wide range of industries in which quality inspectors work. Quality control Engineers rely on a number of tools to do their jobs. Although some still use hand-held measurement devices, such as calipers and alignment gauges, workers more commonly operate electronic inspection equipment, such as coordinate-measuring machines (CMMs). Quality Inspectors record the results of their inspections through test reports. When they find defects, inspectors notify supervisors and help to analyze and correct production problems.

SolidWorks Introduces a great tool for Quality Inspectors to reduce their workload and create error free reports with ease. SolidWorks Inspection helps in creating First Article Inspection report, PPAP (Dimensional Test Report), Process Performance Report, AS9102, etc. Balloon drawing creation made easy now as SolidWorks Inspection Captures all Characteristics in a drawing. Hence Quality Assurance can easily built their reports faster and error free.

SolidWorks Inspection Capabilities:
  1. Automatic Balloon Creation process using OCR(Optical Character Recognition)
  2. Automatic Report Creation Process with single click
  3. Compare and Replace Ballooned drawing
  4. Easily Find the missed characteristics to balloon
  5. Integrate with QualityXpert & Net-Inspect to track the supply chain in detail
  6. Integrate with Digital Instruments to enter measured value automatically
  7. Import CMM results to auto-assign based on nominal and Tolerance results
  8. Results showcased in Color codes based on results
  9. Results showcased in best worst and average based on the measured inputs.

Quality Inspector spends 90% of their time in inspecting the product quality and their conformation. This tool, SolidWorks Inspection ease their jobs by automating the balloon creation process, Report creation process and Check Conformity of the part. SolidWorks Inspection helps in to ensure all products sold to customers are of the highest possible quality.




Friday 16 December 2016

Confused With Wire/Cable Harnessing? - Harnessing Technology By SolidWorks Electrical

SolidWorks Electrical is an intuitive and powerful tool which takes care of wire and cable harness design and create the flattened view with automatic updated BOM/Cut.

Engineers need to put more thought into thinks like wire length, bending radius and routing. As wiring harness become increasingly complex and an important part of design we are in need of a powerful tool to ease our design process, this is where SolidWorks Electrical comes into play.

Today in Automotive sector there are many more computers and Electronic Control Units used in vehicles today. These ECU are used to control the transmission, and other major devices of the vehicle and they have to be connected via wire harness in order for the system to work

What is Wire Harness?
The wire harness is compactly bundled wire which plays as the conduit for transmission of control and power signals acting as the “Central Nervous System of a vehicle”.

When designing a new product, engineers focus mainly on functionality, features, styling, and cost. What they don’t always think about is the wiring part.
SolidWorksElectrical provides you the highly simplified auto-routing of wire, cables, and harness and generate their reports automatically and enables last minute harness design changes by utilizing advanced harness technology saving your design cycle time.

Benefits Attained:
  • Reduces the Harness Scrap
  • Reduced cost - accurate harness reports
  • With stand last minute Design changes



Tuesday 6 December 2016

Mobile Phone Back Case Structural Simulation

Mobile Phones nowadays have become so handy among people & the Design Innovations undergone by the phone companies are so pretty big. The back mobile case cover is mostly prone to failures as it is the most critical component for the real world applications. During the mid of 2015 year, some non standard tests were undergone on the back case products for failure mode analysis. Let's have a quick look on how SolidWorks Simulation offers the design principles in solving the real time problems.

A general Static analysis is performed to verify the failure zone on the case covers. Since these tests require some physical bending & hardened strength of material, the linearization of the problem is the upmost priority for verification.

To validate this product, firstly we need make some assumptions & simplification of the problem. The initial assumption made here is a person sitting on the back of the mobile phone weighing 70kgs. The model thickness (Shell thickness) was considered to be 1.5mm, which purely stiffens the geometry towards bending.

ANALYSIS Conditions:
  • Material : Aluminium - 6061 Alloy (From Material database). The material assigned to the product is manufactured of Aluminium material as in actual cases. The material database present in SolidWorks Simulation gives users with multiple options in material selection with customized library.
  • Boundary condition : Side faces of the model are restrained with all the degrees of freedom (Selection on faces/ edges).
  • Loads : Force = 70kgf (Normal to the back face reference). Depending on the complexity of the problem, we can apply loads as Force or Pressure as indicated.
  • Mesh Parameters : Solid Mesh with curvature based mesh type was used. The element size of 1.2mm was used globally throughout the geometry.
ANALYSIS Results:
SolidWorks Simulation gives beautiful color plots for the user for easy review of the results. For validating this mobile case product, we need to review the results like Stress, Displacement, F.O.S. & Fatigue Life cycle.

To be more precise on the results, SolidWorks Simulation offers to perform Non-Linear Static studies for time based loading conditions. The loads assigned for reference can be indicated with respect to Time curve, or if we use Rubber / Plastic materials in analysis, we can use the Stress-Strain curves for various models for validation.

Benefits:
  • Shortest learning curve
  • Ease of use in conducting virtual based simulations
  • What-if scenarios on models, loads & material conditions
  • Integrated platform where designers become analysts



 





Monday 28 November 2016

Blocking License Borrowing from the SolidNetWork License (SNL) Manager

There is no direct way to disable this feature through the SNL Manager; however it can be controlled by use of an Options file.

The option BORROW_LOWWATER can be used to prevent all users from being able to borrowing a license of a specified product from the SolidWorks network license. Example: If the SNL is having 4 Professional License. Then the option file should consist of the following syntax. (Based upon your requirement enter the number of licenses)
Step 1: Create a Notepad file with the above mentioned Syntax and save it with extension *.opt.
Step 2: Place this file in the same directory as sw_d.lic (the license file) on the server. The license file should be located in C:\Program Files\SolidWorks Corp\SolidNetWork License Manager\licenses.
Step 3: Go to SolidNetWork License Manager Server and Select Server Administration Tab.
Step 4: Click Modify button and Choose Activate/Reactivate a software license, Click Next
Step 5: Check the Option File Check Box and Browse for your “Options file”
Step 6: Click Next Button
Step 7: Perform normal License Activation Procedure.

Prerequisites:
1. Solidworks software should be closed in all machines.
2. Licenses should not be borrowed by any user.
3. All Licenses should be surrendered.

List of Product Feature Names used in Options File



 





Thursday 24 November 2016

REMAN ENGINEERING WORKS

Ramping up productivity and avoiding waste with SolidWorks

Reman Engineering began operations in 1989 in Namakkal, India, the “Poultry City” of Tamilnadu, India’s second-largest egg-producing region. The company makes mash plants, pellet plants, batching machines, batching scales, feed silos, and transport silos for the poultry industry. They also manufacture sheet metal and structural works to customer specifications.

Reman Engineering manufactures and markets poultry feed mills and raw material batch machines according to rigorous quality control guidelines and in compliance with globally recognized quality standards for the industry. Their practices have made a strong impact on India’s pet food industry.

Challenge:
  • Standardize the design of feed mills of various
  • sizes and reduce raw material waste and rework
Solution:
  • Adopt SolidWorks software for fully associated
  • parts, assemblies, and drawings to incorporate
  • new ideas into configurations and avoid rework and waste
Results:
  • Produced clear cut-list properties
  • Created clear, detailed manufacturing drawings
  • Reduced rework for more effective use of manufacturing time
  • Eliminated raw material waste

Wednesday 23 November 2016

Inserting Custom Parts into Toolbox

SolidWorks toolbox consist of numerous standard part models which helps us to reduce the most valuable design time in only creating custom parts.in the competitive world its necessary for us to shorten the process time between the drawing board room to the tool room.
Even though having handful of standard parts.there is a need to add custom components to the toolbox.
SolidWorks provides us a opportunity to add custom made components to the toolbox.
1. Create the part models along with its required configurations and save the models in the desired location.
2. Go to Start > All programs > Toolbox Settings 20nn and click customize your hardware.
3. Right click on the standard folder and select ”New folder”.Sub folders can also be created.Add a name to the folder.
4. Select the newly created folder and select “Add File”.
5. Custom Properties and standard colour can be defined.
6.As the Standard parts are created,This can be drag and dropped from the Design Library.



 





Tuesday 22 November 2016

DOMOTECH APPLIANCES (P) LTD. ACCELERATING INNOVATIVE KITCHEN APPLIANCE DEVELOPMENT WITH SOLIDWORKS PROFESSIONAL


The efficiency and accuracy gains that Domotech Appliances has realized since standardizing on SOLIDWORKS Professional software have enabled the company to increase innovation while compressing design cycles during the development of kitchen appliance designs for leading brands.

Challenge:
Accelerate and increase the accuracy of unique kitchen appliance designs to improve competitive position as an original equipment manufacturer (OEM) serving the needs of popular, well-known brands.

Solution:

Benefits:
• Cut development cycles by 90 percent
• Increased design accuracy dramatically
• Eliminated need for prototype molds
• Saved client $40,000 in prototyping cost

Domotech Appliances (P) Ltd. designs and manufactures innovative kitchen appliances for leading international brands. The original equipment manufacturer (OEM) has designed and supplied kitchen gadgets to its clients for over 15 years. The company’s products range from electric-powered appliances to hand-operated tools, and from multipurpose food processors to coffee- and chutney-grinding devices. One of Domotech Appliances’ breakthrough products is the first tabletop tilting wet grinder for idli/dosa dough making, chappathi kneading, and coconut scraping.

SAVING MONEY, ELIMINATING PROTOTYPE COSTS
By moving to the SOLIDWORKS design platform, Domotech Appliances is saving money—both in its own processes and for its customers. Shorter design cycles result in reduced development costs, fewer design errors lower product manufacturing costs, and the elimination of prototypes saves the client money. For example, the greater confidence that Domotech Appliances has in the accuracy of its designs prompted the company to go straight to production on its most recent project for Panasonic, saving $40,000 in prototyping costs.

“Because SOLIDWORKS provides tools for fully interrogating a design—such as checking for interferences and confirming clearances in an assembly, or using draft analysis to avoid the need for a prototype mold—we no longer make prototypes,” Chandramouli stresses. “We have such great confidence in the accuracy of our designs created in SOLIDWORKS that we recommend that our clients entirely forego prototyping, saving additional time and money.”

“The SOLIDWORKS Costing tool gives us a competitive advantage in terms of turning around accurate proposals. The information provided by the Costing application is very accurate, so we use it as the basis of all of our manufacturing proposals.”
— P. Chandramouli, Managing Director




 





Sunday 20 November 2016

Applying Knurling Operation for Cylindrical Components

SolidWorks gives the user with good functionality on knurling operation for their specific applications. When applying these kind of features, we need not specify it really on the model but apply it for virtual purposes. For the CAD representation, this appearance can be applied on a part & assembly.
Applying Knurling to the model:
1. Download High Quality Images Like .jpeg, .png, .bmp, .tiff
2. Adding file location to the design library appearances tabs
3. Drag & Drop in the virtual graphics area by selecting the reference face
4. By pressing the Alt key, auto enabling of scale ratio is done


Benefits:
1. Decreasing the no. of features involved in doing the knurling
operation
2. Better visualization with 3D graphics area on the components
3. Cutting down the rebuild time for realistic views