How to perform effective Drafting using SOLIDWORKS in 10 Stages?
This Series of Blogs provides recommendations for both CAD Administrators and drafters related to organizing and managing the CAD Tools, Environment and Techniques for maximizing efficiency when working with SOLIDWORKS Drafting and drawings.
Because drawings link parametrically to 3D models, the drawing performance depends greatly on the optimization of those models. Many of the slowdowns that drafters reported are related to the models, system settings or document properties.
When developing a new product, self-taught SOLIDWORKS users who have not optimized their drafting environment estimate that they dedicate 50% of their time to creating part and assembly models and the other 50% of their time detailing those models in drawings.
Users with full training who have optimized the drafting environment can take full advantage of the parametric and associative nature of SOLIDWORKS. This enables them to use less than 10% of their time working on drawings.
The goal of this Blog Series is to help users to unlock the 40% gap in productivity.
Stage 1 - Benefits of using Custom Properties in SOLIDWORKS Drawings
When working with drawings, custom properties are essential for maximizing efficiency. The optimal usage follows the “Single Source of Truth” principle. In other words, enter the value for a custom property once, in one place, and refer to it anywhere else.
Here we will use the term custom properties to refer to all metadata within each SOLIDWORKS file, including the configuration properties. This is important to know because in 3DEXPERIENCE SOLIDWORKS, all properties are configuration properties.
There are multiple ways to create custom properties and modify the property values, including but not limited to:
- SOLIDWORKSPDM data cards – This is the method that SOLIDWORKS PDM users prefer.
- PLM attributes – This is the method that 3DEXPERIENCE users prefer.
- Property tabs – This is the method that non-PDM users prefer.
- File > Properties menu
- Editing bill of materials (BOM) cells (link values)
- Title block fields
- Design tables
To determine at what level to locate a custom property, consider the associativity between parts and assemblies of various levels and drawings.
It is possible to link to custom properties that exist in other files if
those files are lower in the file reference chain, not higher.
In drawings, you
can extract the values of custom properties from multiple entities like:
- Notes
- Tables
- Balloons
- Labels
a) Custom Properties in Notes
You can use the Link to Property
function in the Note PropertyManager to parametrically include custom properties
in notes.
You can extract the property value
from:
- Current document (drawing)
- Model referred by the current drawing view
- Model referred by the drawing view specified in the sheet properties
- Selected components
- Component to which the annotation is attached
For example, the note in below figure includes
the Description property value of the document to which the drawing is created.
b) Custom Properties in the Bill of
Materials
You can select any property from
any component of the assembly as a column header.
You can also use the values of custom properties in BOM formulas,
including as decision criteria.
In the column G of above figure,
if the value of the property “MATERIAL” is CRS, then the cell links to the
value of the property “MATERIAL”, otherwise the value of the property is “Undefined”.
c) Custom Properties in Balloons
Balloons can refer custom
properties. Below figure depicts a good example of using an efficient process to
quickly document the sourcing of the assembly components. In this case, the
Auto Balloon tool was used to populate all the notes with the “Product_Type”
property values attached to each component.
Thanks for reading!!
Stay tuned for Stage 2 of “How
to perform effective Drafting using SOLIDWORKS”!!!
Contact Us: Have questions or need assistance? Feel free to reach out!
Phone: +91 94454 24704
Email: mktg@egs.co.in
Comments
Post a Comment