SolidWorks 2011 Assemblies Bible - Matt Lombard [123]
FIGURE 14.23
The Smart Fasteners PropertyManager
FIGURE 14.24
Adding washers and nuts
Note
If you add a washer to the top stack, the hole does not automatically become larger, and it may cause interference. Be careful about your choice of top-stack washers.
Note
You may have noticed that this time, Smart Fasteners worked almost flawlessly and certainly saved you some time. Although this tool is not applicable to other purposes, when used with the Hole Series, it is quite useful.
16. (Optional) Group the fasteners and the fasteners' mates into folders, as shown in Figure 14.25.
FIGURE 14.25
The finished Assembly FeatureManager interface
Caution
The final version of the assembly on the DVD may open up on your computer with incorrect configurations if you open it before completing the tutorial. This is because the configurations used in the assembly are from a different computer. Although you have the same parts, before doing this tutorial, you may not have the same configurations; therefore, they cannot be found and come in incorrect sizes instead. This was intentional; it is a practical reminder of this problem, and how easily it can happen to you.
Summary
Some people claim to have had good success with Toolbox even in a shared environment, but given that the problems with the tool are so easy to demonstrate, these people are either extremely disciplined or extremely lucky. You can also be sure that they didn't get everything right the first time they tried it. For all users except those who work alone and do not share files with other Toolbox users, Toolbox can cause a number of major problems. You can develop techniques to avoid experiencing incorrect configurations; for example, you can avoid sharing assemblies with other Toolbox users or you can pre-populate all your configurable parts with all possible configurations.
The Hole Wizard has a lot of automated functionality that requires you to be running orthodox methods in Toolbox. There is a lot to gain if you can make the automation work for you. Further, Smart Fasteners that you use in conjunction with Hole Series violate any best practice guidelines that relate to assembly performance and circular references; however, if you can accept these limitations, then it is a sophisticated technique.
Chapter 15: Working with Libraries
In This Chapter
Building a library
Exploring other Design Library functions
Understanding Smart Components
Using Smart Components
Making Smart Components
Working with Smart Components tutorial
One of the biggest benefits that you can take advantage of in any CAD software is reusing data that you have already created. If you are really lucky, you can use data that other people have created. Libraries are simply organized collections of data that you think you will reuse at some point. You can create libraries that include all kinds of data, including sketches, features, combinations of features, parts, and even subassemblies. This chapter focuses on libraries that you would use with assemblies. It pays special attention to items you create or customize yourself for optimal automation.
Chapter 14 covers SolidWorks Toolbox, which technically is not a library, because it doesn't store a lot of parts. Toolbox is a “configurator” because initially it only contains templates that are used to make various sizes of the parts, which you configure through an interface. This distinction is important because unless you explicitly create a specific size part in Toolbox, it does not exist. To be most reliable to multiple users, libraries should contain parts that exist.
This chapter also talks about the library automation found in Smart Components, which enables you to place several