SolidWorks 2011 Parts Bible - Matt Lombard [230]
Summary
Annotations and symbols in SolidWorks have many options for connection, creation, and display. Recent releases have brought major improvements to text box–driven annotations. Custom properties and hyperlinks enable the user to populate drawing annotations with content and links to content. Sharing styles in templates is a great idea for readily available note styles.
Blocks have several flexible uses and can be updated from external files across many documents. Their use for simulating mechanisms, piecing together schematics, and annotating drawings, in addition to the Belts functionality discussed in Chapter 3, make blocks one of the most flexible functions available.
Chapter 17: Dimensioning and Tolerancing
In This Chapter
Working with dimensions on drawings
Exploring the Dimension PropertyManager interface
Adding and activating tolerances
Applying items to dimensions
Working with dimensions and tolerances tutorial
Dimensioning and tolerancing is an art form as much as a science. People become very passionate when discussing the right way to perform these tasks. In truth, the techniques are not so black and white, but are highly dependent on the industry, the means of manufacture, and the purpose of the drawing. Drawings might be used for quotes, manufacturing, inspection, assembly, testing, and so on; and the drawings, as well as the dimensioning and tolerancing used, for each purpose might need to be somewhat different in each circumstance.
While it is important to follow standards and use drawing conventions properly, this is not an argument that I want to reignite here. In this chapter, I will focus on how the available tools work. You will need to decide for yourself how to apply them in each situation. Refer to the SolidWorks Administration Bible (Wiley, 2009) for more information on standards and conventions.
Putting Dimensions on Drawings
The debate on how to get the dimensions from the model to the drawing is much like the “tastes great/less filling” debate. Each side of the issue has valid points, and the question is not likely to be resolved any time soon.
At the center of this debate is whether you should place the dimensions that you use to create the model directly on the drawing or whether you should use reference dimensions created on the drawing. In the following sections, I examine each method for its benefits and drawbacks.
Using Insert Model Items
Insert Model Items takes all the dimensions, symbols, annotations, and other elements that are used to create the model and puts them onto the drawing. Because these dimensions come directly from the sketches and features of the model, they are driving dimensions. This means that you can double-click and change them from the drawing the same way you can change sketch and feature dimensions, and with the same effect. As a result, changing these dimensions even from the drawing causes the parts and assemblies in which they are used to be changed.
You can insert the model items in several ways: on a per-feature basis, bringing only the items that are appropriate into the current view, or bringing items into all views. Insertion can be further broken down by type of item, and it can become as specific as pattern counts, Hole Wizard items, specific symbol types, and reference geometry types. To use Insert Model Items, you can choose Insert⇒Model Items or can access this command from the Annotations toolbar. The Model Items PropertyManager interface is shown in Figure 17.1.
FIGURE 17.1
The Model Items PropertyManager interface
Often, the dimensions need to be rearranged to some extent, although SolidWorks does try to arrange them so that they do not overlap. Figure 17.2 shows the result of bringing dimensions into all views for the part. The part is on the DVD in the Chapter 17 materials.
Figure 17.2 contains duplicate dimensions, overlapping dimensions, unnecessarily long leaders, radius dimensions