Articles & Tech Tips
Articles, Tech tips, Tutorials, and advice for 3D software and 3D printing
Want quick access to a feature, sketch or mate without having to scroll or search the SOLIDWORKS feature tree every time? Simply right-click the item from your feature tree and select Add to Favorites. Note: Ensure you have the option to show the favorites folder from Tools > Options > FeatureManager. This creates a SOLIDWORKS Favorites Folder listed at…
Just purchased NEW SOLIDWORKS licenses? Don’t forget to Reactivate your License Manager
If you have purchased additional SOLIDWORKS licenses to float on your existing network and received a notice from our office indicating they’ve been processed, then you have ONE CRUCIAL STEP left to perform before your users will be able to utilize these new licenses – REACTIVATE YOUR LICENSE MANAGER. While this only takes a couple of…
Are you seeing SOLIDWORKS PDM blue folders in your vault view, instead of the standard green colour? If so, this simply means you are working offline and not connected live to the vault server. This happens when you click the Work Offline button on the vault login screen, or attempt to login when you are disconnected…
If SOLIDWORKS is updated to a later service pack, you may find that SOLIDWORKS Toolbox fails with a message stating that the Toolbox database is “…not the expected version”, thereby preventing it’s use. The common cause of this is when upgrading to a newer version of SOLIDWORKS, the right Toolbox location is not “pointed to”…
There are two methods that can be used to install the SOLIDWORKS PDM Professional components. One is the SOLIDWORKS Installation Manager, the other is the purpose-built installer, located in the SWPDMServer sub-folder, of the installation file-set. In this article, we will look at the using the SOLIDWORKS Installation Manager. We have also created an Installation…
Today we are going to decide which is the better tool to use when adding flanges to a sheet metal part: Sketch Bend vs Edge Flange. Sketch Bend and Edge Flange are two very different tools that produce similar results. Why do they exist if they do the same thing? They exist because although the…
If you’re using SOLIDWORKS PDM 2019, then you’ve likely noticed some changes to the local vault view. As part of the performance improvements in 2019, the frequency that Windows Explorer completes a refresh has been reduced. This behavior is most apparent with operations like a Copy/Move Tree, as previously after the move tree completed explorer…
In the SOLIDWORKS PDM Complete Search card, files can be searched using user information. Under Checked in/out tab ‘Only display files checked out by:’ shows a list of user names. The user name can change to full name. This can be complete on any client machine. Login to the vault in Administration Tool as ‘Admin’…
In this article I am going to make a very basic sheet metal box with two different creation techniques to determine which is more efficient, delivers more accurate results, and looks better. Before you jump to conclusions thinking which method is better, you might be surprised by the outcome. Stay tuned for the results. The…
How to prepare for a SOLIDWORKS PDM Standard or Professional migration (for Workgroup PDM users)
With the introduction of SOLIDWORKS PDM Standard in 2016, the popular but outdated SOLIDWORKS Workgroup PDM started to be phased-out, and SOLIDWORKS 2017 SP5 was the latest version to include it. As of version 2018, companies have the choice of either migrating to SOLIDWORKS PDM Standard or to SOLIDWORKS PDM Professional. This article is intended…
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