Articles by: John Lee, CSWE
The SOLIDWORKS CommandManager is undoubtedly a well-designed interface for finding what tools you need in SOLIDWORKS, and is now collapsible in SOLIDWORKS 2021. After learning where SOLIDWORKS tools are, and also how to access them by shortcuts such as the “S” key, which also activates…
A new enhancement in SOLIDWORKS Composer 2021, and the latest Composer Player, is the ability to automatically highlight invisible actors contained within the selected assembly. This can be very useful for keeping track of what is and what is not included in the assembly. The…
What if you receive an imported sheet metal model with weird abnormalities, like jagged edges or crazy surface shapes? Maybe it’s not even a solid, due to these issues. I’ve seen a few such models while working in the sheet metal industry, where it was…
What if in SOLIDWORKS you need to model a wire, tube, or other path that has a predetermined length but you’re not sure exactly what shape it will take? A spline might be the way to go, in preparation for a sweep, but did you…
Ever wanted a SOLIDWORKS model background that’s more pleasing to the eye? Here’s how! There is a collection of .png image files of such backgrounds that gets installed with SOLIDWORKS. The trick is to know where they are located and then point to them in…
This article shows a trick for making your drawing dimensions and annotations stand out from the model edges in SOLIDWORKS using layers and colour. In the next image, all model edges and dimensions are black except for a couple of driven dimensions from the Hole…
Why should you link notes and features to custom properties in SOLIDWORKS? Well have you ever needed to add a stamp to a SOLIDWORKS part to call out the same info that is already in your custom properties? Ever needed to call that out on…
Checkboxes ignoring your clicks? Seeing strange behavior when trying to sketch something? No, you’re not necessarily losing your mind (well, hopefully not today, at least). And it’s likely not a Cylon computer virus trying to learn your system, either. In fact, as we learn on…
Copy Settings Wizard strategy before and after a SOLIDWORKS registry reset fixed a problem
Restoring SOLIDWORKS custom settings is sometimes necessary, and if much time has been invested in setting them all then it’s not fun to imagine having to restore them all manually. This article discusses restoring custom settings if there was deemed to be a corruption in…