SOLIDWORKS Cosmetic Thread
A once sore subject with SOLIDWORKS MBD is “Cosmetic Thread” appearance or lack of. Well, SOLIDWORKS MBD 2019 takes care of that. Now when you save out a PDF you get to see the thread picture. If you are not aware of Cosmetic Threads, please take a look at a couple of our SOLIDWORKS articles listed below: SOLIDWORKS Cosmetic Thread Display in Parts, Assemblies and Drawings The “Easy Bake” recipe for Displaying Cosmetic Threads The quick rundown of Cosmetic Threads’ main purpose is to show a visual representation of the internal or external thread(s). Showing the physical threads tends to slow down assemblies and is essentially unnecessary. Imagine you have a complete assembly of a car engine, having all the nuts and bolts showing their threads would be time consuming to design and mate together. This would significantly slow down the assembly when trying to modify it. So, because of…
If you had interest in my previous article: The “Easy Bake” recipe for Displaying Cosmetic Threads, you may be wondering where to find the four settings that were mentioned. This article will help you to locate each of the four SOLIDWORKS Cosmetic Thread Display settings. The four settings that affect the visibility of cosmetic threads within the SOLIDWORKS part, drawing and assembly environments are: “View All Annotations” Setting “Cosmetic Threads” Setting “Display Annotations” Setting “Use Assembly Settings for all components” Option As I mentioned in my previous article, it is a combination of these settings that can often prevent the display of cosmetic threads entirely. Some of these options can be mildly difficult to find, thus I will do my best to illustrate them below: “View All Annotations” Setting” The “View All Annotations” setting is located within the View menu: View menu > All Annotations The remaining three options are all found via the…
Are SOLIDWORKS Cosmetic Threads a ‘Nice to have’, or a ‘Nuisance’? Depending on your organizations standards, SOLIDWORKS Cosmetic Threads can be a life-saver or a nuisance. The nuisance factor may be enhanced multi-fold, when you are unable to display cosmetic threads as intended in your drawings or assemblies. Given the difficulty that can ensue with the display of this annotation feature, many give up and elect to avoid using SOLIDWORKS cosmetic threads altogether. Our hope with this article is to guide you through the pinch points and have you confidently apply cosmetic threads as desired. Display settings for SOLIDWORKS Cosmetic Threads There are five main settings that will effect the display of SOLIDWORKS cosmetic threads within your parts, drawings or assemblies. The very first point to make regarding the visibility of cosmetic threads is: IF the cosmetic thread annotation in the component’s feature tree is set to HIDDEN, the cosmetic…
There are many options and settings to adjust the display of a SOLIDWORKS Cosmetic Thread in the various environments. Here is a breakdown of the options available that may be useful if you find that your Cosmetic Thread is missing. Part Environment: When you add a tapped Hole Wizard feature in a part, you should see the cosmetic thread dashed line around the hole as shown in the figure below: First, verify that Hole Wizard feature is actually a tapped hole and that you’ve enabled the option to include the Cosmetic Thread. Then right-click on the Annotations folder in the Design Tree and choose Details. Ensure that BOTH ‘Cosmetic threads’ and ‘Display annotations’ are selected. Optionally you can also select ‘Shaded cosmetic threads’ if you want a graphical representation of the threads on the hole face. Under the View menu, choose Hide/Show and verify that ‘Hide All Types’ is deselected and ‘All…
I recently had a discussion during one of my SOLIDWORKS training classes regarding common websites that everyone was using to download SOLIDWORKS fasteners for use in assemblies. Some of the most popular sites that came up during our discussion were: McMaster Carr Reid Supply Fastenall GrabCAD 3DContentCentral All of these sites will save you time and effort as you don’t have to model SOLIDWORKS fasteners. However be certain that you are not shooting yourself in the foot by adding unnecessary model detail and subsequent load times to your assemblies. Be aware of adding to assembly load times A recent issue for one of our customers was poor large assembly performance. After some initial diagnosis, it was determined that a number of the SOLIDWORKS Fasteners included in the assembly that had been downloaded from a website and still contained their full detail of the helical threading. That particular fastener had been copied and populated into several hundred holes and compounded to increase the…
If you ever get a chance to use the “cosmetic thread” function in a part, you may also want to display a related callout annotation in your 2D drawing. Inserting Cosmetic Threads First, create a cosmetic thread display on the model by going to Insert > Annotations > Cosmetic Thread. In the PropertyManager, specify a standard if you want (type and size as well). In the thread callout section, that’s what you will see when the callout is displayed in the 2D drawing. The field is grayed out because a standard is utilized. If it is switched to none, you can manually change the callout. Adding Cosmetic Thread information to Drawings If you create a new 2D drawing from this point, the callout will be included in the view. If you already have a drawing, the callout needs to be activated by right-clicking on the cosmetic thread in the 2D…