Subassemblies
When I used to design automated machinery, I would use configurations to show my machine in various stages of the cycle. This worked great for providing drawing views of my assemblies, but didn’t work so great for detecting interferences between moving components along the path of motion. For instance, if I had a pick and place robot (picks a part up from point A, then moves to point B) that crashed somewhere in the middle of its path of motion, I wouldn’t know until it was too late (sorry about that, Chief). Thankfully, there’s a way to drag my parts and sub-assemblies through their full path of motion without the need to dissolve all my subassemblies. I can do the same thing at the station…
Save time when Finding and Opening SOLIDWORKS Sub-assemblies [VIDEO]
Sometimes you just need to change the techniques in your existing workflow in order to reap huge benefits from SOLIDWORKS. As a rule, you are more productive when paying 100% attention to what’s happening in the graphic area and not breaking your concentration by having to select items from the SOLIDWORKS FeatureManager Design Tree. Because of that, my SOLIDWORKS tip deals with the assembly environment which allows the selection, opening, viewing mates, suppressing or unsuppressing, hiding or showing of any subassembly directly from the graphic area. Not only will you save time when building and editing your assemblies, but, more important, you will keep your attention focused on what’s important – your model.