The box and marketing material for Solidworks have always had shiny renderings plastered all over them. Unfortunately the software that created them (Photoworks and then Photoview 360) was always a part of the Professional package. Then, last summer, they allowed all beta testers access to the professional suite. During that time I poked around a […]
Weldments are a part of the Solidworks software that are intended to be used for parts that will require welding. It leads to reason then that small details, such as welding gaps in lengths, should be handled in an easy and intuitive fashion. Sure enough, one of the built in options when inserting weldment members
Placing gaps at corners and segment intersections – CSWP Weldments Read More »
To start creating a weldment a path for each member must be present. This means a sketch must be created to represent the members paths. For simple boxes and very basic weldment parts sketches can be laid out in a traditional 2d fashion, but to really control things it is typically easier to create a
It is a simple fact that weldments are not going to just be made up of members. Welding can create a strong bond, yes, but there will also be a need for bracing to transfer the loads correctly. To do this many beams get cross braces of smaller sizes or just a simple gusset. When
It would be nice to have a free, lightweight, platform independent, user friendly, powerful CAD software that works for everything. Unfortunately most CAD packages only deliver on a few of these criterion. In an attempt to broaden my knowledge, and to find out what is out there I started looking at a variety of 3d
It would be nice to have a free, lightweight, platform independent, user friendly, powerful CAD software that works for everything. Unfortunately most CAD packages only deliver on a few of these criterion. In an attempt to broaden my knowledge, and to find out what is out there I started looking at a variety of 3d
When creating weldments one of, if not THE, most important dimensions is the length of each segment. Depending on the end condition (flat/butted) this may be the only value needed to actually manufacture the cut list of a given profile. For this reason the trim/extend tool is extremely useful. If structural members are created in
It would be nice to have a free, lightweight, platform independent, user friendly, powerful CAD software that works for everything. Unfortunately most CAD packages only deliver on a few of these criterion. In an attempt to broaden my knowledge, and to find out what is out there I started looking at a variety of 3d
End caps for weldments are rather basic. This is one of the areas where the software knows what typical design intent is going to be, and a feature specific to that task has been created. Not having worked directly in an industry where weldments are regularly used I have no idea whether or not this
One of, if not the, most important portions of a weldment to control is the corner. In production an error of cutting can create a nightmare for a welder. Not only will these errors look bad, but a welded corner is typically the first place to look when a failure of the part occurs. With
