Advanced tip for SOLIDWORKS - Challenge with a prize!

❗⚠️❗ HOW TO ENTER THE COMPETITION ▶▶▶

STEP 2- Watch other tips in the comment section below and rate them from 1 to 5

Also, here are my mini-series if you want to learn SolidWorks

Mini-Series:

[Sengardisback]

The most advanced tip I can give is to create and use macros for frequently used processes, such as opening a part or saving as STL file for 3D printing. Once you programmed those powerful macros you will save a lot of time. Surprisingly many people don’t know and don’t use it.

Edit:
How?
Extras->Macro->record-> Then you “teach” the macro what to do just by doing it yourself (example: feature -> fillet ->2mm) ->stop recording->save it.
Now create your own button.
Options -> shortcuts ->Macro ->New Macro Button and drag it where you like->define it by choosing the saved 2mm fillet macro and name it.

Now you got it. Push the button and it creates the 2mm fillet automatically.

You got infinite possibilities and can create the best macros which fits to your needs.

[jainishshah]

The best tip of solidworks: when there is a large assembly, it puts lot of load when loading. Solidworks has a option of defeature. By using this tool we can remove the unnecessary detail in the assembly. Suppose I have a motor in the assembly, its fins are not really needed in assembly but it takes time in loading. So when I defeature it, it removes all the fins and makes a cylindrical surface at its place. We can also select features that we need to preserve. We can select it tools> Defeature.

[VoidStriker]

As I only have solidworks through work, I cannot record. However, something I’ve always found helpful is dimensioning between 2 points/lines rather than a whole line. For example: if you have a sketch with a rectangle, instead of clicking on one line to dimension the length, I’ll click the two opposite lines and place the dimension. This helps if I end up modifying the geometry, adding fillets in the sketch, or trimming the lines by keeping the correct dimension rather than breaking it and re dimensioning.

[jainishshah]

For me working as a engineering in R&D department, the best feature of solidworks is design binder. To design any part or assembly I study lots of research papers, manuals and data sheets, and I need to keep all of them organized so that I don't need to find them in next revision. But by using design binder, I just need to attach all the reference documents the the related part or assembly. By this way, at the time of next revision I do not need to find the reference files.

[bucklogos]

When working with assemblies, sometimes what was an identical part needs to be have some changes made. You do not need to copy the file, and replace the part. Simply select the parts that you want to change, right click them in the tree and click "make independant". It will ask you to give it a new file name and automatically replace it in the assembly.

[DesignYourProject]

The tip many of us may know but is very useful. Interference detection:this is the tool that I use in all the assemblies I make. It shows us whether there is any interference between two assembled parts. We can find it in evaluate tab.

[lepjoe]

When something goes wrong with your Solidworks and you doesn't know why- restart your system. Easiest solutions are the best one 😅

[karacaokan]

As a top to bottom designer, my sugession would be; start your complex and with lots of components design with skeleton sketches in your top assebmly. And then start to add your empty parts and mate them with planes in your assembly, then just create a sketch with edit section in your part with converting skeleton sketch into your part. That way you'll be able to control all your design and components only with skeleton sketches. Or you can even create blocks of your sketches and inserting to your part if you want to do in another way.

Bonus tip: you can hide with capslock and unhide with shift+capslock your components.

[als]

Tip 01: No one likes to open an assembly and find out that the refference planes are all out of place, so there is a tip: Wheen importing the first part to the assembly, don't drag and drop the part from the property manager into the working space, just select the part on the property manager on the left and click "OK", so the planes of the assembly are going to be matching the planes of the part that you just added.

[alexthompson]

Tip: Using 'Face curves' (tools > sketch tools > face curves) to analyse the 'flow' of an organic surface and visually see how the tight areas are forming. Helps a lot when complex surface models won't shell without error, helps find and relieve tightness and curling edges in a more understandable way than the Zebras or Curvature tools etc

[ppavloucy]

Insert a Part into a Part.
A very useful skill to know especially if you can get creative with it. I use it a lot because I am designing molds. So, having a part already open you can go to the search commands tab and search for ‘’insert part’’. Then you can Browse the part that you want to insert. You can transfer any details of the new part, like planes, axis, coordinate system, etc. Then You can place the ‘’inserted part’’ wherever you want OR you can enable the ‘’Locate Part with Move and Copy features’’. This command allows you to place the new part using the Move and Copy feature. Another good tip when the Move and Copy feature will be enabled is to press the constraints button and then you can use ‘’Mate Settings’’ in the same way as we do in the Assembly.

[enosperez]

If have an assembly and you want to send it with all the files that are part of it, just write on the "Serch command" section: "Pack and go" and this option will open a window where you can save the assembly itself and all the components on it and put everything together on a single folder or a zip file. This is very useful if you have a lot of parts and all of them are saved on different folders and you don´t have time to looking for them to send to a client.

[ozgurozdemir]

When working with assemblies, If you need to design more than one part that going to work together, you can 'link dimensions' by using the equation table. To do that:
1- Lets say we are designing a 3d printer, and I want my 3d printer bed to drive other things like sigma profiles dimensions.
2- Design everything without true dimensions of lenght etc.
3- Open a assembly, mate the parts by how they should work.
4- Then in assembly, click Edit Part on Y Sigma, then open equations, click 'add equations' then double click a face on Y sigma to see its lenght dimension, then click length dimension. After that double click 3d printer bed and then click the Y length of bed.
5- Now that dimensions are linked, also you can add offset to it by adding '+50mm' at the and of the Value/Equation bar.

Most of the time thats how I design assembilies so I'm not have to design every dimension when we change dimensions. SolidWorks does it automatically. When you change the bed dimensions, chassis dimensions are going to change by itself. You can for sure use global variables, but I find this easier.

[muhammadnouman]

"Ctrl + Shift + S", will activates the "Suppress/Unsuppress Component" tool, allowing me to quickly suppress or un-suppress components in an assembly. We can use it when we need to temporarily hide components to see other parts of the assembly or when we need to make changes to the assembly that would otherwise be blocked by other components.

[als]

Tip 02: Another one with assemblies: I'm sure at some time you had to modify a part on the assembly and after that the assembly placements became all over the place, so a tip is to always prefeer to make mates using the refference planes of the assembly and the part, that way if you change a face, an edge or a point, it doesn't interfeer with the placements at all.

[Konstantyn-uyhk]

One more tip, maybe obvious, but I found not so many people use it - you can choose in configuration properties how the assembly shown on the BOM when it is used as subassembly.
In assembly choose the configuration tab, right click on the configuration name-> properties in the context menu. So in configuration properties you can find "Bill of Material Options" where you can choose three options: Show, Hide and Promote. The first two acts as it is, hide or show the subassembly in the BOM.
But the third one makes all parts of the subassembly shown in the BOM of main assembly you work with.
You can find the third option is very useful, if you use the same number of the same parts in different assemblies or if you have huge assembly

[tsurutuneado]

Another more well known tip but easy to miss: In an assembly you can select two or more faces, edges or vertices and simply click Mate. The program will automatically select the best mate for those selections (tangent, coincident, concentric, even width works too).

This is not exclusive to Mate though, most SolidWorks operations will try to apply the best outcome for it like Sketch Mirror, where an automatic mirror is applied if your selection has 1 or more entities and ONLY 1 construction line.

[kyleissott]

I’ve always found for both assemblies and parts, sketch driven pattern is a very powerful tool to save time.
For example one bolt and nut can be brought into an assembly and using sketch driven pattern can fill all the remaining holes. Then there’s only one bolt and nut to change rather than every bolt and nut. The same within parts, knowing you need to pattern a components bolting holes using an additional sketch with centre points can make it simple for one part to be edited or one sketch to move the locations.

[ppavloucy]

Copy with Mates
This command works into an Assembly Document and helps you to copy the same component as many times as you want. Just right-click on the part that you want to copy into the assembly and select ''Copy with Mates''. The nice thing about this command is that you can copy the mates also. If some mates can stay the same as the original part you can check the box that says repeat. If not then select the mate that you want. Copy with mates can save you a lot of time!!

[pro.gammer.]

Explode Direction Control :To move and re-orient the triad, simply hold ALT and pick and drag the triad using the blue sphere where the X, Y and Z axis meet… then drag it over other geometry. It will snap to Linear edges, Plainer faces and will align to the Axis of Holes or Cylindrical features.