Combine parts in Solidworks

[Kobus du Toit]

Hopefully there is someone here that uses Solidworks

I created an assembly of two parts.  I then saved the assembly as a part.  I exported the part as an STL.  ReplicatorG doesn't like the exported part much.  It says the part might print, but with errors.  If I fix the part at Netfabb they close all the holes on the part including the holes where bolts are supposed to go through.  If I try to print the "broken" part I can print up to about 30% and then things go wrong.  I tried every profile I have to try and print, the Wingcommander profiles, the default Replicator and Replicator 2 profiles and many changes inbetween.  I believe it must have to do with ReplicatorG not liking my STL.  I am probably combining the parts incorrectly in Solidworks.  ReplicatorG doesn't have a problem with the seperate parts, only when I combine them

This is a photo of when things go wrong

http://www.flickr.com/photos/92380311@N04/8605979062/in/photostream

This is after I removed the bad print layer.  The part is perfect everytime until that point.  I also changed the design a bit, because I thought the design caused some problem

http://www.flickr.com/photos/92380311@N04/8604874081/in/photostream

[Kobus du Toit]

These are the steps that I follow

Create new assembly

Go to "Part/Assembly to insert"

Click on my first part and drop it on the window

Insert components

Go to "Part/Assembly to insert"

Click on the same part and drop it in the window

Position the parts so that they line up

http://www.flickr.com/photos/92380311@N04/8606041956/in/photostream

Mate the two top corners using Coincident

http://www.flickr.com/photos/92380311@N04/8604943771/in/photostream

Mate the rest of the two parts

http://www.flickr.com/photos/92380311@N04/8606047118/in/photostream

I mate on two corners and the flat surface

On Sun, Mar 31, 2013 at 8:11 PM, Wingcommander whpthomas <m...@henri.net> wrote:

Did you do a CSG union or add on the parts to make them a single object? They need to be combined - even if they are separate from each other. How much of a gap did you have between them?

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[lovmac]

Wingcommander is right. An assembly is not the right way to do this. What you want is the combine tool.

http://help.solidworks.com/2012/English/solidworks/sldworks/hidd_dve_feat_combine_bodies.htm

[AdanA]

For sure, wingcommander and lovmac are correct: a CSG combination is the way to go. Here's some more detail of how that can happen: 

This can be accomplished in the assembly environment or in the part environment. Depending on which you choose, you'll approach it slightly differently.

Assembly: The general approach is to get two parts touching (as you've described), but then create a new part that contains a Join feature, which combines the two initial parts into one.

1. start the assembly, insert the two parts, mate them... as you've described.

2. make a brand new part, save it with a name, but don't give it any features yet.

3. insert that new part into your assembly, mating it such that it's fixed in place (make all its planes coincident with the corresponding planes in the assembly, for instance. Or mate its planes/axes/origin/whatever to features on the parts you're joining)

4. go into "edit part" mode for that new, featureless, part (so you're editing in the context of the assembly).

5. select Insert / Features / Join...

6. select both the "hide parts" and the "force surface contact" options... or not! Play around to see how those work.

7. OK, then exit the "edit part" mode.

8. open the new part in its own window, confirm it's what you want, export as .stl

Part, option 1: If the two parts already exist, it's basically the same as the Assembly process above, but using the "combine bodies" function instead of the new part / Join... trickery.

1. start a new part.

2. use Insert / Part... to pull in the first part.

3. use Insert / Part... to pull in the second part.

4. use Insert / Features / Move/Copy Bodies to get them in the orientation you'd like (really kind of a PITA, much better to do in the Assembly)

5. use Insert / Features / Combine Bodies to, well, combine them! 

6. export as .stl

Part, option 2: If the two parts don't already exist... draw them as one from the start. So much better.

I'm often able to export things from SolidWorks and slice them through RepG without errors. When errors do occur I can repair them in Netfabb Basic without losing features/holes/etc... at least none that I've noticed!

Adan

[Kobus du Toit]

Thank you.  I followed option 1 and ReplicatorG likes my STL.  Haven't tried to print it yet.  Will keep this mini tutorial, because I will need it again

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[Adan Akerman]

Great! Sounds like progress.

[AKron]

This is all very strange to me. I've never had this problem (yet) in
SW2012. Just for fun I made two simple parts, mated them in an
assembly, and sliced it. Skeinforge did say there were dangling edges,
but apparently fixed it with "intersecting circles". Skeinlayer didn't
show any weird layers. I'll keep this in mind if I have trouble, but
usually I'll make an assembly and print the separate parts, which is
why I made the assembly. I agree with AdanAs option #2, which is to
make it as one part to begin with, if possible.
-Andy

[Kobus du Toit]

I wanted to print this part

http://www.flickr.com/photos/92380311@N04/8608351423/in/photostream

http://www.flickr.com/photos/92380311@N04/8608352089/in/photostream

It consists of two sides that I joined together to make the one part.  Both sides look exactly the same so it was less work to only design half of it and then create the full part.  I tried copy + paste, but it said I couldn't copy some of the part

On Sun, Mar 31, 2013 at 11:46 PM, Mike Puckett <mpuc...@gmail.com> wrote:

Your last step in SolidWorks should be a combine feature so that you end up with just one single body in the solids folder.

If I'm understanding what you're trying to do, you only want to print a single part right?

Btw, I work for SolidWorks so I should be able to answer you correctly once I fully understand what you're trying to achieve.

[Mike Puckett]

You could also model half of it then mirror the body which would be like a copy/paste that SolidWorks would understand.

[Adan Akerman]

Hi Mike,

I had a couple of questions that a SolidWorks insider might be able to help with: 

- once a part is exported as .stl, is there any way that the method and order of feature creation could continue to influence the slicing+printing process? I'm thinking more about this issue of RepG sometimes throwing up errors for parts and not at other times, when there's no obvious difference between them. 

- are there any secret tips and tricks for importing and modifying .stl files without going crazy? I frequently run up against files that are just too big to import, and the ones that do successfully import are just a pain to work with. My VAR support essentially said, "don't work with .stl," which is fine unless you want to participate in the 3D printing community!

- is there any indication that SolidWorks is moving toward the ability to export in the new .amf format? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Additive_Manufacturing_File_Format Or is there a way to do that already that I'm just not aware of?

My thirteen years of devotion to the software leaves me a little torn: on the one hand I love it, and my brain has been totally warped to its philosophy of workflow. On the other hand it seems like its expense and seeming development stagnation will make it a tool of the past in this era of rapid development of more publicly accessible tools.

Adan

[SolidWorks Mike]

See my responses below in red.

On Tuesday, April 2, 2013 4:33:10 AM UTC-7, AdanA wrote:

Hi Mike,

I had a couple of questions that a SolidWorks insider might be able to help with: 

- once a part is exported as .stl, is there any way that the method and order of feature creation could continue to influence the slicing+printing process? I'm thinking more about this issue of RepG sometimes throwing up errors for parts and not at other times, when there's no obvious difference between them. 

About all you can influence is the quality of the export.  When you go File>Save As and then switch the file type to .STL, if you click on the options button you will be presented with options to refined the quality of the resulting triangles, as well as some other options. 

- are there any secret tips and tricks for importing and modifying .stl files without going crazy? I frequently run up against files that are just too big to import, and the ones that do successfully import are just a pain to work with. My VAR support essentially said, "don't work with .stl," which is fine unless you want to participate in the 3D printing community!

That's just one of the quirks about working with stl files, it's just not that fun!  Think of it like iges files, once step and then parasolid came along, iges was quickly forgotten by most because the other two were easier to manage.  As 3D Printing continues to grow, perhaps the processing software will change to accommodate other formats.  For example in CAM, Mastercam has a SolidWorks plug in that runs inside SolidWorks and allows you to generate G-Code right in the SolidWorks interface.  No need to export or anything.  I'm guessing this is possible because CAM is so prevalent.  Perhaps someday 3D printing will be the same.

- is there any indication that SolidWorks is moving toward the ability to export in the new .amf format? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Additive_Manufacturing_File_Format Or is there a way to do that already that I'm just not aware of?

Unfortunately I can't speak to what future plans for the software are, simply because I don't work in that area.  But as I mentioned above as 3D printing becomes more and more main stream, it's going to have to become easier to do. 

My thirteen years of devotion to the software leaves me a little torn: on the one hand I love it, and my brain has been totally warped to its philosophy of workflow. On the other hand it seems like its expense and seeming development stagnation will make it a tool of the past in this era of rapid development of more publicly accessible tools.

I'm not quite sure what makes you think development of SolidWorks has been stagnant?  The 2013 release is one of the biggest releases so far. One of my duties involves having to go through all the new features each year, and last summer when I was going through the stuff for 2013, it was significantly longer then any of the recent years.  On top of that the developers are working on stuff you don't see in terms of a new feature, and that has to do with how the software runs at its very base.  Updates to coding tools has allowed them to clean up areas of the code to make them run faster, and allows them to make the software less prone to crashes.  As 3D CAD software continues to mature, it's all about the quality of the program, as well as the amount of the content.  That's where the money goes.  While there will always be hobby level free tools, it simply can't replace a tool thats meant for professional design.  If that wasn't true, then why do companies like Apple, Google, and Microsoft who undoubtedly have access to every free design tool out there, still use commercial design software that they pay for?  The hobby stuff is a way to get people interested, then capture them for a sale later.  Another interesting fact for you is that since the launch of the first version of SolidWorks in 1995, the price for the introductory level of SolidWorks has never changed to this day!

[Adan Akerman]

Hi Mike,

Thanks for the answers, all of 'em. 

As for the last bit...... I need to take a huge step back! I think I chose an overly strong term when I used "stagnation" to describe the state of the software. And I'm hugely appreciative of the fact that they've managed to keep that intro price steady (though the annual fees have climbed, and the functionality/feature tiers do strongly encourage you to take at least one step up from the intro). I recognize that they were dismissed as the "hobby" tool when they entered the market and it's great they not only survived, they thrived and left PTC and Autodesk scrambling all around.

What I think I was trying to get at (and it was a half-baked thought at best, please forgive me) was that a SolidWorks user from The Year 2000 (the extent of my experience) would be able to sidle up to a seat today and get right to work. And I think that's probably been a pretty critical design requirement with each year's revisions, right? Add features and improvements, but don't alienate the longtime users who've got their workflow nailed down? So development has to be a super-tightrope, adding dramatic enough stuff to stay in the game but make it all behave like layers that can be turned off? Real paradigm-shifting stuff is, as a result, almost definitionally out of the picture. Instant 3D, for instance, is a pretty impressive accomplishment... but at the end of the day it's a tad clunky and kind of just a hat-tip to a Sketchup-style push-pull feature adjustment. It seems like there are a lot of other dramatically different ways of creating and editing geometry, things that these "hobby" type apps are able to explore without upsetting their old faithful subscribers, that won't ever be able to be on the table for consideration as long as the same basic workflow is trying to be preserved.

Again, I don't want to come across as if I'm really pissed about it. It's my bread 'n' butter, I don't even hesitate to maintain my annual subscription, I would sooner give up food than SolidWorks. Almost :-) Oh, and lest I forget the positive: I think the shortcut menu and mouse gestures are the bomb. If you know who's responsible for them, please give them a hug for me. I haven't used a menu item or toolbar in a couple of years. And you're right, stability and performance are pretty darned good. 

As grumpy customers go I guess I'm not really very grumpy.

Adan

[AKron]

I've been learning all about SW drawings from about 2005, when our
company started using it, up to today. There have been many awesome
improvements during that time. You could sit down and start designing
again with SW today, but you would miss out on the newer features if
you weren't aware of them. Some of the things I see SW do for me
leaves me baffled how anybody could figure that out. Sometimes, it
seems, if I'm struggling with a feature SW just says "humph", and gets
it done the right way regardless of what I'm doing. Never in my life
have a seen a piece of software do so much. Also, when I get stuck I
just Google "SolidWorks..<question>", I go to the forum, and my
question is answered usually within an 30 minutes. You SW forum guys
great!
Then it crashes.
D'oh!
Oh well, at least I save often, and the auto recovery and backup is
always there.

[DronE Pump]

Mike,

     +++1   Totally agree with your responses.  

Solidworks at first presents a challenging construction/workflow model IMO.  But it is all a matter of slipping into the right mindset.  I found that after 3 glasses of wine with some crackers and cheese along with a certain determinate arrogance I had no trouble accelerating my productivity:)

But seriously....I did find Solidworks a bit obtuse at first (being used to 3DMax, LightWave, TurboCad) - However I was quite blown away with the ease of design manipulation and granularity of  hierarchical control once I started to grasp the operational model.  Now I regard the interface as an extremely insightful approach to the presentation of tools for complex design.  

My experience began while at Uni with a Mainframe based animation system known as Movie BYU and then progressed to an engineering CAD system re-purposed for 3D animation.  In the early days of 3D animation systems, we had to work with systems that were primarily meant for engineering CAD (let you guess what that was).  And it was only really in the 90s that we began to see Animation systems developed while I was able to use these because I had the benefit of an engierri which I immediately dropped because it simply did not speak in the language of designers

[DronE Pump]

[SolidWorks Mike]

Adan,

I woulnd't say anyone every thought of Inventor, Pro-E, or SolidWorks as hobby level, especially with the price.  It's just been the last few years entry level hobby programs have jumped on the scene.  I'm guessing most companies are releasing that type of stuff as a lost leader where they can capture some information about you with a free tool then hopefully sell you something else down the road.  When SolidWorks came out in 1995 it went after very expensive at the time CAD programs.  It was largely successful because of what others here have mentioned, ease of use.  When I learned it in 2000 I learned out of a book I bought off of Amazon.  So I was pretty much self taught.

One of the best parts about working for SolidWorks is getting to see what people and companies are designing with it.  When I met the guys from MakerBot at our conference back in January, I knew I had to go visit them and see what they were doing.  Let me say they are doing some pretty cool stuff in SolidWorks.  Imagine the entire Replicator 2 in SolidWorks.  We checked out the assembly and it was done quite well.

And I would agree that it would be tough to jump from SW2000 to SW2013.  But thats 14 versions of a computer program someone would be jumping.  Consider that Windows is only on their 8th version.  Imagine going from Windows 3.1 to Windows 8, there is a learning curve for sure.

And I love the shortcut key, one of the best features ever added.  I'm guessing you have seen that you can edit all the different tool bars from the customize screen right?  You no longer have to be in a certain mode to edit that shortcut toolbar.

I'm glad SolidWorks is working well for you.

[SolidWorks Mike]

If someone is using SolidWorks, and not on the forums, they are missing out.  It's like this forum but on steroids, and all about SolidWorks.  There are some very high end users on there as well as several employees that keep up to date on the topics.  And yes those forums have to be moderated from time to time as well!

[Kobus du Toit]

I tried to join the forums with my student license and it refused me.  Someone contacted me to find out why my license didn't seem right and then never heard of them again.  Actually mailed them now again to ask what is happening.  This was last year November

[AKron]

"And I love the shortcut key, one of the best features ever added."

The "s" key, yes! I just learned about it a month ago. It's taking
some time to break my old habits, though I'm slowly starting to go for
the "s" key more and more. It's ease of customization makes it very
attractive even though most of what you need is already there, and
changes depending on what you're doing at the time. Highly recommended.

[Bottleworks]

Solidworks Mike: When is solidworks going to release that long Promised version for Mac OS X? Everyone has been waiting for years and years.

[Jason Aspinall]

Bottleworks...

I've been running Solidworks since '96* on a variety of Windoze platforms over the years in work and in later years on an Intel Mac Pro (initially for Quark Express) which was almost immediately BootCamp'd with WinXP then later Win7, SolidWorks ran perfectly.  I used to run Solidworks at home (with my home license!) on an Intel PC box, deciding that I really didn't need a PC at home, so junked it in favour for a 17" MacBook Pro about 2 years ago - BootCamp'd that too with 64bit Win7 and it ran sweet as a nut too. Mind you, that laptop now sports 8Gb RAM and an SSD to speed things along :)

As of the last 2-3 weeks I junked the BootCamp partition on my MacBook Pro to test out Parallels to see if I could simultaneously run OS X and Win7 side by side - it works brilliantly, so much so I'll be stumping the £65 license fee soon! I might make a little video of the setup I have over the weekend :) 

So basically what I'm saying is, SolidWorks (even if they currently are) have no real need to produce a native OS X version. Two perfectly usable workarounds exist, albeit with a very small implementation cost.

Jason

*Jeezo, that's like 17 years! No wonder I cannot get to grips with Sketch Up, or Creo which I downloaded the other day to see what all the fuss was about.... 

[Kobus du Toit]

Where do I get the gcode plugin for solidworks? Will it work on student edition and do I have to sell a kidney to get it?

--

[Bottleworks]

Hey native version has been promised for quite some time. Windows is not welcome here.

[SolidWorks Mike]

On Tuesday, April 2, 2013 8:00:47 PM UTC-7, Bottleworks wrote:

Solidworks Mike:  When is solidworks going to release that long Promised version for Mac OS X?  Everyone has been waiting for years and years.

Not sure where you have seen that a native Mac version was ever promised?  

A few years back we did show a browser based concept that would run on anything.  A variant of that is just beginning a limited beta that's called SolidWorks Mechanical Conceptual.  As far as I know there are no current plans for a native Mac version of SolidWorks.

As mentioned by Jason running SolidWorks on bootcamp on a Mac works perfectly fine.  I run the same set up as him on my 3 Macs that I have.  I even present with one of my Macs from time to time.  The only option not available when running SolidWorks this was is RealView Graphics.

Bootcamp has been the better performing option over Parallels most likely because you have the full system resources running the O/S, and not split up like it is in Parallels.

If you're a 2D CAD fan (like AutoCAD), check out DraftSight.  It's an AutoCAD substitute that runs natively on a Mac or PC and is 100% free.  

[SolidWorks Mike]

I'm not sure what you mean by a gcode plugin for SolidWorks?  If you mean a CAM program that runs inside SolidWorks, there are several out there including popular programs like MasterCam.

[Jason Aspinall]

As you're probably aware Mike, if you're prepared to do a little donkey work, you can SoftMod your Nvidia cards to pretend to the OS to be a Quadro card (exact same chipset, different firmware config) thereby getting RealView.  Worked a treat on my works MacPro.  That said, RV wasn't really a mode I used a great deal of, so wasn't overly fussed about losing in when I put Swx on my MBP...

I guess you have to trade off the subtle loss of horsepower with Parallels over the flexibility of being able to swap between two OSs with a three finger swipe on the trackpad.  Parallels suits me down to the ground :)

[Adan Akerman]

It's funny, I'd heard the same thing. I thought I heard it at the SW13 update meeting my VAR presented, but I won't swear to that. 

I wonder if that browser-based option is where the confusion is coming from. Here's a forum post by a SolidWorks employee referencing a "next generation product," not SolidWorks, that will be Mac-patible: https://forum.solidworks.com/message/253496#253496

--

[SolidWorks Mike]

Ah yes, the soft modding of NVIDIA cards, gotta love it!  Like you I rarely have RV turned on so losing it on the Mac wasn't a big deal either.  Glad things are working well for you!

[SolidWorks Mike]

Like I mentioned this new product is in the very early stages of testing and many of us internally that need to know the product before public launch are just now getting in-depth looks at it.  Where it ends up, and what it will support is something we haven't heard yet.  We'll just have to wait and see what they have come up with I guess!

[Bottleworks]

"SolidWorks CEO Jeff Ray has announced that the company's 3D CAD software will be coming to the Mac platform as a native application. The executive, speaking at SolidWorks World 2010, revealed a newer version of SolidWorks running on a Mac, reportedly with an interface much different than current versions for Windows, according to Desktop Engineering."

[Bottleworks]

“We’re working on several concepts. One of the concepts is definitely running SolidWorks as a native Mac app, in addition to the no-install (browser-based) version," said SolidWorks' director of technical marketing Joe Dunne.

"So you can run it on a Mac or run on a Mac machine using a browser — take your pick.” - CEO JEFF RAY

[SolidWorks Mike]

If you were at that conference (like I was) you would have heard a very clear disclaimer before that demo that what was being show was no guarantee of a future product.  What has developed from that idea looks nothing like it did on stage that day.  At that point in 2010 the software was so new you couldn't even call it an alpha version!