Error Smart Fasteners Requires Solidworks Toolbox

[Karri Pretty]

TheToolbox is a collection of several powerful tools built into SOLIDWORKS; it can increase productivity and decrease the time required to complete a design. The Toolbox contains a vast library of standard hardware components that can easily be dropped into a design at any point. These components can be configured to easily populate Bills of Material with part number descriptions or any other custom information that needs to be easily displayed to the user.

There is one major deciding factor to determine if moving the toolbox to a network location would be advantageous. If the intent is to customize the toolbox with part numbers, custom properties, or add hardware restrictions a network-based toolbox would likely be beneficial. There are several infrastructure restrictions to having a network-based toolbox. The first is all users will need to have constant access to a network location. This location will also need to have low latency. Any slowdown in data over the network will negatively affect program performance during operations that involve toolbox components.

Once the toolbox has been checked in the PDM system has to be configured to manage toolbox components. To configure these settings, open the administration tool and select Toolbox. Select Manage SOLIDWORKS Toolbox in the vault and define the path to the root of the toolbox.

Once this has been completed see the PDM information in the section Toolbox File Type for information on how to configure settings in the toolbox that will optimize it for use in a PDM environment.

(SolidWorks Corp could be named slightly different, it could have numbers at the end of corp, if so choose the largest number. If the folder was renamed during installation, then it will show by the specified name.)

The toolbox can populate bills of material, contain materials, and automatically be added to assemblies. These functions, though powerful, must be configured by the user(s). Ideally, these would be set up before rollout. As compared to having an incremental implementation.

Smart fastener settings control what hardware files from the toolbox are used when a user activates the smart fastener feature within SOLIDWORKS. This setting will control if these settings will be companywide or if they can be configured by individual users.

The first major setting is whether toolbox will create parts or configurations when hardware of a new configuration is used. This is an internal setting and will not change how the user interacts with the toolbox utility.

Create Configurations will add a new configuration to an existing toolbox file each time a new toolbox size is used. This will lead to very large files with a large number of configurations. This setting can see a reduced performance in large assemblies.

Create Parts will create a library of files each file representing a single configuration of a toolbox file with a single specific size. This setting will create a large volume of part files but each of these will have a very small file size.

Create Parts on CTRL-Drag is a hybrid of the two versions previously mentioned, it will act like create configurations except for when users press CTRL while dragging components onto the screen.

Writing to read-only documents this setting is typically left in its default state, this controls the read-only state of the part files in toolbox. This just gives the program the right to change the read-only flag. If either file setting has create configurations active this setting should be set to allow toolbox to change read-only status.

Part numbers allowing the same part number for geometrically equal components can be useful when a hardware component has several custom properties that generate different configurations even though the component will have identical geometry. This does not allow the user to enter the same part number for non-similar components.

Display options control what information about the hardware is visible to the user and in what context. The variable used is not limited to the standard description, comment & part number. It can be any custom toolbox property defined by the user.

Once the add icon (+) is selected the user will be prompted with a window asking for all the relevant data required to generate this new size or length. Once this data has been entered the new size will populate in the list on the right and will be available to users within SOLIDWORKS.

PDM users will need to get latest on the toolbox database for these changes in sizes or lengths to be available for all users in the vault, to configure this functionality to automatically happen on login see the PDM-specific section in Migrating Toolbox files to a network location or PDM Vault.

Thread Data: This property is very similar to the size and length area of the toolbox, with some minor changes. The user cannot allow or restrict the thread data properties like size and length. Adding custom thread sizes to the toolbox follows the same process as adding sizes and lengths, to use this new thread data the user will also need to also add a new size that calls on the newly added thread data. When adding custom bolt sizes with unique thread data it is recommended that users add new thread data entries vs modifying existing thread data inside the toolbox.

Color: The last setting in the standard properties is color, this can be used to very obviously set the color of a component. Once this setting is opened it will be possible to select a color for the component from one of 48 available with the option to toggle back to the default color above.

Right-click on the hardware component and select copy, then paste the component into the desired location in the toolbox. Once this has been finished toolbox will generate a new SOLIDWORKS part file for this new component. This part file can be edited to add features to represent the changes in geometry. (locking hex nut example above) A warning when doing this, do not edit the existing features in the part, only add features below the current tree. Using relationships to scale the features is recommended as the features added will need to be valid for all component sizes.

Once this has been done launch the toolbox settings 20XX program or configure the toolbox. Once here, navigate to the folder in which this custom component should reside. It is possible to create folders as well to contain these custom components. To add a folder simply right-click on the parent folder to contain it and select Add Folder. Once the folder is added/ found simply right-click and choose Add File. This will add the component to the toolbox and allow the user to define custom properties for the newly added component.

There are two different ways to populate this data. A user or admin can either the data manually into the toolbox setting program using the fields included in the toolbox configure window. Or a faster option is the user can export the data to an excel table and populate it using excel or any other third party applications that will work with excel file types.

The part numbers and configurations can be exported to an excel file format this can be then opened in Excel or another application. When entering a large volume of data this approach will be much more efficient. Using this method will require 3 steps.

Property Name: This is the variable name the user will see when activating this property for certain components as well as the variable name that will be displayed within SOLIDWORKS above the drop-down or textbox for this property.

The toolbox has many different options for adding hardware into assemblies, the two most common methods that will be covered in this manual are drag & drop, along with the use of smart fasteners. Other great methods of adding hardware but ones not covered in this material are the use of toolbox components within smart components, smart features, and the hole series commands.

To utilize the toolbox the feature will first need to be enabled inside of Solidworks this can be done on an as needed basis or can be configured to automatically start when the program launches. If configured to launch toolbox on startup Solidworks will require a professional or premium license. The first way to add the toolbox tool is by selecting Add in now when the toolbox window is opened within the design library.

The second method configures if the utility will activate automatically when the software launches. To access this option simply go to Tools > Add-ins or select the dropdown by the settings gear icon and select Add-ins.

From this window locate the toolbox and the checkboxes located on either side of it. The checkbox to the left activates the utility for the current session in the software. The box to the right will trigger the utility when the program launches.

This window also documents the launch time of the utility. So if system performance or launch time is a concern this window can be used to determine if the add-in has a significant impact on the time required to start SOLIDWORKS.

The toolbox insert window is automatically pinned allowing the user to insert duplicate pieces of hardware quickly. Once the size has been chosen the user can select any other hole wizard hole and can continue inserting hardware without reselecting size.

A sweep feature requires, at minimum, a profile (cross section) to sweep and a path (curve) to sweep along. You can use a guide curve to control the sweep further. If you do not use a guide curve, the sweep cross section stays constant.

Sweep operations may fail for different reasons. Figure 4.10 shows three error messages. As a general rule, the sweep path and guide must intersect the cross-section plane, and the cross section must not intersect itself as it traverses the path and/or the guide curve.

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