SolidWorks 2010- P18

SolidWorks 2010- P18: Whether you are a new user of SolidWorks or a professional who wants toimprove your skills, this book was written for you. Learning any softwarecan be difficult at times. You launch the software for the first time, and youfeel overwhelmed, not knowing how to even start a new document. In 3D CADprograms, it can be especially difficult. Many times a whole new vocabulary and awhole new creative environment are introduced.
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SolidWorks 2010- P18 Make Assembly Components Virtual 4796. In the FeatureManager, the component will show that the virtual component is a copy of the original part model. This is good since you do not want to affect the original parts in any way.N O t e It is not possible to make the parts of a subassembly virtualwhile in the higher-level assembly. You have to open the subassembly sepa-rately in order to make its components virtual.7. After repeating the same step for the second component in the assem- bly, click Save on the menu bar.8. The Save Modified Documents window will display the assembly and two parts that make up the assembly, as shown in Figure 14.8. Since each component was modified, click Save All. F I g u r e 1 4 . 8 Save Modified Documents window9. A second Save As window will ask whether the unsaved virtual com- ponents are meant to be saved externally or internally, as shown in Figure 14.9. Select the Save Internally option, and click OK. The assembly with the internal virtual components is now ready to be sent. The virtual components can then be saved externally on the other end.480 C h a p t e r 1 4 • S h a r i n g Yo u r D o c u m e n t s w i t h O t h e r s F I g u r e 1 4 . 9 Save As window with option to save internally N O t e After making all the components internal to the assembly, the resulting file will be slightly larger than the sum of its individual files. Create a Part from an Assembly In the previous section, you made the components of the bulb subassembly virtual in order to send the assembly as a single file. The two drawbacks to that approach are the technique is not very useful for larger files, and the file size is slightly larger than the sum of the individual components. But the advantage is that the recipient of the file can make the components external once again and have a standard assembly with its referenced components. Another technique that is significantly easier and works just as well for large assemblies as it does for small assemblies is creating a single part file from the assembly. Saving an assembly as a part file creates a SolidWorks part file (*.sldprt) that either contains solid bodies for each component or contains just the external surfaces as surface bodies. The resulting file is much smaller in size compared to the assembly and the parts. When trying to decide whether this technique works for your needs, consider how the resulting part is meant to be used. If the components are meant to be used for manufacturing, then the solid bodies would need to be converted using a utility such as FeatureWorks to recognize the features, if the feature data is required. For large assemblies, this can be a painstaking process, and sending the assembly and supporting components as native SolidWorks files would probably be the best approach. However, if the feature data is not required, exporting the files as either an IGES, STEP, or Parasolid is often requested by the machinist. We have found that using this technique works best when the part is meant solely for reference purposes or for creating renderings. We have even used this technique when we had an assembly of a vendor-supplied part and we needed to use it only as a portion of a larger assembly. By converting the parts of the assembly into solid Create a Part from an Assembly 481bodies, the file size is smaller and requires less time for generation since there areno features to load into memory. The resulting part file will also not have any ref-erences to the original assembly or parts, and changes made will not update theoriginal files. In this instance, assume that the resulting part will be used for quoting purposes.You’ll create a single part from the top-level assembly, and each component will beconverted into a solid body, allowing the ability to hide and show individual compo-nents. To do this, perform the following steps: 1. Open the desk lamp assembly that was created in Chapters 11 and 12. 2. Click the downward-pointing arrow next to the Save button on the menu bar, and select Save As. 3. In the Save As Type field, select Part (*.prt, *.sldprt). Below the Save As Type field, you are presented with three options. Each option affects how the part will be created from the assembly. external Faces Selecting External Faces will create a part file with no solid bodies and only the outside visible faces as surface bodies. exterior Components This option will create a part file with the visible components saved as solid bodies. Any internal components that are not visible will not be saved. All Components This option will convert each individual compo- nent in the assembly into a solid body. 4. Select the All Components option, and click Save to create the new part file. The assembly can now be closed, and just so you can see the result, you will open the new part file. 5. Click Open in the menu bar, select the part file you just created, and click Open. 6. If prompted to proceed with feature recognition, click No. 7. The FeatureManager, instead of displaying parts and assemblies, now has a list of solid bodies, as shown in Figure 14.10. Each solid body corresponds to a component in the assembly, giving the recipient the ability to view each component individually.482 C h a p t e r 1 4 ...