I just watched Darren Henry's Excel tips videos...WOW!  If you use Excel in or out of SolidWorks you need to take a look.  You most likely got an email with a link to the videos but just in case here is a direct link:

http://www.solidworksmedia.com/Tips_Excel/

I learned several things I didn't know before.
 
 
Philip Thomas was originally going to do a presentation on ‘dumb’ solids and how to deal with them in SolidWorks.  He was encouraged by Wes to open up his presentation to whatever he felt was relevant to the group.  Philip was under the impression that this meeting was the inaugural meeting for our group and he had his presentation somewhat geared to that end.  Being the great public speaker that he is he was able to change up his presentation on the fly and make the whole thing both educational and entertaining.

He started off by mentioning some SolidWorks news:

1.    SolidWorks 2010 will be the last release to support Windows XP.  SolidWorks policy is to support an operating system one more year after Microsoft ends its support.  He informed the group that Windows 7 is preferred over Vista and in my experience I whole heartily agree with him.  SKIP Vista and go to 7.

2.    SolidWorks 2010 is the last release that will include PhotoWorks.  The replacement is PhotoView 360.  We had this in SW2009 and if you’ve tried it then you already know it is much easier for the casual user to get a good looking rendering from it.

Since Philip was thinking it was our 1st meeting he did a little on the benefits of a user group to its members and our responsibilities to support it.

We get knowledge, experience, contacts, increased value and new friends from a user group.  We see product demos, case studies, show and tell and guest presenters.  We get a sense of community and support from SolidWorks Corporate…And of course great food! 

We need to give back to the group with our participation, support, contribution and effort.  Did I mention that we need a hospitality chairperson?  Encourage all your co-workers to get involved with the group.  Talk to your boss; encourage him to ‘encourage’ your co-workers.  Ask him how he can help support the group.

Philip seamlessly went into his history of CAD presentation.  I did a bit of research on some of the people he talked about and this is what I found:

The Engineering Design Revolution: The People, Companies and Computer Systems That Changed Forever the Practice of Engineering

By David E. Weisberg

See the video below of Ivan Sutherland's Sketchpad

Next Philip did his dumb solids presentation where he imports an IGES file that originally came from CATIA.  He showed us the undocumented “keep mashing buttons” method of healing an imported solid that has a bunch of errors.  He then demonstrated how he was able to clean up the remaining problems with the solid using the standard tools available in SolidWorks.  He touched on the inability of SolidWorks to directly import CATIA files, I’m not going there!  But he showed us how Adobe Acrobat 9 Pro Extended can open a CATIA part or assembly file and export an IGES or STEP file.  And all this for only $699!  Excuse me but why should I have to hit my boss up for this when SolidWorks and CATIA are the same company?  Oops, I said I wasn’t going there.

Philip went on to show the wrong way and the correct way to use FeatureWorks.  This boiled down to using a combination of automatic and interactive reorganization and was very beneficial to me and I’m sure others in the group.

The last thing I noted during the presentation was Ambient Occlusion.  I was thinking I had misunderstood Philip.  I went to the SolidWorks Labs page and could not find a download that gave you this ability.  I did find this: http://labs.solidworks.com/Blog/post.aspx?id=40 which involves changing some registry settings.  There must be an easier way, please somebody correct me.

Other things that Philip discussed but I did not take notes on were direct editing and how SolidWorks has it (he showed us) and how the other CAD vendors have made up a lot of hype concerning it.  Oh yeah there was something about husbands and angels!

Read more after the video...
The meeting closed out with Mark Hatley of Rapid Sheet Metal telling us about his company and how they can be of assistance with those short run and prototype sheet metal parts.  Rapid Sheet Metal has been a sponsor of our group for several years providing us with great door prizes and support.  Last night $100 of Home Depot gift cards were handed out.  Hey and my name was the first one drawn.  I'm keeping silent about it or the wife will have me painting something this weekend!
 
 

It's my second most favorite time of year.  The days are still warm but there is a just enough of a chill at night to cool you down and let you sleep better.  The grass growing is starting to slow down which means more free time on the weekend for me.  My leisurely drive home from work is now even more leisurely since I always manage to get behind a school bus. And most importantly I'm starting to hear all the buzz about the new release of SolidWorks!

If you been hiding under a rock for the last few days here is some links that will catch you up on the latest...These provided with many thanks to Matt, Gabi and Josh.  Good work guys.

http://www.solidworkslaunch.com/ 
http://www.dezignstuff.com/blog/ (search for 2010 for several posts)
http://www.solidsmack.com/ (search for 2010 for several posts)
http://gabijack.com/search/solidworks+2010

I've been reading the blog posts and I have to admit that I'm excited about this release.  Watch the videos on the 1st link and be amazed at the one highlighting the drawing improvements.  Multi bodies in sheet metal is looking real useful to me also.  Mouse gestures I'm going to have to see before I make a judgment but it is interesting to say the least.

If you just can't wait go grab the BETA and have a go.  Better yet install the Windows 7 release candidate and then SW2010.  Come on, take a walk on the wild side!
 
 
Years ago we had an employee at our company who was always coming up with entertaining words of wisdom.  What was humorous was the fact that he often thought that he was saying something profound when actually it was nonsense.   But now as I think back to some of his quotes I start to see another side to them; maybe in my ‘old’ age I’m getting senile.   Anyway without mentioning any names (he is still a friend of mine) below are some of his sayings.

“He’s an engineer of the third kind.”  Spoken in anger over a disagreement he was having with one of the engineers.  What was really funny about this was that the ‘engineer’ was in the next cubicle and heard it.  He came around the wall and said, “What was that, _____*?”  We still use this one usually referring to the same ‘engineer’.

“Reality is real.”  Not sure what prompted this one so it’s offered here with no explanation other than the fact I once asked him if he did drugs in the sixties and he replied that he did them at all temperatures.

“Wait! Now I have it.”  After digging in his pockets for the correct change when paying for an order at McDonalds and finally giving up and handing over a $5 bill and receiving the change from the counterperson.

“And that will be to go.”  Spoken in the drive thru at McDonalds.

* - remember I said no names

 
 
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The recession has finally hit the company I work for.  A month ago we were informed that we would be cutting back to 4 day weeks.  In truth this is a move that should have been done 3 months ago but the owner of our company is one who actually cares about his employees and put this decision off as long as he possibly could.  We spent some of the slow time learning and perfecting our capability to laser weld.  Three of our employees spent a week in Atlanta learning how to use our newly acquired Faro Arm Digitizer.  Two of the laser operators spent a week in Europe researching 5-Axis lasers.  Quotations for the contenders for a new 5-axis laser have been received and wheeling and dealing is going on now even as I type this entry.  I’m saying all this to say that we will not rest on our laurels.  A quote I heard the other day was, “Innovate or die”.   The person speaking this was refereeing to the so called web 2.0 and how the companies that are still big players are the ones who are constantly coming out with new product and content.  But doesn’t the same thing apply to all business?  And if all businesses took this approach wouldn’t it pull the country out of the recession?  In other words, to innovate you must spend money.  Look at it as an investment in the future of your company.  Yes it might be difficult to come up with the capital but there are a lot of wannabe investors out there looking for something to put their money in. 

In the company meeting where the cutback announcement was made we were encouraged to ‘think outside of the box’.  The phrase was overly used during the meeting and over the next few days to the point where it actually became a joke.  Even I was heard to say something like, “He’s never thought in the box!” in refereeing to a guy who always is quick with a strange and weird ideal.  Other guys would spend hours looking around the shop for the so called box.  One came up with the brilliant idea that maybe we should be fabricating the ‘box’ and selling it.  It was all done in jest of course but the point that the original speaker was making does have a ring of truth to it.  We must if we are to survive these trying economic times we think of new ways of doing things that offer our customers a better product that if more profitable for us to manufacture.  We must truly ‘Think Outside of the Box’.

 

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A neat trick... 08/17/2009
 
I found a new way to do something in SolidWorks that has really made my life easier.  When I'm roughing out an assembly either of my design or the customer's I often have two identical parts which are properly the same part used twice in the assembly.  But during the design process the two identical parts suddenly need to be different in some way.  If it is a very simple difference then I will add configurations to the part but more times than not I will actually do a save as of the part and make changes to the newly saved part.



This is how I've been doing this for years but there are some problems.  If you open a part from the assembly and then do a save-as, all the instances of this part within the assembly will be renamed...so I didn't accomplish anything.  So I've been opening the part from the assembly, closing the assembly and then doing the save-as.  I then open the assembly back up and replace the single part instance with the new created part.  This works but it is a lot of opening and closing and then reopening of assembly files and so this is my new solution.

 

With the assembly open, act like you are going to open another file by clicking on the ‘open’ icon or selecting File->Open.  In the open file dialog box select the file you need a different instance of but don’t double click or click the open button.  Now do a ‘Ctrl-C’ followed by a ‘Ctrl-V’.  You will see a new file appear that will be named something like this, ‘Copy of XXXX.sldprt’ where XXXX is the original file name.  Now click twice slowly on this new file and type the name you wish for it to have keeping the file extension the same.  Click on the ‘Cancel button’ without opening anything.

 

Now back in the assembly use the replace component command to replace the instance of the original part with the newly created part.  Now you can open the new part and make the necessary changes.

This is pretty dirt simple Windows stuff but it had never dawned on me before, hopefully it will also be useful to you.


 
 
 

A more abundant Life…

I actually started writing a post for the blog before the last user group meeting but quickly decided that it would be easier to show the group what I was trying to write about.  So expect a presentation at some future user group meeting, “Using the Convert to Sheet Metal Tool for a sheet metal assembly”.  After trying to write that post which involved a bunch of screen shots and step by step instructions I must say that my respect for people who do informative blog posts on a regular basis has gone way up… But I think they might need to get a life! LOL

Speaking of life, here’s a quick rundown of what my life has been like lately:

Early April:  Father in hospital in Sylva with cellulites, 3 day stay.  Kidneys are overloaded from the heart meds he has to take.  There is poor to no circulation in his lower extremities. It is a delicate balancing act with the medication for heart and kidneys.

Youngest daughter swerves to keep from hitting deer, breaks arm, totals car.  So we spent all night at Rutherfordton Hospital.  Excellent small hospital but I can’t say anything good about the coffee vending machine.

Mid April: Dad celebrates 75th birthday, he’s in Mission hospital by the weekend recovering from a heart attack.  There for over a week.

Early May: Daughter back to work but we are now sharing 2 cars between three working adults…more fun.

Mid May: Stress on my Mom is taking its toll.  She repeats herself and rambles worse than usual.  Poor health for my Dad equals poor mental health for her.

I’ve taken up smoking a pipe as a hobby and realized that the ½ hr to 45 minutes I spend at night cleaning, packing, lighting, tamping and puffing while reading a book is the only relaxation I get.  Even though I don’t inhale I can see myself getting addicted to this.  Note to self, limit is one bowl a day.  As I type this I’m looking forward to some Erik Nording Pointer in my full bent TinderBox bulldog.  (Did you get all that?)

Things are starting to calm down a bit, Dad is doing as well as can be expected, Ashley has her cast off and she got another car.  But now my wife has something going on with her heart!  I’m reminded of the comedy of Mark Lowrey when he reminds us that Jesus said that He came that we might have life, and that we might have it more abundantly (John 10:10).  Mark goes on to ask what is life but sickness, taxes, death, etc and we have it more abundantly which is why his favorite verse in the whole Bible is, “And it came to pass”.    My hope lies in the fact that all this will pass.

 
 

I’m the guy who processes the incoming Request for Quotes (RFQs) at my work place and I’ve been noticing something more and more lately… Nobody wants to make drawings anymore!  They will typically send a IGES or STEP file or maybe a DXF file of the part geometry.  Our estimators here only quote from fully dimensioned and documented drawings.  When I politely tell the RFQ sender this they usually come back with something like, “I just need a ‘ballpark’ figure”, or “this is just for budgetary purposes”.   I will usually import the file into SolidWorks just to see what it would take for our limited engineering department (me and one other guy) to produce a drawing but even then we don’t know any of things that would make a part’s price vary such as material, tolerances, specifications, finish, etc.

All of the RFQs are usually initiated by contacts from our outside salesmen but for some reason I can’t seem to get it through their heads what the requirements for a RFQ are.  I realize that they are not CAD savvy but you would think after the 100th time I explained it to them they would get the hint.  One of them keeps saying that he will try to get a ‘model drawing’.  Not sure what he means by this term but I do know that what we usually end up with is of little use.  I feel the problem starts with the salesman, he should be fully aware and understand the problem.  No I take that back, I guess my failure to make them understand is where the problem starts.  Yeah, I’ll take the blame!

In these tough economic times I can understand the reluctance for an engineer to produce a drawing and I can venture that all the underlings that used to do the drawings are in the unemployment line now.  There is a cost associated with making a drawing whether the requester has it made or if we have to make it.  Should we be expected to absorb this cost for just a quote?

What does the reader think?  Is there an answer to this problem?  Should my company be more willing to do what the requester should have done?  How can I effectively explain this to our salesmen?  Please leave some comments as I’m looking for advice.

 
 

Watch out for A360, AntiVirus 360, AV2009, and AntiVirus 2009.  These are extremely dangerous trojan/virus going around now.  As a side line I work on other peoples computers and this morning I had my 3rd experience with this nasty.  Here are some tips to prevent infection:

1. Don't click on popups, not even the 'X' that is supposed to close it.  Instead try the ALT-F4 to close the popup.  If that doesn't work do the old 3 finger salute and trying killing ALL running instances of your browser.  If this fails...press and hold the power switch until the computer shuts down. 
2. Don't click links in email unless you know 100% that it is safe.
3. Don't visit 'questionable' content sites (you know what I'm talking about.)  If you must, then consider running a virtual machine or sandbox type environment or go buy a mac.
4. TURN ON Automatic Microsoft updates. 

Now if you do end up with one the mentioned virus varients this is what worked for me today.

1. On a clean machine go to http://www.malwarebytes.org/ and download the free version and copy it to a USB flash drive.
2. Boot the infected machine into safe mode without network.
3. Log on as administrator if possible.
4. Insert the flash drive and wait for the computer to install it. 
5. Browse to the flash drive and double click the malware bytes set up program.  Just go with the defaults during the install.
6. Run the program and do the QUICK SCAN 1st. You should see that several items with a360 in the name are removed.
7. When the quick scan finishes do the FULL scan.  You may or may not see additional items to remove.
8. Shutdown the computer, remove the flash drive and reboot.
9. Run the malwarebytes program again but this time do an upgrade before you run the scan.
10.  You should be okay now.  As added precausions you might want to go to www.filehippo.com and download SpyBot S&D and run it.
11. The final thing I did on the machine this morning was to download CCleaner also from www.filehippo.com  and let it clean the system and do it's registry fix.

If the above doesn't work out for you send me an email and I talk to you about it. 






 

 
 

As we enjoy the warmth invading our locale today let’s take time to be thankful for what we have.  Times are tough; I fully expect to see some layoffs today at our plant.  I might be on the list…but am I worried?  Not really, I’ve finally come to the point in my life where I know it’s hopeless to rely on my own abilities and that my God is much more capable of looking after me.  I thank Him for what I have and how He is always there to pick me up when I fall.

I just made a trip outside and experienced the ‘spring in the air’ and my thoughts turned away from the job market, recession, war in Iraq and even my father’s poor health.  I started thinking about what I’m going to plant in the garden this year.  I’m wondering what to expect from the asparagus I planted last year.  And what about the strawberries I transplanted in the fall, did they survive.  If you’ve know me for any length of time you might be surprised at this train of thought.  But for the last two years I eagerly await the arrival of the seed catalogs.  I was never much of a gardener until 2 years ago when I read up on raised bed gardens and decided to give it a try.  It was so successful that I doubled the size of my garden after the first year and I look forward to trying some different crops this year. 

If you were to do a cost analysis of having a garden I’m not sure you would get a positive result especially in the first year.  But if you factor in the fun and relaxation and of course the tastes of the vegetables that you grew yourself, then you see that yes it is worth every penny.

And now for something completely off topic…

Don’t miss the March 12 (Thursday) WNC-SWUG meeting where:

Tom Wilson will report on his experience as our representative at SolidWorks World this year.  Tom will tell us what we can expect to see in the next release (SW2010) as well as this years “Ten most requested enhancements to SW”.   If his camera works, we may also see some of the products designed with SW and highlighted in the Product Showcase.  He may even bring back a tip or two from one of the many Break-out sessions he attended.  Following Toms presentation, I’ll share a few tips I’ve learned in using SW2009 these past few months.   

See the home page for more details.