Reducing material volume is a necessity in additive manufacturing. Using excess material in your part is a waste and can be costly no matter what your printing method looks like. This material reduction process could be termed as “lightweighting” but many people are more familiar with the concept of creating “infill.” Nomenclature is a little unclear here but we’re talking about the same thing. A typical infill is a low material-density pattern that replaces solid […]
3D Printing / Projects / Software / Solidworks
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Importing Lattice Type Geometry into Solidworks
I’ve been daydreaming about some 3D printing projects again and have spent some time looking at the lattice style structures that are used as low density volume fillers in SLA or SLS prints. I think this is an underappreciated area of printing because these structures can only be created practically by printing and there is likely some interesting strength and stiffness optimizations you can do by tinkering with the lattice geometry. I think this will […]
Software / Solidworks
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The Best Solidworks PC – 2018 Edition
Another year, another new Solidworks release. Not too many new features this year on the software end but it’s worth taking a look at updated hardware for a new workstation. Parts are cheaper, performance has increased, it may be the right time to update. This article is a refresh from my workstation build last year. Not a whole lot has changed regarding a workstation build but by now you should be on Windows 10 and be considering a ridiculous amount […]
Gadgets / Software / Solidworks
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Solidworks in 4K
I was recently awarded with a pair of 4K Acer B286HK monitors at work for my Solidworks workstation. I was told there was an ordering mix up and they couldn’t be returned. Not sure if that was the complete story but I was not going to complain. Right off the bat, Solidworks looks great in 4K. Assemblies look crisp and detailed, drawings appear sharp with annotations and dimensions crystal clear. It took a few days to adjust […]
Software / Solidworks
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Move with Triad
This is by far my favorite Solidworks feature that no one seems to use or even know about. It’s called “move with triad” and it makes working with assemblies much easier. Right click on any part in an assembly and it should be an available option. The triad tool allows you to constrain part translation or rotation to a single axis. This removes a lot of frustration when positioning parts in an assembly prior to mating them. […]