I have made a decision. I will be finishing off a couple of contract jobs I have and then I am going to try and see if I can make a go at making my living helping other SolidWorks users out there.
I will be creating a SolidWorks 'Design Support' site where you will get bi weekly video tutorials as well as guest posts from some of the best in the business, web-conferences (I am looking at doing one once a month with a 2 month holiday during the summer) and some one on one time with yours truly on a first come first serve basis. Those that have supported me in the past via PayPal will get a free membership in appreciation of past donations as your support has been paramount in keeping me going on this site and SolidJott.
So I have a couple of questions for you:
1. With a subscription site what would you pay per month, per 6 months or per year for some of the best video tutorials online for SolidWorks modeling?
2. What would you expect to see in a 'Design Support' site
3. What would it take to get you to buy a membership and tell some friends about it?
There will be some major changes happening to this site over the next couple of weeks. Some may not like the changes and I do appologize but things have to be done to make this site more useful and profitable.
There are some exciting things coming and I hope you will stick around to see them happen.
In the mean time there is a contest running at SolidJott for a free seat of SolidWorks! Enter to recieve the newsletter and get you name into the draw for the seat. I will be drawing for the prize once I hit 5000 entries. Good luck
I was very lucky to get Jon Hirschtick to do a interview for me on the floor of the partner pavilion. For those that do not know Jon is the founder of SolidWorks and about as geeky as they get.
Here is the vary handy (Booo bad pun...) but very aggravating Vary function on patterning features. Although I could just get this to work it seems to me to be a function that was much much more stable in the past.
Now thru 5:00PM EST Friday, June 5, 2009, TechSmith is offering a free license of their screen capturing and image editing program SnagIt. Now this offer is for an older version (7.2.5) that will not work under Windows Vista, but by taking advantage of this offering and becoming a registered user, you can secure upgrade pricing to the current version, 9.1. After installation, you can upgrade to version 9.1 for $24.95 USD, half-off the regular price of $49.95 USD.
To take advantage of this offer, please visit this page. For information on the latest version of SnagIt 9.1, visit their What's New page.
Twitter is a thing that most really dont get or want to get. Nor do you have to. What? You just said in the title of this post Why you want to Ok here is the skinny. If you get on twitter and follow SolidWorksTips (Tips brought to you by Lou Gallo, Josh Mings, and Myself) you can have little tidbits of SolidWorks perfomance enhancers brought to you when they are posted, even have them delivered to your email via twitter. But if you choose that Twitter is just Not my thing you can always go to http://twitter.com/SolidWorksTips and check them out. Here are some samples of what you can expect:
-Sketch:To display an intersection between two lines,CTRL select the lines and click on the point tool. Display opts in doc props. draw std -Print: SW 2009 SP3 has brought back print selection and scaling options. Print Range = Current screen image and set scale in Print Selection -Selection: The new SW2009 selection option Select Toolbox Part works even when the assembly is in lightweight mode. -Sketching: The trim tool in sketches can also be used to extend sketches by LMB dragging the endpoint to its new destination. Old tip = good -View: Select two faces holding the CTRL key. First selection is the normal to, the second is the top orientation. Great for realigning views
Pretty amazing what you can say in 140 characters or less. Oh and while you are at it add SolidJott and Behnt ~Ben
Its Here! Its Here! Raise the Banners and Sound the Trumpets Its Here! SolidWorks help when you need it where you need it.
The SolidJott plugin for SolidWorks is here. Download this FILE here, install and have fun. You will need to create a account here at SolidJott, it is quick and painless, and when you open the addin in SolidWorks you will need to login to post to the SolidJott help center but otherwise you can look around without logging in. Attached is a quick screen capture of what you will be presented with in SolidWorks. Note: Remember to switch the view preferences to SolidWorks View on the right hand side of the window when in SolidWorks, if you cannot see the right hand side there is a slider at the bottom of the pane to allow you to scroll over to it.
Here is the premise you need help or can help someone with a SolidWorks problem but switching between windows such as SolidWorks and your email client, to a web form, a word document, or other software to capture the question or to offer a answer can be a painful laborious task. You can quickly loose context in what you are trying to capture in this method. Using SolidJott however you open the sidebar tab, login, and voila! Help while in SolidWorks! without loosing context! You can then communicate with some of the top experts in SolidWorks community right within SolidWorks.
But theres more It slices, it dices, it makes julienne fries Ok maybe not fries just yet but future developments will include A button to send a screen capture to the post and a button to pack and go the file(s) you are working on currently and send to post to make things even easier in describing problems or solutions.
This addin will be provided for free to anyone who would like the service, but
I have been running this site out of my pocket and for the future developments I will need some funding. If you like what you get please leave a tip. I would recommend $5 or $10 or the cost of a couple of fancy coffees or $20 if you can afford it. For this nominal tip you get help when you need it where you need it using this addin for SolidWorks So help me fast track additions to this addin by donating what you can. Thank you for your support! Click the Donate button on the side bar to help the community tech support revolution.
Here is a Demo video for you to have a look at on the addin
Its been a long time coming, but I finally have something to show you in the way of a SolidWorks World Survival guide.
This all started this past January while having dinner with my friend Ben Eadie. After remarking that I sure have learned a lot between my first SWW (2005) and this one (2008) he suggested that I think about putting together some sort of survival guide. Well I started writing that day and it sure took a lot longer than I expected. On that note I sure do appreciate the Bloggers among us who spend endless hours at their keyboard typing away with, mostly, very interesting things to say. I hope you find this useful. There are many people to thank.
I read todays post on SolidSmack and think you should all check out his new post. With a quick tip you can win a workstation or iPhone... Remember to share your winnings with him
If you have been noticing by my recent avatars, I have been modeling interesting math shapes. Here's one that I couldn't figure out how to do. I can offer a prize of a candy bar, as that's all I have in my possession. Or this great looking SolidWorks hat I have sitting on my desk; your pick.
Now, I expect a true roman surface, not something that just looks close; although I will take spline approximations as good enough. Let me know if anyone can figure it out!
PS. Like a Moebius strip, it has neither an inside nor an outside, so don't even think of making it a solid; surfaces only!
Leave your answers here at this link You can use the donwloads section as well to leave models and such.
I wrote this in response to Matt Lombards column on Jan 25th, comparing SWW07 & 08.
Matt and I had lunch on Saturday at a kind of outside street fair thing and I mentioned that I had read Dr. Norman's book "Emotional Design" and I thought that he was a bit of a kook, but in the spirit of fairness, I listened to him on Tuesday morning with interest. (click on In Response... Above)
The situation --> a user not have any experience on apply a tolerance for some dimension. The correlation between two or more component can be sliding, press fit etc. below is the screen capture, I also attached the solidworks file.
Any body have some tips what feature in solidworks than can help a user that not have experience on applying a tolerance ?
can we use standard dim tolerance or we have use Tolerance Analysis ?
Any body can share experience or tips... ?
Thanks !!!
To reply and see the pictures attached to this message Click this link
Some guy over at Comp.CAD.SolidWorks asked the below question and is being hit with a bunch of stuff that will not help him at all so how about we have a go at it?
I need a way to create a disc that has a random amount of holes on a BCD. I can control the disc diameter, disc thickness, hole diameter, and bolt circle diameter using equations and design tables. I cannot find a way to use a design table to control the amount of holes on the bolt circle. Can this be done or am I stuck in an AutoCad way of thinking?
Ben ------------------Edit---------------- This is in reference to my comments to CCSW
It has been brought to my attention that I may have come off as pompous and arrogant saying that 'real' answers can be found at SolidMentor and insinuating that at CCSW you cannot find answers. I did not mean that at all and apologize to those that took offense.
I was just tired of seeing someone get a ton of answers not related to his problem and offered another possible place to post his question. I still see value at CCSW and go there to view and very occasionally try and help out. I believe the more resources you exploit the better your answer to a problem can be and using CCSW is encouraged by me and the quality of answers is just as good there. Just you have to wade through a bunch of..... well I am sure you know what
Neil Jones a frequent contributor at the forum pointed out this link to me and although I have not gone though the tutorial I suspect it may be what some need to get going on surfacing
Now thru 5:00PM EST Friday, June 5, 2009, TechSmith is offering a free license of their screen capturing and image editing program SnagIt. Now this offer is for an older version (7.2.5) that will not work under Windows Vista, but by taking advantage of this offering and becoming a registered user, you can secure upgrade pricing to the current version, 9.1. After installation, you can upgrade to version 9.1 for $24.95 USD, half-off the regular price of $49.95 USD.
