I was actually planning on posting about friction coefficients and the way it all works using an example of a simulation of these tong grabs, but before I do that, I thought I should share with you about a little problem I ran into while trying to use a special option available for the hinge mate and a way to work around it. OK, first of all, let me tell you a bit about what these tong grabs do....

Hey everyone, I’m sorry I’ve been out of action for a whole week! I somehow managed to first hurt my rib cage merely by coughing,  and then, just in case that wasn’t enough,  poison myself with the very medications they gave me at the urgent care clinic to help me “feel better”.  Hmmm…  Anyway, I’ve been doing some light reading on how to model using surfaces in SolidWorks, just ...

This is a picture of Master Andrew, my youngest son, ridding on one of his favorites at the park near our home, the “wild ducky”.  In the back you can also see his other favorite, the “bucking bronco”.  The picture was taken a few years ago, when I used to carry my camera everywhere I went, and take a picture of every single smile, frown or bugger.  Andy’s summer break started sever...

Hey guys, you know we bloggers love comments and we always welcome our readers to share their point of view on everything we write about, right? I mean, at least I do. However, what I really can’t have in this blog is nasty comments and flames, as well as profanity of any sort, even if it’s not exactly directed towards me, and especially when it’s directed to other readers of this blog. I wi...

As I mention in my last post, I was encountering a series of issues and strange behavior when running some examples in Basic Motion. While I’m still waiting for what SolidWorks developers may have to say about this, I was very lucky to hear from someone that really knows his stuff when it comes to Animation and SolidWorks Motion.  Jim Boland, who does not represent SolidWorks Corp., but ha...

As I had mentioned previously, and also in a comment to my last post, I’m  currently teaching myself SolidWorks Motion, with the aid of the official  2009 training manual. I’m really enjoying the exercises and examples provided in the book, and the way everything always turns out as predicted in the lesson.  My problem began, however, when I tried to use Basic Motion to run some examples of...

  My son made me promise this was really a model of lip balm… less girly I guess, if you’re willing to overlook the flowers on the decal, that is. Sorry, I couldn’t resist! Not that I usually wear lipstick, err, lip balm, but when stressed out to the max and whenever tossing a 12 lb ball at a group of unsuspecting pins won’t make me feel any better,   I often find solace in regular thin...

This is a short video I put together on using SolidWorks Motion to simulate the movement of an arbor press. This is really my first try on animation, I mean, besides the examples and exercises on books and tutorials. I’m currently learning at my own pace using the SolidWorks Motion training manual. There’s also a book called The Step by Step Self-Study Guide to SolidWorks MotionManager. I was...

Well this turned out to be a two part post, instead of one. It all started with me venturing into SolidWorks MotionManager, which is used to create little animations of assemblies as they are exploded and/or collapsed, rotated, dragged around, or just made to have their components move and interact with each other in the way they would do in real life. I’m working on a little video about it, usi...

I had told you before, quite a few days ago, that I was anxiously waiting for the arrival of a demo unit of 3DConnexion’s new SpacePilot PRO. Well, it arrived a couple of days after I wrote that post, and I’ve been playing with it ever since, trying to find out if it’s all I was hoping it would be. Unfortunately for me, I ran into some trouble and so it was that this particular hardware revi...

This is the hard part for me. I really wish I had more coupons to give to each one of you that entered the giveaway, but sadly I don’t.  Five winners were chosen randomly from all the comments and emails received and they are: David Walker Mahir Abrahim Mark (It didn’t say much more than Mark, but it’s the only Mark that entered, so, yes, it’s you Mark) SteveF Prasad (same here, no other ...

That’s right! I’m giving away ten coupons for a free SolidWorks certification test. Five will be given to readers of this blog and the other five to readers of SolidWorks para Todos, my blog in Spanish.  Now the really neat thing is that once you win one of these coupons you can actually choose which of the five certification tests available you want to take: CSWP-Core Modeling Specialist: (...

OK, so this is one of those really cool things about being a blogger and attending an event such as SolidWorks World as “press”: you get to see all these awesome new gadgets before they’re made available to the public or even announced.  The hard part is that you have to keep it a secret, and you can’t tell a single soul (not even your aunt Gladys if you have one) about all the wonders yo...

I’ve been out of action for several days, suffering from what may seem like an awful case of conjunctivitis, or extremely dry eye, most likely related to the presence (and recent growth) of scar tissue on my cornea as a result of a chemical burn I suffered a few years ago while working with strain gauges. It feels worse than it sounds, believe me!  It also comes and goes, never lasts more than ...

I guess the bad thing about being a self-learner is that many times you have to make do with whatever materials you may find available, and sometimes they may be a little outdated. For instance, I grabbed this COSMOSWorks Designer 2007 manual on eBay and was going through the lessons using SolidWorks Simulation (that’s the new name for COSMOSWorks in 2009). Except for a few differences here and ...