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So much happening, only not as fast enough as I would like it to… Well, the “ Pepsi Challenge” went a lot better than I thought. I didn’t stutter (much), everyone had a great time, and they liked it so much, they even came back for seconds! It was good, but after this experience, I sure have  a greater respect and admiration for the real  SolidWorks representatives and salespeople. Their job is not easy!  It seems to me that they need to know the product inside and out, and be prepared to answer all kinds of questions  about  performance, installation, compatibility, prices, equipment,  etc.  I don’t think I could ever fill their shoes, but  it sure was fun to walk in them for a day!

I’m finally finished with the darn manual on assemblies! Oh, and what a struggle that last chapter was! Working with large assemblies made it overwhelmingly clear that this old Fujitsu coffee pot is really no match for SolidWorks. It kept crashing left and right, and just opening an assembly or performing any kind of operation with it took forever.  It’s got to be because of the computer… Or  could it be because of Windows Vista?  Or, perhaps, it’s all the other junk I’ve been loading in it? Well, I guess it doesn’t matter much. Now that the “Challenge” is over, I’ll be busy removing some of the other software from it, and restoring the whole thing. Maybe that way SolidWorks and Internet Explorer will finally talk to each other, at least long enough for me to try my luck with the CSWP test. Sigh… The new computer still hasn’t arrived!

Ah, but even in the midst of my struggle, I think I did learn a thing or two about best practices that can help create assemblies (big or small) that are both efficient and faster (faster to load and faster to edit).  The first thing I learned is the importance of breaking down the assembly into sub-assemblies whenever possible. The bigger the assembly, the more important this becomes. Using sub-assemblies allows for faster access to the components. Instead of editing a large assembly with hundreds of components, we can open and edit a small sub-assembly, instead. This is  also useful when working  as part of a design team.

Reorganizing the structure of an assembly can be done in different ways: we can dissolve an existing sub-assembly that doesn’t work for our purpose (RMB click the sub-assembly icon and select Dissolve Sub-Assembly), select a group of components from the top level assembly and form a new sub-assembly with them (ctrl-select components, RMB click and select Form New Sub-Assembly Here), drag and drop components in and out of existing sub-assemblies, or insert a new, empty sub-assembly and drag components from the main assembly  into it. Forming a new sub-assembly with a group of components does, indeed, create a new assembly document.  Dissolving an existing sub-assembly, on the other hand, does not delete the document from disk, it only  brings the components that were in the sub-assembly up one level in the assembly structure.

One important thing to keep in mind (one that I had to learn the hard way) is that all this reorganization needs to be carefully planned, because it can affect mates and features  that reference the components you are moving and regrouping in the assembly.  For instance, if you try to move a fixed component from a sub-assembly to the top level assembly, it’s likely to over define the assembly. On the other hand, if you move a fixed component from the top level assembly down to a sub-assembly, the top level assembly may end up completely unconstrained.  If you have features with external references and you move the referenced component, the features will disappear. The same will happen if you try to move the component that is the seed for a component pattern. The whole component pattern will be deleted!

More good suggestions included creating configurations of the assemblies and sub-assemblies  that represented the model in a simplified state, by suppressing details and features that are merely cosmetic and not precisely critical for the assembly. In order to do this, first the simplified configuration for each part is created, then a simplified configuration for each of the sub-assemblies, using the simplified part configurations. This can be done manually, by RMB clicking on each component in the feature manager and selecting  Component Properties from the fly out menu. The following dialog box displays,  allowing the option of choosing the configuration to use, whether we want the component to be resolved, suppressed or lightweight, and, in the case of sub-assemblies, whether  to solve the assembly as rigid or flexible.

It can also be done by using a design table, such as the one in the following image.

It is also useful to keep the number of mates to a minimum by using component patterns when possible, to adjust the image quality settings and the level of detail, from more to less, to improve the performance of the assembly, and to load all components, or at least most of them, as lightweight whenever possible, and as long as they don’t need to be edited, of course. 

These little pieces of DIY advice are useful for any size of assembly, I think, but when opening an assembly in Large Assembly mode, the software takes care of a few other settings that help make the large assembly faster, like disabling the automatic save of the model, suspending automatic rebuild, and hiding all planes, sketches, axes, annotations, etc.

I think I’m getting the hang of working with assemblies, sub-assemblies and their configurations. Of course, it would be easier if my computer cooperated with me… Or, if the new one finished arriving here.  Hmmm… Looks like it’s time to restore this old coffee pot!

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