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Hey there everyone! I’m very excited because just today I received my copy of  the new self-study guide  “Creating Animations with SolidWorks”. I had been looking forward to this book for quite a long time now, not only because it promises to be at least ten times better and more thorough than its predecessor, “Self-Study Guide to SolidWorks MotionManager 2008″, which I also own, but also for my very own selfish reasons.

You see,  some time ago, I published a post about some problems I ran into while trying to animate the movement of an arbor press. Back then, I tried a few things that didn’t seem to work and I even wondered about the possibility of a bug in the software. Jim Boland, who has worked as a contractor preparing training materials and books for SolidWorks on this particular topic, took interest in my problem and left me a few comments about it. He also asked if it was OK with me to use the model of the arbor press for one of the examples in the book. I said yes and, well… Long story short: I’ve been dying to read the example that the model was used for. Of course, I want to read the whole book too, but I can’t deny that’s the first thing I searched for as soon as I got the book out of its packaging.  The model was used in Chapter 10, as a case study that illustrates different methods to do an animation, as opposed to just one “right way” to do it.

The whole book looks great and I’m eager to get started!  I’ll tell you more about it as I go through it, or you can check it out and order it with your VAR or at Rob Rodriguez blog.

Oops! I almost forgot that SolidWorks also has an online store now and you can order directly from them! The link to the book at the store is: http://store.solidworks.com/cgi-bin/SolidWorks/PMT1051-ENG.html   (Thanks Matt!).

Hey there!   How is your Summer? Mine, so far, is just as I expected: hot and hectic. But I won’t complain. Instead, I’ve prepared a document with step-by-step instructions on how to make this pair of scissors that were used for one of the examples in my Easy Surfacing Techniques presentation.

I had made this model just for fun and wasn’t planning on using it in the blog, but I’ve got so many requests for instructions and files that I ended up writing a short tutorial for it.  Hope it’s useful for someone out there. The files were all made in SolidWorks 2010.

To download the files and pdf document, click on the following links. I’m also adding links to these documents in the downloads  page.

Scissors Tutorial (pdf)

Scissors SolidWorks files (2010)

Hey everyone! It’s been a while since the last time I was able to come and write something on this blog. What can I say? School is out. Summer is in. Kids are home. That should pretty much explain everything.

Anyway, while away from the computer, I’ve been reading a really nice book called The Mechanical Design Process, by David Ullman. I know some of you may have read this book before, perhaps even had it as a text book in college, but it’s my first time reading this book and, so far, I’m finding it really fascinating. The book introduces the reader to what’s known as concurrent engineering, using as an example the process for the design of a consumer product: a splash-guard for a mountain bike. Contrary to what many would expect (me included), most of the first five chapters of the book are devoted to understanding the design problem and the requirements, rather than to generating new and snazzy  ideas and concepts.  In fact, according to this book, good design really depends on this understanding and even the most snazzy ideas or the most creative or innovative of concepts can lead to failure without a proper understanding of the problem or problems that really need to be solved. After all, your design should solve a problem or provide something of value for the consumer. If your design is not what the costumer wants or needs, then it’s really a failure, no matter how great and innovative it may seem to you. Interesting food for thought, isn’t it?  The author also points out that there are different kinds of customers: the end consumer, the marketing department, the manufacturing department, a group of investors financing the development of the product, etc. They all have their own requirements that need to be taken into account and balanced carefully, as to please everyone as much as possible without messing up the final result. I wonder how often does this really happen? How often the requirements of the end consumer are ignored and a product redesigned into something of inferior quality and poor appearance simply for the sake of saving some money?

I was browsing a couple of blogs the other night and found a little video that compares the bobbin mechanism of a couple of vintage Singer sewing machines. The author of this video (Brian) had just purchased an old Singer 285K and is comparing how the mechanism was radically redesigned from the previous 185 to this one. As you can see by the end of the video, the mechanism of the 285K includes a rack and pinion that  Brian considers reason enough to not keep the machine,  due to the loud noise and vibration it produces. He also goes on to mention in his blog that this may have been the only machine that included this sort of mechanism and that it was considered as one of the worst machines produced by Singer. I don’t know if that’s true because my knowledge of vintage sewing machines is very limited.  Yes, I’m a sewing enthusiast (gasp!), but I don’t own a vintage sewing machine.  The reason why I found this interesting  -besides this new found urge to purchase old vintage sewing machines only to dismember them- is because I wonder what went on during the process of redesign for this particular product. Brian thinks Singer was trying to save money, but even if money was the issue, that’s a radical change, don’t you think?

Here’s the video for you to enjoy. And if any of you out there has some experience on vintage sewing machines or could shed some light on the history of the design of these amazing little toys, please, share!

Oh, and for those of you that get discouraged easily when you don’t see something that is SolidWorks related, I’m adding a couple more files to the list of downloads available: the funkey and the mouse that were featured in previous entries. I know… I had them on Cadooku previously, but don’t worry, nobody got ripped off because the models never sold, so I took them down and decided to share them here. I guess nobody actually needs to buy a funkey or a mouse for their project. LOL Nevertheless, I’ve received plenty of emails from readers asking for these two models, so here they are, and as always for free.  Ah, you know what would be really cool? I would like to see some of you that are into rendering “dress” the funkey!  Yeah, decorate it, make a rendering and send it to me; I’ll show your creations here in the blog. Hmmm… Should I make this some sort of contest?

So, here are the models:

Funkey.zip

Mouse model

And the video, of course…

Hey there,

It took me a bit longer than I thought, but here it is: the tutorial for the hairbrush in pdf and the pack an go of the assembly. The model was saved in SolidWorks 2010, but the steps in the tutorial are good for previous versions too. Hope you guys find it useful!  You can download the files following the links:

Hairbrush tutorial on pdf

Hairbrush assembly pack and go

I’ll also add these links to the list of Downloads.

Hey guys,

I’m working on a little tutorial I promised to one of you and I hope I can get it ready this same week, but in the mean time, go check out this great YouTube channel that is full of awesome little videos on all kinds of topics about SolidWorks, Simulation, SolidWorks MotionManager, etc. The videos have been produced by GoEngineer, a very fine SolidWorks VAR and are really worth looking at. I just checked them out myself.

So follow this link to their YouTube channel and, if you like what you see, subscribe to it, so you won’t miss any new video and information they may add: http://www.youtube.com/goengineer