The journey continues…
I began the third week of my placement by setting up my newly-acquired Dell workstation. Having installed SOLIDWORKS with all the relevant plugins and the licence activated I was ready to go. I installed TeamViewer and the relevant help programs that are used and the Tangix tester so I can carry on with my SOLIDWORKS certifications.
Decisions decisions
To prepare for the next step in my SOLIDWORKS training I began by skimming over the training manuals that are used for the five specialised exams in order to decide on the next exam to focus on. It is clear that the Surfacing and Mold tools are complementary of each other. Drawings focuses on the functionality of the tools to create a 2D drawing. Sheet Metal and Weldments deal with metal manufacture – Sheet Metal can be used to create and flatten a part, whereas weldments can be used to create a basic framework for welded or bolted structures.
I decided to take the Weldments exam and began working through the manual. The manual guides you through a number of areas: the creation of a profile and how it is saved in the relevant profile library; the joining of the weldment corners and intersections; 3D sketching to create and edit a profile that the weldment profile follows; and working with the cut list folder. I found the corner joining particularly tricky – both the trim order and the configuration of the corner treatment matters, so each step must be worked through logically.
Taking the Weldments exam
On Thursday I took the Weldments exam – it took me the first 10 minutes to get into it, working out which folders I needed open for the profiles. Each step I worked through methodically, matching my solution to the pictures. There was a big 3D sketch which took me a while to get all the right relations matched up. I realised I added in an extra relation by accident whilst going through it and had to find and correct it to make sure the 3D sketch was fully defined. Taking Weldments has taught me that it is a really useful tool when creating any form of frameworks.
My plan next week is to take more calls and to take the Mold tools exam – I started going through the manual on Friday.
Make sure to check back for week 4 of Chloe’s blog here
Chloe’s SOLIDWORKS tip of the week:
Using the search command to find a command when you’ve forgotten the location of tool? The default searches the ‘help’ page. By clicking the arrow to the right and changing it to ‘commands’ you can search for the command. If you also want to know where the command is located within the menus, click on the glasses icon to show you how to find the tool.
