This article is a collection of some common issue resolutions and some tips for improving performance while using
SolidWorks Workgroup PDM. (Previously known as SolidWorks PDMWorks Workgroup)
Issue #1 - Searching is slow: First make sure that you are using the search indexing tool. This is easy to set up and can save a lot of time while searching. Another is rather then using the typical search in PDM (right clicking, search) use the report option. Reporting along with the indexing you can get results in seconds.
Issue #2 - Server disk space is low: there is an option to keep an extra copy of the latest files. By turning this off you can potentially save a lot of disk space. (turn the option off in the global settings, then validate the vault)
Tip #1 - Controlling Drawing Properties:
You can control what view SolidWorks uses to control Meta data in the drawing. Go into your sheet properties and change "Use custom property value from model show in". Default is the first view in the tree.
Tip #2 - Creating a dimension tolerance with + and + in SW.
In some industries there is a need to have bilateral dimension but have both dimension be +. To do this is SW, select on the dimension and change the tolerance to bilateral. Then in the + side enter your value, in the - add a + then your value.
Cole McLeod
Mechanical Application Engineer
Alignex, Inc.
So far,
SolidWorks 2009 has been a fantastic release and now
Service Pack 1 is available. This is the time when many of our users begin the process of upgrading to the new version. Already, the first wave of installation-related questions has hit the help desk.
Preparing for an upgrade to a new major release is not a trivial task. There are many considerations that are beyond the scope of this article. That said, I want to make this recommendation to all users and administrators:
Do a little ‘Fall Cleaning' before making the switch to SolidWorks 2009 (or even if you aren't planning on upgrading anytime soon). Important Note: If you are unfamiliar or uncomfortable with any of these procedures, be sure and consult your IT gurus. Make sure to set a Windows restore point before any major system maintenance. This is not an exhaustive list of maintenance tasks, just some things that I see many of our users neglecting.
1. Each new release requires a new graphics-card driver. This driver may be a different version than the latest OEM driver. Download the latest drivers here.
2. While you're on that page, be sure and check out the "SolidWorks System Requirements" links. Each year the requirements may increase as the power and technologies are expanded. How long has it been since your last new desktop? A typical engineering department has a two- to three-year hardware lifecycle.
3. Clear out your Windows temporary directory:
a. Start > Run > %temp%
b. Most of these files can be deleted safely
c. If you don't feel comfortable deleting these, run the Disk Cleanup utility in the System Tools program group.
4. Defrag your hard drive. You'll find the Disk Defragmenter tool in the Windows Accessories/System Tools program group. Let this run overnight several times a month.
5. Uninstall the Bloat-Ware! Software such as iTunes, RealPlayer, etc, are fun but also can cause unnecessary processes to startup when Windows boots and cause an overall performance degradation. Leave those at home or create a clean partition for running SolidWorks.
6. Watch the scope of your Windows Desktop Search. See that little blue magnifying glass icon in your system tray? When it's glowing, it's indexing and impacting your hard drive and CPU performance. Make sure its search paths are limited to your local SolidWorks file locations. You can remove it from the Start Up program group so it doesn't run everything Windows boots.
7. Clean the registry! There are plenty of utilities out there that can clean up the Windows registry. A free one that I use is ‘CCleaner', find it here. These utilities remove odds and ends from the registry and improve overall performance in some cases. The longer you have been running an installation of Windows, the more junk you accumulate!
8. Once clean, keep it clean. I use Spybot Search and Destroy as my anti-spyware application.
9. Set Windows for "Best Performance." Go to Control Panel > System > Advanced > Performance Settings > Visual Effects > "Adjust for best performance".
10. The Ultimate in "Cleanup" is always a re-installation of Windows. Even if you uninstall everything, it seems that over time the Windows environment just bogs down. The thought of reformatting scares most novice Windows users, but to most Windows Pros it is a necessity. This will completely refresh your environment. This requires a lot of backup and planning, but once you have a procedure in place, it isn't that bad (about a half-days work). Personally I keep a backup of all applications and drivers I need to install on a network location along with personal backup files.
These recommendations should keep your box running better all year long. I typically will do a complete Windows re-installation every 4 to 6 months to keep my environment in top shape. Again, be sure not to get into any of these if you are uncomfortable or unfamiliar! Alignex can't replace your IT support, so make sure they are kept in the loop anytime you plan on doing any major system maintenance. You can check out this Microsoft site for some further beginner information.
Enjoy SolidWorks 2009! As always, if you run into installation issues, please call on Alignex Support.
Brian Zias
Mechanical Application Engineer
Alignex, Inc.
Here at
Alignex, the
SolidWorks Simulation help desk gets a fair amount of calls regarding meshing. This is the first in a five-part series of meshing tips and tricks.
Quite frequently, the questions we receive deal with users running out of resources and the crashes that result from running out of those resources. Meshing is very memory (RAM) and processor (CPU) intensive. A slower processor simply means you will wait longer for the mesh generation to complete, and running out of RAM means you may get an application crash and be forced to begin again.
There is a finite number of elements that can be created given the amount of RAM on your system. The more RAM, the more elements you can create at one time. Think of your number of nodes as a good indicator of mesh size. This number is displayed during solve on the solver window, and also can be accessed by right-clicking the Mesh folder and choosing "Details."
A 32-bit system with 4 GB of RAM will let you get close to one million (1,000,000) nodes with a single part. As you increase the size of your assemblies, some of those resources are reserved for contact elements. You will find your own ceiling is between 700K and 900K nodes on a 4GB, 32-bit system. Many customers are choosing to outfit an "x64" machine as a dedicated Simulation machine. An x64 PC with 8GB RAM will raise that ceiling to roughly three million (3,000,000) nodes.
Most users running out of RAM are simply trying to mesh too many components. They neglect the de-featuring and idealization steps that are required for geometry preparation. Given enough elements, you can mesh anything. But here are some suggestions for creating the optimum mesh.
One technique that separates the casual user from expert is the mixed-mesh creation. Mixed-mesh refers to using solid, shell, and beam elements in the same study simultaneously. It allows the user to idealize structural members as beams, define thin-walled components as shells, and leave the remainder as solids in a large assembly.
Here in Part 1, we will discuss the best way to create geometry that is ready for a robust shell mesh. Once a few of the thin-walled sheets or plates are changed to shells, there is immediate relief. Shells are 2D elements which idealize the thickness direction, thus removing the need to mesh through the thickness. Meshing a thin plate with a solid is always going to require many, many more elements than idealizing it with shell elements.
Since a shell is a 2D element, it can be applied to pure surfaces in SolidWorks. In fact, it is more accurate to define a surface to represent the shell in the model itself than is it to select a face of the solid. The thicker the part, the more important it is to create this mid-surface. SolidWorks Simulation understands the surface you select to define the shell as the mid-surface of the part. Luckily, there is a command named "Mid-Surface" which allows us to create a surface from a solid part at the proper location. There is even an automatic selection of the faces (just set the threshold to be less than or equal to part thickness).
Fig 1. - Mid-Surface command in SolidWorks
You may want to knit these into a single surface. You can easily create these features as a separate configuration (hint: "FEA" configuration). The last feature in this configuration should be a Delete Body feature which removes the solid body and leaves only the surface.
Fig 2 - Knitting surfaces
Fig 3 - Idealized bracket in large assembly
After the surface configuration is created, it needs to be properly bonded to the rest of the assembly. Tune in next time for a primer on mixed-mesh contact creation.
By the way, there is some fantastic new functionality in SolidWorks Simulation 2009 along this same line. If you create a part with SolidWorks Sheetmetal, the Simulation will automatically extract the mid-surface and use that to mesh the part!
Brian Zias
bzia@alignex.com
Autumn is upon us and another new release of SolidWorks has been rolled out. At Alignex, we have been working with
SolidWorks 2009 since its early beta days. The word from SolidWorks corporate from the very beginning was that this release was all about performance. Many of the enhancements in 2009 are things done under the hood so to speak to achieve speed improvements. In the statistics below keep in mind that SolidWorks is using assemblies that are between 5 thousand and 10 thousand components in size.
Like many CAD users, I too am interested in performance and I wanted to test the speed claims on real world data. I use the same customer data set (a good sized assembly) that I've had since the SolidWorks 2003 timeframe. I've used this data set to test each release of SolidWorks since 2003 for stability, compatibility, and to look for regression issues. Although I can't show you the actual assembly because of its proprietary nature, I can show you some statistics from it so that you can get a sense of what it's like size wise.
Here we see the SolidWorks specific statistics like total number of parts, etc.
Below, you can see some file size statistics from this data set over different releases of SolidWorks. 2009 SP0 keeps heading in the right direction in regards to file size. This is the second smallest file size I've recorded to date! In each case the size is determined by migrating the data set from the previous release using the migration wizard in SolidWorks, and then the size on disk is recorded. 
Once the data was migrated into the 2009 format I did some quick time testing versus 2008 doing common tasks in drafting using this assembly. Keep in mind that the assembly I'm using for these tests is quite a bit smaller than the ones SolidWorks used to gage their performance increases, so I suspect that the larger the size of the assembly, the larger the scale of the performance increase you'll see.
The *most* important thing to keep in mind in all this is that I didn't have to do anything different process wise in 2009 in order to see these gains. In other words, I didn't have to use any New Commands or New Techniques in 2009 (and there are quite a few) to see these gains. These are raw gains that result from nothing more than migrating the data into the 2009 format, and then executing the same commands that I had in 2008. If you were to use some of the new capabilities in 2009 (like Speedpak) then the delta in performance would be even greater in 2009's favor. 
As always, I recommend that all SolidWorks customers give some careful consideration to making the switch before you do it. Planning and preparation are the keys to a successful rollout of a new release. If you have any questions whatsoever about this please call our helpdesk to talk over your plans with one of our certified application engineers, or get in touch with your account rep from Alignex and they can point you in the right direction.
Mack Rasmussen
Director of Technical Support
Alignex Inc.
Here is a neat way to control the QUANTITY of your weldment members in a top level ASSEMBLY Bill of Materials:
First begin by using the new ‘dissolve weldment' command on your assembly drawing BOM:
This may put in the actual weldment members LENGTH in the QTY column and cause you to stare in disbelief at the values for QUANTITY!
Simply open the WELDMENT PART in its own window, expand the cut list in your feature tree, right click on each of the yellow folders and pick ‘properties':
Here you can set the BOM Quantity to -none- for each item....Your BOM will now look like this:
Another great reason to use the weldment tools in SolidWorks!
Over the last couple of weeks on our support desk here at Alignex we have noticed a large number of general installation errors when installing SolidWorks 2008 or SolidWorks 2009. These errors range anywhere from installing with the wrong DVD to very high level including wrong registry permissions, etc.
The most common one has been a general MSI error. This error gives you a string of failed to install product X and Y etc. In that long error string you will see a "CODE=1603". If you Google this error you will see everything from permissions to registry.
A proposed solution:
Uninstall windows desktop search. (You will have to reboot the machine) Also be sure that you have administrative permissions on the PC and that windows fire wall and antiviruses are turned off.
A majority of our customers who received this error and followed the proposed solution, installed without getting further errors. If you follow these instructions and still get an error during installation. Please zip up your installation log (C:\Documents and Settings\(your user)\Application Data\IM) and send to support@alignex.com. Application Data could be a hidden folder, so make sure your hidden files and folders are turned on.