CATI Tech Notes

What Good is Blueprint Now? - A New RedNeck Workaround!

SolidWorks labs (labs.solidworks.com) came out with Blueprint Now awhile back. It is a tool that lets you edit dwg files on-line. A nice idea, but what good is that to a SolidWorks user?

Today we had a customer send in a DXF file that they were having trouble reading into SolidWorks. I tried to load it into SolidWorks my self, and ran into problems also. I got this Error:

Next step. I tried loading the file into E-Drawings, just to see what it looks like. No joy, I got a similar error.

 At this point i got a bit suspicious about this file. I have messed with DXF files in the past. They are plain text files, so I opened it up in WordPad to make sure this really was a DXF file. The file looked like a DXF file. There were no obvious problems. It had a beginning and an end.

As SolidWorks users, we do have a lot of tools to work with DXF files, so next up, DWG Editor. This looked more promising at first, in that it took longer to bomb out.

Progress? I asked it to recover, but it reported there were too many errors. This seemed like the end of the line. The customer would have to go back to the source and try to get them to clean up the problem. That's when I remembered Blueprint Now.

Blue Print now is based on Microsoft Silverlight, so after adding the plug-in. It is very easy to get started. I hit a road block right away. It only accepts files with a DWG extension and I have a DXF. I scratched my head, and thought for a second ... how different could they be? It is just 2D. If I was going to write a program to read in a DWG, you might as well do DXF too, right?

I renamed the file to give it a DWG extension and uploaded it. Guess what, not only did it load. It seemed to clean up the problems. I saved it off as a DWG and it was all down hill from there. The customer got their file and a warning to use this workaround at your own peril.

Losing Some Weight in 2009 – Lightweight Assembly Drawings

When you open your first assembly drawing in SolidWorks 2009, you will notice that the referenced files load as Lightweight.  This is expected and is a new change in SolidWorks 2009 to improve performance and memory usage.  Unfortunately, there is no way to turn this off. 

While the drawing is opening, you could receive a message that SolidWorks detects that the units of the drawing differ from the components in the assembly, which can affect the display of notes, cells, and custom properties.  And you are prompted to resolve those components or not. 

This means that there have been changes to some of the models referenced by the drawing.  SolidWorks needs to fully resolve those changed models, so that everything in the drawing is up to date and accurate.  Only the appropriate models will be fully resolved, the rest will load lightweight.  Note, if you select “No” to this message box, and also check “Don’t ask me again”, you will no longer see this message box, changed components will not fully resolve, and your drawings may be continually out of date.  To bring the message box back, go to Tools>Options>Advanced> and check the dismissed message box.  It will then appear next time you open a drawing that needs to resolve some components. 

 

If you do not want to work with the drawing while having some files loaded in Lightweight, then the easiest thing to do is to right click on the Sheet(s) from the FeatureManager and select Set Lightweight to Resolved.  This will load all components on that sheet as fully resolved.  

 

Design Better!

Leslie Lougheed

Getting the Overall Length of a Bent Tube

Numerous times, customers have asked me how to get the overall length of a tube created in SolidWorks.  If you have a seat of SolidWorks Office Premium, the Routing capability will give you the overall length of a tube/wire.  But many of us just have a SolidWorks Core or SolidWorks Office Professional seat, so we lack that capability that routing provides.  So here is a Redneck Workaround to get the overall length of a bent tube: 

The tube I will use for this example was made with the Sweep command using a profile and path.  I need to obtain the overall length of the tube and my driving dimensions do not capture that.  So what I will do is edit the path sketch and add some reference dimensions to it.  I will add two dimensions to determine the lengths of the arcs (arc length dimensions are made by selecting the two end points of the arc and then the arc itself), and I will add one dimension for the vertical straight length in my model. 

   

Next, I need to add global variable to sum up the length of the tube segments through the equations tool.   My equation will be Overall Length = the sum of the tube segment lengths.  The equation would be “Overall Length” = 5.0 + 0.785 + 1.5 + 0.785 + 4.0 for this example.  But I do not want to key in those values in the equation.  I want to select the dimensions from the sketch to ensure that the Overall Length updates if any of the dimensions update.

Lastly, I will add a Custom Property from File>Properties and link it to the global variable Overall Length.  This custom property can be displayed in a note in a drawing or in the BOM.

Design Better!

Leslie Lougheed

Daylight Savings Nov.2nd get a Redneck Fire Alarm

Daylight Savings is Nov. 2nd you should change the batteries in your smoke alarm, unless you have the Redneck Fire Alarm, then no batteries needed.

 

Not only will this save your life but you will have a nice piece of art hanging on your wall.

You may also want to hang one over the couch & bed in case you fall asleep while smoking.

Josh Altergott

CATI Support Team Leader

The Dreaded Failed to Save Document Error

I know that everyone has seen the dreaded failed to save document error and it usually comes at the worst time, like doing 4 hours of work without saving and the boss telling you that he needs the project finished before you can go home for the day.

Generally, these errors are due to some kind of minor corruption with the assembly that you are working on, or one of the assemblies parts or subassemblies, and we generally see these errors with users who are saving their files across the network.

Here are a couple of good old Redneck Work Arounds that have worked for all of us on the support line when we get that user who is all too frustrated with SolidWorks and the error messages it is giving them. I have put this in order of simplicity because as you all I know I like to try the simplest and fastest thing first.

1. Does “Save all” work?

2. Try to use Ctrl+Q to perform a force regeneration, it doesn’t look like it does much but it does more than a rebuild.

3. Do you have any configurations? If so, cycle through them, correct any errors that may pop up and try saving again. This has proven successful in more than one instance.

4. Did you just edit a part? If so, then go back to the last edited part(s) since the last save. Look through the tree for rebuild symbols/errors if there are any correct them.

5. Turn off all Add-ins whether they are SolidWorks or a 3^rd party software's, as crazy as this sounds it has actually worked.

6. Resave the assembly with a new name to a new location, if your assembly is out on the network try to save it to your Desktop.

7. Pack and go your entire assembly and all of its associated files to a new location.

8. Insert the part or assembly into a new assembly then save the new assembly. You can then reopen the problem file from within the new file and resave it.

9. Can you save any of the sub parts? (If you can save the sub level parts then the assembly save usually will update to the corrected parts, unless you were adding parts when the error occurred, or you were working on assembly features).

10. SolidWorks backup, in the System Options go in and change the options for backups so that they happen as frequently as possible. Then go into your file that was giving you the error message and make a change that requires a rebuild, such as adding a new cut or assembly feature. Then go back and check in the location specified for the back up and confirm that a new back up was created.

As with any of these suggestions confirm that any data that was recovered through an alternate save method is the most current information before scrapping the file that did not save correctly.

Hopefully after going through these suggestions you were able to save your work and did not lose any of it. If you go through this list and are still having problem as always don’t give up and start over. Call your reseller and see if they have any other tips or tricks for you.

Josh Altergott

CATI Support Team Leader

Also thanks to John Van Engen as he originally posted some of these work arounds back on 6/30/08

Perils of Sharing System Options (where's my journal file)

The Copy Settings Wizard is a very handy tool. Personally, I love the ability to deploy system settings company wide using the .sldreg file in conjunction with an admin. image.  Others just love the ability to share their settings with another user or backup their settings in case of a machine change or registry corruption.

Recently, however, an inconvenience has reared its head.  After sharing settings from one user to another the receiving user gets an annoying message saying that they cannot create a journal file.  Now this doesn't keep anyone from modeling, it's just an annoyance.  But it occurs every time they launch SolidWorks and it's totally unnecessary.  It is also only a problem if the users do not have admin. rights. 

The reason that this occurs is that the location where SolidWorks automatically puts journal files is determined when the software is installed as "C:\Documents and settings\<username>\Application Data\SolidWorks\SolidWorks 2008".  Once this location has been written to the registry it stays there and is transported with the registry everywhere it goes.  So if the user "Administrator" installs the software and then copies his settings to share with other users, the other users journal files will be aimed at "C:\Documents and settings\Administrator\Application Data\SolidWorks\SolidWorks 2008."  In most cases the user will not have permissions to read or write to that directory and the errors will then occur.

Work around (1)

This one is easy.  But remember, torquing around with your registry is dangerous, so watch out!

First use the Copy settings wizard to create the .sldreg file to be shared.

Use notepad to edit the file (It's actually a text file that is easily edited)

Using the Find feature in the Edit menu of Notepad search for the phrase "SolidWorks Journal Folders".

Delete this entire line from the file and then save.

When the user reads the file in now this line will either remain the same as his current settings or be recreated from scratch to point to "C:\Documents and settings\<username>\Application Data\SolidWorks\SolidWorks 2008" if he does not have SolidWorks registry settings yet.

Work around (2)

This one is easy as well.  But remember, torquing around with your registry is still dangerous, so keep watching out!

First use the Copy settings wizard to create the .sldreg file to be shared.

Use notepad to edit the file.

Using the Find feature in the Edit menu of Notepad search for the phrase "SolidWorks Journal Folders".

Change the path that is already called out in the file to another location like "C:\temp".  Just make sure it is a location that all users have permissions to read and write to.

When the user reads the file in now this line points to "C:\Temp."  This can make it so that these files are consistently in the same place every time on every machine.  Don't forget to go back to the original machine and change the location there as well.

Either work around will get the messages to go away.  It's just a matter of whether or not you want to go with the SolidWorks default locations for these files.  There is no other way to change the location of the journal files other than editing the registry.

Also, when working with administrative images many CAD Admins. will push out a .sldreg file with the image.  One of these work arounds should be employed before the software is deployed to clients.

Adrian Fanjoy

Technincal Services Manager

Computer Aided Technology

How to avoid a Redneck Workaround to capture a screenshot

Now we all know we are big fans of finding ways to do things faster and simpler but there are some Redneck Workarounds that you are just better off not using and capturing a screenshot from your computer is one of them.

When you call in to a technical support line and they ask for a screen shot of the problem you are having the one thing they do not want to see is this, a digital picture of your screen.

 

While this shows that you know how to use a camera and shows us the issue you are having this is not the easiest way to get the job done.

There are several ways to avoid having to use your camera to capture what is showing on your screen.

• The first option is to use the Print Scrn button on your keyboard this will capture everything that is showing on your monitor. Then all you need to do is paste (Ctrl+V) into a program like Word or Paint.
• The second option is to use Alt+Print Scrn this will capture everything that is showing on the program or dialog box you have selected/active on the sc reen. Then all you need to do is paste (Ctrl+V) into a program like Word or Paint.
• A third option to use if the problem is reproducible time and time again is use SolidWorks Rx this is found in your list of programs usually under SolidWorks, SolidWorks Tools and will allow you to record your session of SolidWorks.
• Your final option is to use a 3^rd party program that is designed for capturing screen images. I use a program called SnagIt and in my opinion this is a great tool because it gives you many different options for capturing and editing images.

If you have any questions about any of these options please give us a call and we will be happy to help you capture a screen image without having to get out the camera.

Josh Altergott

CATI Support Team Leader

(no this is not my car)

What makes me qualified to post Redneck Workarounds (Week 3)

Here is this week’s installment of my personal Redneck Workarounds.

Electrical – When we moved in to our house 2-1/2 years ago the builder put in a two hanging chandeliers and they hung so low that everyone kept walking into them so rather than cut the wires and shorten the chain I got out the Zip ties (by the way these are the next best thing to bailing wire) and shortened up the chain and that is the way they remain to this day.

Before

After

Notice I used 2 for extra holding power

Remember that it is easier, more adventuress and sometimes more dangerous to work with the tools at hand than to walk 15 feet to get the proper tool for the job.

Josh Altergott – CATI Support Team Leader

What makes me qualified to post Redneck Workarounds (Week 2)

Last week I had posted one of my personal Redneck Workarounds and forewarned everyone that I would be posting additional ones so here is this week's installment.

Painting – I was painting stairwell in my house that is over 15’ from the ground to the ceiling I was able to use a roller on a pole for the walls, one of those fancy pads with rollers to cut in along the ceiling but the problem I ran into was how to paint the inside corners without having to go out to the store and by more stuff. So I took a brush that I used for cutting in around the trim and some blue painters tape (I would have used duct tape but that would have meant I had to walk to the garage) and taped the brush to the pole. This worked great except for the fact that the pole was 8’ long so I put my paint tray on the other side of the room. You should of see the looks I got from my wife while I was swinging an 8’pole with a brush covered in paint around the house, thanks god for hard wood floors as it is easier to clean the drips of paint up off the floor.

Remember that it is easier, more adventuress and sometimes more dangerous to work with the tools at hand than to walk 15 feet to get the proper tool for the job.

Josh Altergott – CATI Support Team Leader

(no this is not my car, I took it while driving @ 80mph on the way home from a NASCAR race )

What makes me qualified to post Redneck Workarounds

Like Adrian said in his original post for Redneck Workarounds Blog that he hails from the Deep South so that in itself makes him qualified to post to our blog but many people have asked what makes me qualified to post to this blog other than Adrian says I am the closest thing to a redneck north of the Mason Dixon Line.

For me I think that Adrian’s definition of a Redneck Workaround defines my way of life.

Redneck Workaround – A redneck workaround is spawned from a need for a creative, cost effective solution, or, an overwhelming bent toward laziness or some combination thereof.

Below is one of my most recent redneck workarounds and please check back as we will be posing some more of our personal Redneck Workarounds.

Auto Repair – This is one is the extreme of laziness and saving money. I had about a year ago a car that the ground wire going from the starter to the frame had corroded and broken away from the starter and this wire is necessary to be able to start the car. So to start the car I always had to take a passenger with me so that way I could open the hood and hold the wire to the starter and my passenger could turn the key for me. This went on for about 2 months before I finally broke down and bought a new starter and replaced it. After that the car ran great and I never had an issue again. Do not know why I did not just buy the replacement sooner other than I had a solution that worked.

Like I said Redneck Workarounds are a way of life for me and I have many other examples that I will share with you in the upcoming weeks.

Remember that it is easier, more adventuress and sometimes more dangerous to work with the tools at hand than to walk 15 feet to get the proper tool for the job.

Josh Altergott – CATI Support Team Leader