3D CAD solutions are revolutionizing the electronic product design industry
by speeding development of innovative products that can be easily
customized to meet specialized requirements.
Your choice of 3D CAD tools is critical to your organization’s ability to
compete effectively in this challenging business environment. This guide
identifies key issues and explains advantages of SolidWorks® 3D modeling
software for electronic product designers.
Leveraging Legacy Data
• Electronic product designers frequently have a large amount of
legacy data (data created from previous projects or jobs).
• Legacy data may form a starting point for new designs or can contribute
key elements to the development process, including projects
based on customer or vendor-supplied CAD data.
• SolidWorks 3D CAD software offers the widest number of data translation
formats of any CAD solution. Supported formats include DWG,
DXF™, IGES®, STEP, SAT (ACIS™), STL, Parasolid®,
Pro/ENGINEER®, Unigraphics®, PAR (Solid Edge™), VDAFS (VDA),
Mechanical Desktop®, IPT (Autodesk Inventor®), CGR (Catia®), HCG
(highly compressed graphics), Viewpoint, RealityWave, TIFF, and
JPG.
• Designers migrating to SolidWorks from 2D AutoCAD® will greatly
benefit from new functionality including powerful view folding, which
enables legacy 2D drawing views to be used efficiently to create new
3D models. A new import wizard with AutoCAD-oriented help system
also streamlines the migration process.
• After 3D legacy data is imported into SolidWorks, the FeatureWorks®
feature recognition product (a component of SolidWorks Office) further
speeds design work by searching the incoming file data for features,
such as bosses, holes, ribs, sheetmetal features, and fillets.
These features are then inserted in the SolidWorks FeatureManager®
design tree, as native SolidWorks features, for easy modification,
reordering, and other standard SolidWorks operations. (Please refer
to the SolidWorks Integrated Solutions section for more details on
SolidWorks Office and FeatureWorks.)
• The ability to use these data formats helps designers leverage legacy
data, work side-by-side with designers who use other CAD systems,
speed development, and increase financial returns. Access to many
sources of legacy data gives the product designer greater flexibility
in responding to market needs and customer requirements.
Enclosure Design Tools
• Designers responsible for packaging all types of electronics need
flexibility in designing the necessary housings and enclosures.
• Some package design jobs require sheetmetal enclosures while
others require surfacing capabilities to create custom injection-molded parts and molds. Package designs can also require
integration with existing parts and assemblies.
• SolidWorks offers best-in-class design tools for all types of
enclosure development. Key sheetmetal design capabilities include
advanced bends, cuts, fold/unfold, hems, jogs, lofted bends, and
easy sheetmetal part drawing development, to name a few. These
give designers the ability to create the necessary chassis products
to hold motherboards, rack-mounted devices, and all types of end
products.
• SolidWorks general surfacing, filleting, variable radius filleting,
progressive loft, and advanced surface fill capabilities meet the
complex surfacing and filleting needs of plastic enclosure designers.
• SolidWorks is unique in the CAD industry due to its pioneering patented
SmartMate Technology, which enables parts to be assembled
in place simply by clicking on the mating surfaces of both parts.
SolidWorks has expanded this to Smart Fastener technology to enable
automatic insertion of fasteners, along with all necessary
washers and hex nuts, in a pattern of holes. This innovation,
coupled with SolidWorks Toolbox, a comprehensive library of
standard parts, saves the designer significant time in the development
process.
• Designers can now run initial stress analysis checks on their part
designs up-front using COSMOSXpress™ FEA software from
COSMOS™ that is included with every license of SolidWorks. Optional
COSMOSWorks™ analysis software products enable additional
analysis including thermal, buckling, non-linear, and electromagnetic.
Configuration Management
• Configuration Management is the ability to control design variations
from within a single file or document. This applies to parts and assemblies,
with the effects propagating to drawings.
• Configuration Management enables the generation of multiple versions
of parts, assemblies, and drawings in a single document with
a minimal amount of time and effort. Configurations make use of
design tables, derived design data, component properties, relationships,
viewing states, and other attributes, storing part and assembly
information in one area for greater efficiency. SolidWorks offers
multi-level configurations, called nested configurations, to optimize
the power, organization, and efficiencies of configurations.
• SolidWorks Configuration Management gives you maximum
flexibility in creating multiple design variations covering a wide
range of needs. New configurations are easily developed from
previously created designs to further speed development and meet
market needs for data reuse.
• A simple application of this capability would be to create various
versions of sheetmetal rack-mounted enclosures that automatically
add more cooling air louvers as the dimensions increase. The
various versions of this enclosure design can be created within a
single SolidWorks model file for simplicity and easy design control.
• “What if” scenarios for different design requirements such as power
supply size and power capacity can be quickly explored by turning
on and off various configurations of a part or assembly.
• Chassis dimensions and sizing of cutouts can be tied to design data
for each size of package. As the package requirements change, the
necessary chassis dimensions automatically update to reflect the
new design.
• Components involving multistage processing, such as progressive
cavity stampings or the casting and machining of parts, can easily
be documented by using multiple configurations of a single part.
Configuration Management techniques can generate a discrete
version of a part or assembly as necessary to reflect a separate
version or in-process state. These versions help you compare
designs, track costs, and develop process plans.
• Because change and flexibility are keys to effective design, the
importance of configurations to the designer cannot be overstated
and SolidWorks is the only product among powerful, easy-to-use
3D CAD products that offers configurations for both parts and
assemblies. |
