Create the Drawing Title Block Learn Timesaving Features for the Drawing Template Save and Share the Sheet Format and Template... Set the Sheet Size and Drafting Standards The first th
Trang 1Create the Drawing Title Block
Learn Timesaving Features for the Drawing Template
Save and Share the Sheet Format and Template
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In the previous chapter, you began the process of creating many of the
tem-plates you have used throughout this book In this chapter, you will be centrating on the templates and sheet formats used in the chapters related
con-to drawings As you have seen in the previous chapters, templates that are properly set up can save you a lot of time
When you created the templates for parts and assemblies, you needed to make only a couple of adjustments to the document settings However, drawing templates have more that can be included, which makes the process of creating drawings with them even easier In addition to specifying document settings in the template, you can add the sheet format, title block, revision table, and notes In this chapter, you will be creating a template for size B (11″× 17″) drawings (and you can use the same process for the other drawing sizes) Creating drawing templates for each drawing size is the most common practice, since users will not need to change the sheet for-mat for each drawing
Set the Sheet Size and Drafting Standards
The first thing you need to do before creating a new template is to open one of the standard templates that ships with SolidWorks The standard drawing templates offer a good starting point, allowing you to make some changes to the document settings and then add elements to finish the template The first settings that you will adjust are the ones that specify the size of the drawing and the drafting stan-dards that will be used when the template is put to use To start the process, follow these steps:
1 Create a new drawing by clicking the New button on the menu bar,
and select Drawing Template on the New SolidWorks Document menu Click OK to open the drawing
2 Since you will be using an 11″× 17″ sheet for all the drawings in this book, you will start by creating the template for size B Right-click anywhere in the graphics area, and select Properties in the menu
3 In the Sheet Properties window shown in Figure 16.1, select the B
size standard format, and click OK
N O t e Beyond A size sheets (8½″ × 11″), drawings are drawn in the Landscape orientation
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F I g u r e 1 6 1 Sheet Properties window
explanation of the Sheet Sizes
There are many standard sheet sizes worldwide, each controlled by the
appro-priate standard in each country The two most common standards that specify
paper dimensions are ANSI/ASME Y14.1 and ISO 216 The ANSI/ASME standard,
the most commonly used standard in North America, refers to page sizes with
a letter designation Paper sizes in ISO are represented with the letter A, B, or C
followed by a number Since all the examples in this book are based on the ANSI/
ASME standards, we will refer to page sizes as either A, B, C, D, or E Table 16.1
describes the ANSI/ASME sheet sizes and shows the closest ISO A size
T a b l e 1 6 1 ANSI Sheet Sizes Name Inches × Inches MM × MM alias Similar ISO a Size
ANSI A 8.5 × 11 216 × 279 Letter A4 ANSI B 11 × 17 279 × 432 Tabloid A3 ANSI C 17 × 22 432 × 559 - A2 ANSI D 22 × 34 559 × 864 - A1 ANSI E 34 × 44 864 × 1118 - A0
Trang 4t I p Instead of changing the sheet size for each drawing as you create them, save time by using the process described in this chapter to create templates for each drawing sheet size.
1 When you begin creating a new drawing, SolidWorks may prompt
you, depending on your settings, to select a part or assembly from which to create a view Since we are not going to be creating views just yet, click the red X in the PropertyManager
2 Select the Options button in the Menu Bar.
3 Select the Document Properties tab at the top of the window to access
the properties and settings that will only apply to the active document
4 First we need to ensure that the Overall Drafting Standard displayed
in the Drafting Standard field is set to ANSI If another drafting dard is shown in the field, click the downward pointing arrow and select ANSI from the list
stan-The Different Drafting Standards
Before proceeding, even if you do not use any other drafting standard, it is a good idea to be aware of each of the standards shown in the Drafting Standard section
A standard, when referring to drawings, is a set of guidelines and definitions that
ensures drawings created meet the same minimum requirements Without dards, drawings created by different organizations and individuals would each be created differently and would be near impossible to interpret correctly
stan-SolidWorks supports seven drafting standards that are used in different parts
of the world Each standard specifies how dimensions are placed, how values are represented, how arrowheads are drawn, and so on The seven drafting standards and a brief explanation of each are as follows:
aNSI ANSI refers to the American National Standards Institute, a nonprofit
organization that maintains standards for many aspects of drawings to ensure that products produced in the United States can be used worldwide The ANSI drafting standard in SolidWorks also includes American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) standards such as ASME Y14.1, ASME Y14.5, and ASME Y14.100
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ISO ISO refers to the International Organization of Standardization, which is
comprised of representatives from standards organizations worldwide The ISO
drafting standard in SolidWorks encompasses many different standards
includ-ing ISO 129:1985 and ISO 406:1987
DIN DIN refers to the Deutches Insitut für Normung, which translated into
English is the German Institute for Standardization
JIS JIS refers to the Japanese Industrial Standards Many JIS standards are
derived from or are equivalent to various ISO standards In fact, a few of the JIS
standards end with a five-digit number that corresponds to an ISO standard
bSI BSI refers to the British Standards Institution The BSI group was the first
standards organization in the world and played a major role in the development
of ISO Many of the BIS standards are equivalent to ISO standards
gOST GOST refers to Gosudarstvennyy Stardart, which translated from Russian
means State Standard GOST was originally developed by the government of the
Soviet Union but is now maintained by the Euro-Asian Council for Standardization,
Metrology, and Certification
gb GB refers to Guobiao, which translated from Chinese means National
Standard GB standards are maintained by the Standardization Administrations
of China Many GB standards are based on or are equivalent to ISO standards
Start the Drawing Template
Just like with part and assembly templates, a few document properties are extremely
helpful to specify in the template rather than trying to remember to set them when
creating a new drawing The next couple of sections will describe the process for
specifying the unit system, adjusting the line fonts, and setting the projection types
Each of these areas can easily be set when creating a new drawing, but keep in mind
that it may not always be you who will be creating drawings on your system or in
your organization Specifying these and other settings in the drawing template helps
ensure that each drawing created will meet the minimum requirements in your
organization
Select a unit System
Now that you’ve set the sheet size and drafting standard, you must set the drawing
units In previous chapters, you set the units for the one document you were
work-O
All the examples and instruction in this book are based
on ANSI/ASME standards.
Trang 6be no need to set the units again when you create a new drawing To set the units
in the template, do the following:
1 On the Document Properties tab of the Options window, select the
Units option in the menu
2 Ensure that Unit System is set to IPS (inch, pound, second), and set the
number of digits following the decimal to three for the length Setting this option will ensure all the dimensions created on the drawing will
be set to three decimal places unless they are individually changed
N O t e Some organizations use more than one unit system when ating drawings If you tend to use more than just the IPS unit system, it’s a good idea to create additional templates for each unit system used
cre-Draw line Fonts
Line fonts in drawings are the appearance of different types Line types, when used
on drawings, are specified in ASME Y14.2M-1992, Line Conventions and Lettering
The standard specifies the various types of lines as well as the thickness that they will be displayed on a drawing How a line is represented is an important aspect of
a drawing since each line type has its own meaning For instance, a visible line is used to represent the visible edges or contours of a part If a visible line were shown not as a solid line but as a phantom line, it would be very confusing to the reader of the drawing
SolidWorks uses 11 available line types to represent different areas of a ing Each of the 11 line types has a Style setting, a Thickness setting, and an End Cap Style setting SolidWorks has done a good job of setting the style and thick-ness of each line type to meet the requirements of the ASME standard You will find that you will rarely need to adjust the line fonts unless your company has its own set of standards For example, many companies we have worked for require the tangent edge of a part in drawings be changed to a solid line instead of a phantom line After polling a few industry friends in other companies, we find that this is a common practice
draw-A tangent edge is the edge created when a curved surface meets the adjacent surface By default the line type is set to be represented as a phantom line, as
shown in Figure 16.2
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F I g u r e 1 6 2 Drawing view shown with phantom tangent line
We’re partial to showing a tangent line as a solid line because it has a cleaner
look in drawings To change the line font of tangent edges, do the following:
1 On the Document Properties tab of the System Options window,
select Line Font
2 Select Tangent Edges in the Type Of Edge section of the window.
3 In the Style drop-down menu, select the Solid line type, as shown in
Figure 16.3
F I g u r e 1 6 3 Selecting a solid line type
Trang 8N O t e For the specified line type to be shown in drawing views, the views’ tangent edge display must be set to Tangent Edges With Font in the right-click menu for a selected view.
Set the Projection Type
To properly define a part, a drawing consists of views to show the part from ferent perspectives The views are projections of the part perpendicular to the viewing plane of the drawing reader The surfaces that are parallel to the view-ing plane are represented in their true form, but surfaces that are not parallel
dif-will be foreshortened This system of creating drawings is referred to as graphic projections, and the views are referred to as orthographic views
ortho-The six basic views of an orthographic drawing are Front, Back, Top, Bottom, Right Side, and Left Side All six views are not required on every drawing; if you can fully define a part with two views, then more would be overkill The drawing views
are laid out in a standard arrangement based on the projection type; the projection
type used depends on what part of the world you reside in In the United States, the projected views are arranged based on the Third Angle projection type, and other parts of the world use the First Angle projection type
Third angle projection Drawings created for use in the United States are usually
made using the Third Angle projection type; however, some companies in other
parts of the world have adopted the same system to prevent confusion when ing with U.S.-based customers Basically, the Third Angle projection type creates the image of a part projected onto the viewing plane that is placed between the observer and the part Figure 16.4 shows the six basic orthographic views using the Third Angle projection type
work-F I g u r e 1 6 4 Basic orthographic views using Third Angle projection
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First angle projection All the drawings in this book will be created using the
Third Angle projection type, but it still would not hurt to at least understand
the difference between the two projection types First Angle projections have
the image of the part projected onto a viewing plane with the part between the
observer and the view We know it sounds confusing, but look at Figure 16.5,
and you should notice the difference between the two projection types
F I g u r e 1 6 5 Basic orthographic views using First Angle projection
If your template is not set to the correct projection type, it could cause
confu-sion Although it should already be set properly, the following steps describe how
to set up the projection type in your new drawing template:
1 Right-click in an empty area of the drawing sheet, and select
Properties from the menu
2 In the top middle of the Sheet Properties dialog box there is a section
labeled Type Of Projection, as shown in Figure 16.6 Select the Third Angle option, and click OK to close the window
F I g u r e 1 6 6 Selecting the type of projection in Sheet Properties
O
You can also get to the sheet properties
by right-clicking the drawing sheet in the FeatureManager and selecting Properties from the menu.
Trang 10Create the Drawing Title block
The title block is an important area of a drawing since it contains all the
infor-mation required to allow the drawing to be properly interpreted, identified, and archived In mechanical drawings, the title block is located in the lower-right corner of the drawing and is divided into rectangular sections that provide qual-ity, administrative, and technical information Although each organization has its own regulations or standards that define the content of the title block, every title block must have at least the drawing title, part number or ID number, and the legal owner of the drawing
Custom Properties Defined
In SolidWorks, you can create drawing title blocks that link to metadata, or erties, in the drawings and models being drawn All SolidWorks documents (parts, drawings, and assemblies) have three types of properties that can be referenced:
prop-System-defined properties
Custom properties
Configuration-specific properties
System-defined properties consist of information generated by the system such
as the author, created date, filename, material, sheet scale, and so on These properties are read-only and cannot be directly edited but are instead based on another action in the software
Custom properties are user-defined properties that can be used for the
descrip-tion, vendor, company name, checked by name, drafter name, and so on
Lastly, configuration-specific properties are custom properties defined by the
user that apply only to specific part and assembly configurations
File properties are used in a number of ways Properties that are defined in parts and assemblies can be used to automatically populate fields in a drawing
or bill of materials and can even be used by a PDM or ERP system Properties
in drawings can also be used to automatically update notes in different areas of
a drawing in addition to being used by a PDM or ERP system The advantage to having various locations referencing the document properties is that making changes in one location can update all the referenced areas at once Not only is this a huge time-saver, but it also helps prevent overlooking important informa-tion that should be updated
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There is more than one way to view and change custom properties for any
SolidWorks document The first is by using the Custom Properties tab in the
task pane if the Property tab was built by your system administrator or CAD
manager If the Custom Property tab is not an option, you can access the
tom properties from the menu bar Follow these steps to view, add, or edit
cus-tom properties:
1 Hover over or click the SolidWorks logo on the left side of the menu
bar, and click File from the menu headings
2 In the File menu, select Properties.
3 Ensure that the Custom tab is selected in the Summary Information
window
The Custom tab is where you can view, edit, or add custom properties for the
active document The active document refers to the part, assembly, or drawing that
is currently being shown in the graphics area of SolidWorks On the Custom tab,
a table displays the currently assigned custom properties Each custom property
is shown on a numbered row, and each row is divided into four columns: Property
Name, Type, Value/Text Expression, and Evaluated Value If there are no custom
properties specified for the active document, the table shown on the Custom tab
will be blank In this case, you can easily add new properties Figure 16.7 shows the
Custom tab for the Summary Information window prior to adding properties
F I g u r e 1 6 7 Custom tab for the Summary Information window
Trang 12add a New Custom Property
In the following steps, you will add a new custom property that will specify who drew the drawing:
1 In the first row, click the cell in the Property Name column.
2 After clicking the cell, a downward-pointing arrow will be shown
The arrow lets you know that there is a drop-down list available with predefined property names Click the downward-pointing arrow, and scroll through the list until you find DrawnBy Select the DrawnBy property name from the list, as shown in Figure 16.8 DrawnBy will now be shown in the cell
F I g u r e 1 6 8 Adding a custom property
3 The next column in the row is where you specify the value type for the
property Click the field to view the available options for the value type:
Text, Date, Number, Yes, or No The Type field specifies the value or expression that can be associated with the property Since the DrawnBy property will require a name, select Text as the value type
4 Click the cell for the Value/Text Expression column, and you will see
another downward-pointing arrow Click the arrow to see the SolidWorks parameters, global variables, and linked dimension names that can be associated with the named property Selecting one of the values will automatically populate the named property with the system-generated value or a variable or linked dimension name that you specify in the document For this property, you will instead be typing in a value to be assigned to DrawnBy Type your first initial and last name, and hit Enter
If the property name
that you require is
not shown in the
drop-down list, you
can type it in the cell
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After entering your name into the Value/Text Expression field, the last cell
in the Evaluated Value field will display the text you entered, and a new row
will become available for the next custom property The Evaluated Value field is
used to show the actual value of the custom property This is useful if you had
selected a SolidWorks parameter, global variable, or linked dimension since it
would display the actual value instead of just the name
Manage the Drawing Title block
Prior to SolidWorks 2009, the custom properties associated with the text items in
the drawing title block had to be modified using the Properties window described
earlier In 2009, SolidWorks introduced title block management to facilitate the
process of updating title block entries by allowing you to directly edit static text
and text linked to properties It used to be, prior to 2009, that when you directly
edited a text item that was linked to a custom property, the link was broken, and
the property was not updated Now, when a title block is defined, the text can be
directly edited, and the associated properties will be updated as well
To take advantage of title block management, the hotspot and text items must
be defined in the drawing template The hotspot is the area of the drawing that will
be used to initiate the Title Block Manager When the mouse pointer lies within
the boundary of the hotspot and the left mouse button is clicked, the Title Block
Manager will be launched, allowing the user to edit the defined text items
Setting up the title block in your drawing template is completely optional, but
we suggest taking the extra five minutes to do it since it can be a tremendous
time-saver in the long run In this example, you will set up a template to use the
Title Block Manager just to make things easier as you create drawings Perform
the following steps with the drawing that you currently are editing to make the
drawing template:
1 In the FeatureManager design tree, click the plus sign next to the
item labeled Sheet1 to expand it
2 Under the Sheet1 item, when expanded, right-click the Sheet
Trang 14F I g u r e 1 6 9 Creating a hotspot with the Title Block Manager
A black rectangle will be created that encompasses the entire title block area of the drawing, as shown in Figure 16.10 This will become the hotspot for the Title Block Manager You can resize the rectangle
at this point to better fit the title block, if so desired You can move
it by selecting the boundary and dragging it, and you can resize it by dragging one of the four corner handles
F I g u r e 1 6 1 0 Border of hotspot defined with the Title Block Manager
3 With the hotspot defined, it is time to select the text items that will
be used to populate the drawing title block Zoom in closer into the title block area of the drawing to give you better access to the Company Name, Title, and Drawing Number areas
4 Select the text box in the title block that would normally contain the
drawing description The box will turn blue indicating that the box has been designated as a title block note, as shown in Figure 16.11
The text item will also be added to the PropertyManager in the Text Fields area, as shown in Figure 16.12 In the Text Fields area, each selected text item will be displayed with an automatically assigned
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number indicating the tab order The custom property name that the text is linked to will also be shown on the same line
F I g u r e 1 6 1 1 Specifying title block notes
F I g u r e 1 6 1 2 Text Fields area in the PropertyManager
5 Select the rest of the text items shown in Figure 16.13, which include
Drawn By, Drawn Date, Checked By, Checked Date, Eng Approval, Eng Approval Date, Mfg Approval, Mfg Approval Date, QA Approval,
QA Approval Date, Material, and Finish