In this fast-running work, people are working hard and fast to meet their goals. The world is changing so rapidly that every month we came across Innovations. Whether it is Automobile, construction, architectural building, or any other sector. They are giving upcoming, futuristic technologies which we have dreamed of.
To meet this rapid workflow the backend team also have to work hard. For example, every month brands are launching their vehicle with cutting-edge technologies. Developing this vehicle from designing to R&D to manufacturing takes effort and handwork. But to meet this demanding supply of goods in the market the company has to do smart work also.
In designing also there are some features available which help in doing smart work not hard work. These features help the designer to build the design in a faster way and in a quicker way. Rapid prototyping is one way in which a company showcases the design concepts and after that minor and major changes are been done according to the requirement. The feature we going to take about in this article is using smart fasteners in SolidWorks.
SolidWorks comes with various features to decrease the design time. One of the features is Smart fasteners.
Using Smart Fasteners in SolidWorks
This feature is available in SolidWorks Assembly. This feature is usually used to insert fasteners at every hole automatically. We have to select the type of fasteners we are using and the size also. This feature usually uses standard-sized fasteners. If you are using any other size or dimension of the hole you might not be able to apply this feature. Also, this feature applies to the holes created by the cut-extrude and hole wizard feature.
Open the assembly in Solidworks. Add the mates to the assembly.
In the command manager under the Assembly tab, you will the option on Smart Fasteners. Click on it, if you will see a pop-up showing error then click OK. This error comes because we have not added the toolbox to Solidworks assembly.
Adding Toolbox
To add a toolbox click on the Task pane. There you will see one option of Design Library under this select Toolbox and at the bottom click on Add in now.
If the error doesn’t come up you can skip this last step.
Click on the Smart Fasteners then the pop-up will come, just click OK.
In property manager, under Selections select the hole and click on ADD. The fasteners will be added to the holes with the same diameters automatically.
If you want to change the fastener type click on the Fasteners under Series components. Under this right-click on it and select change fastener type. From the option available in the pop-up then click 0n OK.
The fasteners will be changed and updated in the assembly.
Next thing is to select the Bottom stack. This option adds a washer and nut to the bolt. Make sure to check the auto-update length.
You can change the properties of the bolt from the options available below.
If you have holes of different Diameter then you have to create the groups and assign the fasteners accordingly. This way is faster than adding the bolts individually from the toolbox and adding washers and nuts.
