GrabCAD is a SolidWork community group, and the website will strongly advise you to submit any models you’ve created because of the collaborative nature of the GrabCAD community. But should you? In addition to being a terrific way to give back, posting your work in the community is a fantastic opportunity to obtain comments on it and develop an online portfolio of your abilities. Anyone who registers with GrabCAD will get access to the content. Anyone who wants to charge for their models instead of using this service should go to CGTrader, which provides a similar service but allows a set. It is not, however, permitted to charge for GrabCAD models. Different people have different opinions, which is evident when posting SolidWorks models on GrabCAD. So the question is, should you post your SolidWorks models on GrabCAD?   

Can you make money with GrabCAD?

The library on GrabCAD Community is free; no payments are made if you submit your SolidWorks models, and models cannot be sold there. If you want to profit from your SolidWorks models, I advise you to try using alternative payment systems like CGTrader.

GrabCAD Community Values and Guidelines 

To upload your SolidWorks model to GrabCAD, you must first sign up for the community and become a member. What exactly does becoming a GrabCAD member entail? GrabCAD members make an effort to uphold the community’s principles. They try to achieve the following with each action they take:

• Generous: They have a deep sense of the law of reciprocity. Because of this, GrabCAD’s models are all available for free personal usage. Please share your ideas; you never know how they can affect other people. Saying “thank you” is important.
• Collaborative: They work well together: Millions of people with various backgrounds and talents make up the membership. Utilizing this, members collaborate to produce wonderful things together.
• They are inventive: Innovative ideas, engineering, and problem-solving are with the use of original thought. Creativity is essential to the processes of all engineers and designers.
• Professional and respectful: This is not mean that there isn’t room for fun. It implies that members treat one other like professionals, appreciate other differences, and provide constructive criticism. They must understand one another’s diversity and design approaches.
• Inquisitive: No matter how much experience they have, there is always something new to learn. They are continually looking for ways to improve themselves and serve others.
• Connected: Follow other community members to network and develop your engineering relationships. Together, make something new.
• Organization: They are agents of cooperation and change. They lead conversations and offer assistance to newcomers in the community. 

The guidelines as a member of GrabCAD

Members of the GrabCAD community, like any other community of people, are required to follow certain norms and principles so that we may all coexist and work together happily and respectfully. As a GrabCAD user, you should follow these fundamental guidelines. Also covered on the GrabCAD community page are some guidelines you should not heed.

1. Demonstrate your CAD abilities. Please do not hesitate to contribute any of your SolidWork models. If someone else’s model inspires you, you can substantially enhance or change it; you can also contribute to it. Always remember to give the original model’s designer credit.
2. Disseminate your expertise. You probably have information that someone else would find useful, whether you’re a student, a hobbyist, or a professional engineer.
3. Be kind and provide helpful criticism. The GrabCAD community does not exclusively consist of experts. Students and new enthusiasts make up a large portion of the membership. Please feel free to offer any suggestions you may have for them. Please do so without being harsh or condescending. 

Everyone must begin somewhere, and these newcomers selected GrabCAD as their first platform. Accept them with open arms!

4. Distribute your most valuable engineering information. GrabCAD members are encouraged to develop models, queries, or lessons about engineering, design, and manufacturing. While this is unnecessary, our community prefers engineering-related material, and your work is more likely to get noticed if it is technical.
5. Click the “Like” button. Support the growth of the top models! If you find any wonderful, fascinating, helpful models, click the Like button. They will value it, too, because it raises the model creator’s GrabCAD Score.

How to upload a model on GrabCAD

Should you post your SolidWorks model on GrabCAD after signing up as a member? My opinion is that you should post your SolidWorks model because it will not be fair if you get to use the community’s resources and not contribute back. So, follow the step-by-step approach to upload a model on GrabCAD.  

1. Open the Model Library page and click the red “+ Upload” icon at the top-right of the screen.
2. To add files using your file browser, select “Select files” or “Select folders” and then drag and drop your files and folders into the box that has been drawn. You should include your native CAD files and a neutral version to be most useful. Fill in the ‘Project details’ fields as follows:

• Name: Make your name brief, and descriptive, and double-check spelling and punctuation.
• Description: It is important to answer a few questions, such as why you built this project and how others may utilize it. It is best if there are more specifics.
• Tags: Think about keywords that members will use to search for your CAD model when creating labels.
• Video URL: Add the “Share” link from YouTube, Vimeo, or any website that offers videos online if you made animation or instructional.
• Categories: What categories do you want people to find this model under when they search? You should pick up to three.

You may get a detailed preview of how your model will appear in the library on the bottom right. Click “edit” in the gallery area to change the renderings’ order and choose a default rendering.

3. Your renderings (and CAD files) may be moved around in the gallery area by dragging and dropping them there, arranging them any way you like. Drag the image to the top to set it as your default image. This picture will represent your model’s representation in the library. Once you’re done arranging your renderings, click the red “Save” button.

A helpful hint: on the ‘Upload’ tab, you may get a preview of your gallery, complete with the order. If you make any modifications to the gallery, use this to verify them again!

4. When the upload of your model is complete, click the “Publish model” button in the upper right corner of the screen. You will have the option to allow certain renderings to complete in the background because some might take longer to process.

Conclusion

So should you post your SolidWorks model on GrabCAD? I think you should. Joining a SolidWorks community is a nice thing, and one that helps you grow free of charge is simply amazing. So posting your SolidWorks model merely gives back to the community. As a GrabCAD user, you can also freely get useful detailed models for private use to improve your CAD skills and experience.