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Recent content by Jimijames

  1. Jimijames

    Sheetmetal forming tools and the forum search tool

    I have 2 unrelated questions: 1) When trying to drop a forming tool from our network directory onto a sheetmetal part, SW asks "Do you want to make a derived part?" instead of adding a form to the part. It happens with all of our forms on the network, but the tools provided in the SW install...
  2. Jimijames

    Checking safety critical spacing

    Thanks all. We have tried the measure tool, but unfortunately it leaves alot of room for user error (missed a spot, did not look at the model thoroughly enough, etc). However, I didn't think about offset surfaces and thickening... sounds like a good solution. Thanks Anna and Jeff. Next step...
  3. Jimijames

    Checking safety critical spacing

    I am looking for a way to determine if 2 parts are within a specified distance from one another. Example: a battery terminal needs to be 5mm away from any metal surface. I would like to be able to pick 2 components, the terminal and the enclosure, and have Solidworks tell me if there are any...
  4. Jimijames

    Engineer in despair!!

    Just installed 2004 this AM (SP1.0). So far so good, except for strange (annoying) BOM table behavior. The new and improved table seems to still have a mind of it's own. I have cust prop "partno" which I would like to use in the BOM instead of the default "PART NUMBER". I...
  5. Jimijames

    Variable pitch in a pattern

    You could use a table driven pattern, which allows you to generate a pattern using X-Y coords. What I did as a test was to set up a quick Excel spreadsheet to generate the variable pitch pattern. Then copy the numbers generated by the spreadsheet and paste them into a new notepad document...
  6. Jimijames

    SolidWorks Icons

    Sounds like you have to turn off the thumbnail graphic image option in SW. In SW, goto your System Options (Tools->Options). On the General page look for a "Show thumbnail graphics in windoze explorer" and uncheck it. This should bring back the default part/drawing/assy icons.
  7. Jimijames

    SW API training course

    has anyone taken it? My company won't spring for the whole course (ROI blah, blah, blah), but I may have an opportunity to get the materials used in the course for self study. So far I've taught myself the basics of VB/VBA (e.g. I've written a custom prop macro and designed a nice dialog to...
  8. Jimijames

    Push/Pull Custom Props with MS Access

    Not sure about Access, but I've written a macro in Excel that pulled info from solidworks. You have to 'link' to SW with the following placed at the beginning of your code: Set swApp = CreateObject("SldWorks.Application") Set Part = swApp.ActiveDoc Note: this was written in SW2001+...
  9. Jimijames

    Ctrl-B vs Ctrl Q

    Just curious: Anyone know the difference between a 'force rebuild' (ctrl-Q) and a regular rebuild (ctrl-B or on the menu or the traffic signal looking button)? A force rebuild seems to be more thorough, as the name would suggest...if I have something that doesn't respond to a regular rebuild a...
  10. Jimijames

    sw2003 Performance

    I would see the unhandled error when I was running SW2001+ (sometimes several times a day), our IS guy working with our reseller and Solidworks was not able to fix the problem. We tried new vid drivers, software openGL, moving the paging file all without success. We recently upgraded to SW2003...
  11. Jimijames

    Saving Macro Keys

    There is also a file in the Solidworks install directory/user/***.cus (where *** is users login name). I haven't tried it but, Solidworks claims that customized menus and keyboard shortcuts are stored in this file. Copy the file before upgrading and after install copy it back into the same...
  12. Jimijames

    Installing SW2003

    Nevermind... I found something from Solidworks. In case anyone else is wondering, here is the link: http://www.solidworks.com/downloads/sw2003/readthisfirst.htm
  13. Jimijames

    Installing SW2003

    Well our company has FINALLY decided to roll out SW2003 (they are doing it through Win2000 advertised programs which is done by the user - no IS visit needed). I've read several posts that indicate that you should turn off anti-virus protection before installing Solidworks. We have a Norton...
  14. Jimijames

    SW 2001+ to 2003 transition, specifically macros

    This may be a little off topic but, regarding mpinder's problem: I've seen similar behavior under different circumstances. One of our users had to have her PC rebuilt (win2k with SW2001+) and after that the custom prop macro I wrote would not launch. It would generate a runtime error...I traced...
  15. Jimijames

    SW 2001+ to 2003 transition, specifically macros

    Our company likes to wait for the 1st SP to come out until deploying new software so we are still on 2001+ (that's what the IS guys tell me anyways). Recently, I've had some free time so I've really started exploring macros/VBA. I don't anticipate any problems with the macros I've written so...

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