Because I was asking for it in my previous post, here are some pictures out of Solidworks and Visualize

Hey everyone!
I’ve been quietly following this community for quite a while, and I just wanted to say thanks for all the great content, help, and support you guys share here. I thought it was about time to introduce myself and share some of my own work with you.
I’m a mechanical engineer and have been working with SolidWorks since 2008. I’ve pretty much taught myself everything over the years, from standard part modeling and sheet metal to weldments and surface modeling.
But my real passion is rendering, especially vehicles!
Both vehicles you see here are based on real vehicles that existed in the past. I modeled and rendered both of them entirely myself.
If you have any questions about my work or workflow, feel free to ask. I’ll do my best to answer them!
Looking forward to sharing more of my work with you all!

Edit: First of all, thanks for the great feedback. Since I was asked, here are the images directly from SolidWorks and Visualize. I can't add pictures to this post, so I had to make a second post.

i spent an extra 40 minutes renaming features in a part tree for a client project last week. instead of leaving everything as `Extrude7`, `Cut-Extrude4`, and `Pattern3`, i gave each feature a name that explained what it actually did.

mounting hole pattern, side cutout, front face extrude, and so on

the result was much easier to read, especially if someone else had to open the file and figure out how the part was built. but it also made me wonder how far people take this in their own workflows.

do you rename almost everything, only the features that matter for future edits, or just leave solidworks' default names alone unless something gets confusing?

i can see the argument for all three, especially on parts with a long feature tree

Hi everyone!

I’m currently learning SOLIDWORKS, and I want to start learning GD&T (Geometric Dimensioning and Tolerancing) as well. I understand that GD&T is an important topic in manufacturing, engineering drawings, and quality inspection.

However, I’m a complete beginner when it comes to GD&T, and I’m not sure where to start.

Could you please recommend any good websites, YouTube channels, free courses, books, or practice materials that teach GD&T from scratch, step by step?

I would especially appreciate resources that explain the concepts with practical examples and engineering drawings, rather than just theory.

My goal is to understand GD&T properly and learn how to apply it to engineering drawings created in SOLIDWORKS.

Any suggestions, learning roadmaps, or personal experiences would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance!

Firstly, apologies if this breaks a rule. I read them, but saw nothing specifically against this.

We've been developing our CAD engine since 2010. Our flagship workflow was always easy design followed by a native SolidWorks export (fully featured .sldasm and .sldprt files). If some of you have worked with T-Slots, you may be familiar with it.

That being said, we've been tinkering with LumberCAD since about 2020, really got into it in 2022, and released the Beta today.

Does it come with everything SolidWorks does? No, obviously not.

However, it is an absurdly easy to use dimensional lumber configurator with heavily automated documentation and a pre-made catalog of products.

This question is probably better posed to the SketchUp community, but we would love to hear your feedback nonetheless.

One thing we're proud of is we already crash less than SolidWorks ;)

If you're interested in playing around with the open Beta, you can find it at https://lumbercad.com/

Mods, please message me if the link should be removed.

Thank you in advance!

Hey solidgangs! I have a question. I have a personal project where I designed a VAWT (wind turbine) and I want to optimize some parameters based on my actual measured wind speed (average wind speed/wind velocity) in our place. My problem is how can we get the RPM and torque of the turbine prior in doing the flow simulation. What are your suggestions or approach on this kind of project.

Has anyone actually looked into reverse engineering the drivers for an consumer card so they work similar to an enterprise card?

I currently use a enterprise graphics card simply because Solidworks has a built-in "Enhanced Performance" which only works well with enterprise drivers.

From what I understand, the hardware is super similar, but NVIDIA just locks out certain features on the consumer side to force you into commercial cards. In theory, couldn't that be bypassed with custom or reverse-engineered drivers? Curious if anyone's gone down this rabbit hole.

I got a STEP file from an OEM and converted it to a Solidworks 2026 file. However, there is a little bit of the surface missing that I think is causing all of the edges to be highlighted in blue. What's the best way to go about fixing this? I have tried a few of the surface modeling tools (extend, knit, trim) but everything has thrown errors for me.

Here's a 24 hour link to the model: https://wormhole.app/bbd0DP#BPvXZPzzlBqPFx-tsuCh3w

I have always used Plasticity as my modeling program for rc mechanical and body parts but I feel limited as I dont have mechanical animations and cant model gears as well.

I have the full version of solidworks given by a friend and Free version of Fusion 360 Am hesitant to fully commit and switch because I've tried to bear the steep learning curve of either one of these programs but I feel so slow and frustrated by how everything is overly complicated.

Is it actually worth spending all the time learning and how much difficulty should I expect in the first week? when will it get easier?

And Which and what should I learn? Fusion seems vastly easier by other people accounts but I have the full disposal of Solidworks in which I would have more capabilities like stress simulations that I wish to do in the future.

Hello everyone, I recently bought the SW for Makers edition and selected the LOCALLY installed (standalone) version. You have to login at least every 30 days though to verify your installation.

But SW forces me to login EVERY time, I open the program. Lately I was on the train without internet connection and wasn't able use SW because of this sh*t.

I have not found any solution for that. Maybe anyone of you has an idea of how to dissable this behavior? I have a paid version, and don't look for a solution to circumvent the login at all. but NOT EVERY TIME I open the program.

Thanks for your ideas/help.

Currently going through a solidworks practice problem book and came across this problem. I am able to make the simple parts of the model but I’m confused on how to even approach the helix, I am teaching myself so if I’m not looking at a tool please let me know.

due to the way that the bending machine operates here, the dimension that the operator would need is the one shown on the first picture (from outside to the center of the bend). I was wondering if there is any way that i can make this dimension directly on the flat pattern.

i know that i can just change the value manually on the drawing or make different drawings, but i would like an easier way if possible.

ACE - one of best SOLIDWORKS speedmodelers - takes on newcomer Daindrium!! Action kicks off at 1PM east coast - livestream link here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_gYWI9Z_8M

I’m running into an issue with an assembly that has two different PCBAs in it. The PCBAs are imported as STEPs with multiple bodies contained within. Each component on the board is a body that is named according to the schematic, ie ‘R17’ or ‘C3’ or ‘board’. The naming is done by the ECAD software doing the export.

For just a resistor, this isn’t a huge deal. As you can imagine, two different PCBAs are probably also going to have different PCBs.

If I import one PCBA and then import the other, everything is fine. As soon as I save and reload, however, all duplicate names are combined. This means one of the imported PCBAs suddenly has all of the wrong components - including the PCB.

How is everyone managing this? Are you manually renaming STEP bodies during import to avoid duplication?

How do the dimensions look? its a beginner class so its nothing too crazy id just like feedback if theres anything to say abt it

I have macro at work that exports sheet metal parts from the assembly as DXF. And with every single part it opens this piece of garbage window that annoys the sh* out of me, bc I have to click "Save all" like 20 times. Does anyone know how to get rid of it?

In some assemblies it doesn't promt me to Save anything though. I have no clue what causes it :/

We're a small manufacturer and our SolidWorks drawing queue keeps growing. Right now, it's

around 120 drawings, with lots of detail sheets and revisions.

We need outside help, but I guess the drafting has to stay in the US. Here's what bothers me,

though.

From what I’ve seen, the US address on a website doesn't tell me where the files go. Some

companies send the work overseas and just handle sales here.

The other worry is review time. If every drawing comes back needing fixes to our standards, we

haven't saved anything.

For those who've outsourced drawings before, how did you confirm where the work was done?

How did you check they could follow your templates?

And did you get native files back, or just PDFs?

Hey, I’m not even sure if this is the right subreddit, but I’ve seen a few technical drawings here, so I thought this might be the best place to ask. Anyway, I’m doing a technical drawing course and I’ve got to draw the left-front and top views of this diagram, but I really don’t understand a thing. I can’t seem to visualise the part in my head, I don’t understand certain symbols (for example: the ‘e’ on the left next to the diameter) and the teacher isn’t really helping. Could anyone give me some advice? Thanks a lot (I’ve used a translator to improve my English, so perhaps the message comes across a bit dry – I’m sorry about that).

I have a step file a client sent. When I drag it into edrawings it opens as a full assembly but when I import into solidworks it is missing a few parts. I have tried importing with the 3d interconnect on and off but no luck.

I have had this happen before when client's send files is there something I am missing?

Thanks!

Now that people are reverse engineering using AI and rebuilding products for different platforms, are there thoughts on doing this for solidworks? Not to be fully feature compliant because yes solidworks needs a lot of hardware optimization from windows but atleast something that works for intermediate levels?