We are a little over two days away from the next NASWUG meeting!  Below is the agenda for those interested.

5:00pm – 5:20pm  Food/Networking

5:20pm – 5:30pm  Announcements

5:30pm – 7:20pm  SolidWorks Tips and Tricks – Ricky Jordan & Brian McElyea

7:20pm – 7:30pm  Door Prizes

Hope to see everyone there!

We had a great turnout of around 30 people at the NASWUG-RSA March Meeting!  Thanks to all who were able to attend.  For those that couldn’t attend…we missed you and hope you can make it out for our next meeting.  We had a bit of a last minute schedule change and had to move the meeting to Thursday April 1st.  That certainly wasn’t the first time and probably won’t be the last time we have to do this.  Thanks to Gary Hall for helping get the word out on the meeting date change.

Speaking of Gary, he was our presenter for the meeting.  Gary did a GREAT job showing off the many different types of Mates SolidWorks Users can access in Assemblies.  It certainly has come a long way in the last several years.  I can’t think of any mate types that aren’t covered in the software now.  Gary also gave a quick overview on the SolidWorks Certification Program which includes the new Certified SolidWorks Expert program.

We briefly discussed the upcoming April 22nd NASWUG meeting which will feature Tips and Tricks presented by a combination of NASWUG members from across the SolidWorks Software Suite.  I was looking for some suggestions on areas of the software that folks would like to see tips and tricks on and the crowd certainly did not disappoint.  I got some GREAT ideas.  Many of which will be featured in the April 22nd meeting.

We look forward to the next NASWUG-RSA Meeting which we hope to get scheduled soon for May.  If anyone has any suggestions on meeting topics, please send them out to Gary Hall or myself.  You can also leave a comment on this post with suggestions if you like.

Thanks again for a great meeting.

Our April 14th meeting has come and also has April 15th  We had 29 in attendance at the Dynetics HQ building with Ricky Jordan our president presiding.  And thanks to Richard Hall for trying out a new food choice (pizza does get a little old doesn’t it!)  Ricky talked briefly about the upcoming  SWUGN Summit event near us, this time taking place in Doraville GA(NE side of Atlanta) at the Holiday Inn NE Atlanta on Tuesday, May 19th.  For those unfamiliar, this is a great event hosted by SolidWorks and led by Richard Doyle.  Registration is only $40 and includes  breakfast and lunch plus a full day of technical training.  It is very much like a full day of breakout sessions at a SolidWorks World event.  Follow the links on the SWUGN website (http://www.swugn.org/) to register online.
ModernTechMechanical (http://www.moderntechmech.com/)has created an “Engineering Stimulus Package” in conjunction with the SolidWorks Engineering Stimulus Package that is available to help currently unemployed engineers.  This basically provides displaced engineers and designers with FREE SolidWorks 3D CAD software, training, Certified SolidWorks Associate (CSWA) certification opportunities, and job placement services. 
Richard Hall talked briefly about the new look at 3D Content Central and how useful this great CAD source is.  If you haven’t visited this site before it is well worth a look see.  http://www.3dcontentcentral.com/default.aspx
Brian McElyea then presented on SolidWorks Workgroup PDM.  Basically don’t think of this as something for more than one computer/engineer.  It is a fantastic tool for file management, and product data management even on a single computer.  The sytem keys on meta data and using notes you can build design history tracking that makes it very simple to retrieve previous versions.  So you can think of it as a versioning system (i.e. unlimited configuration system) that allows you to go back to any previous design stage.  PDM is not restricted to just CAD file/design.  You can use it with any type file that you want to manage and control versions and version history.  By using the PDM system you don’t have to manually create and store multiple folders and multiple models.  The PDM system manages this for you.  SolidWorks Workgroup PDM is included in SolidWorks Professional and Premium.  If you have a need for PDM for a large group or for multiple site locations and want the ability to control all aspects of your file/design managment then the separate Enterprise PDM version is what you need.
Next up was our NASWUG RSA president Gary Hall presenting on DimXpert.  Gary did a warm up of this at the previous RSA meeting so he was fine tuned for this one.  Just to reitierate from that meeting, DimXpert differs from Autodimension in that it recognizes patterns and countersink holes and it produces predictable results.  For example with Autodimension you typically get unwanted dimensions that have to be selectively deleted.  Whereas with DimXpert when you select an edge only the feature represented by the edge is dimensioned.  A word of caution with patterns: if a hole pattern was not created as a pattern of Hole Wizard holes then any changes made to the model do not update the hole callout.  DimXpert is not just for native SolidWorks parts.  Gary walked through this example using an imported model, selecting specific datums and then applying DimXpert.  This is a great tool for those that have a need to produce manufacturing drawings.
  Thanks to Brian and Gary for outstanding presentations.  And just a note to all members.  Anyone interested in presenting on a topic should contact Ricky Jordan.  We always get outstanding presenters from the SolidWorks community and sometimes don’t realize the wealth of experience within our own group.

We started the new year with 34 in attendance at our January meeting at the Dynetics HQ building.  As I write this, I am making last minute preparations to attend SolidWorks World 2009 in Orlando.  We welcomed 6 new members in attendance.  Ricky Jordan, NASWUG president, began the meeting with announcements and comments about the upcoming SWW2009 and also about SolidWorks Labs new additions.  Some of the new additions include Tagger, Treehouse, Collada Export, and Presentation Studio.  For more details visit the SolidWorks Labs site, http://labs.solidworks.com 

Ricky presented on Custom PCB Design.  This was a warm-up for his upcoming presentation at SWW.  The presentation highlighted concepts and processes, and specific SolidWorks features useful in PCB Design and collaboration as well as some “gotchas” of which to be aware..  And that folks is the key …“collaboration”  You have to closely collaborate with the electrical design folks in a back and forth iterative process.  For the mechanical aspects it is important to specify only those requirements to make the interfaces work, leaving as much leeway as possible for the electrical design and layout.  For those with SolidWorks Premium, you know you have CircuitWorks and other subscribers have CircuitWorks Lite. At the conclusion, Ricky asked for feedback positive and negative.  Good job, Ricky!

Gary Hall mentioned that the NASWUG RSA group is looking forward to starting up their meetings again at RSA, probably near the end of February. That’s all folks … see you in Orlando and if not there at the next NASWUG meeting.