The idea of large assemblies in SOLIDWORKS is different for everyone, as your perspective is usually based in some way on your hardware and hardware performance. At some point in the assembly creation, things start to seem slow and sluggish. In many cases, the assemblies are populated with thousands of pieces of hardware.
So this begs the question, "Can I make it so all the hardware is easily added and removed and only viewed as I need it?” Well, of course, you can, or I wouldn’t have enough content to write this blog post!
The answer to this question can be used as a technique for selecting groups of components in an assembly and then hiding, showing, suppressing, or unsuppressing them as you continue to work on other parts of an assembly. Let’s take a look at how this is done.
What is hardware? Your definition of hardware may be different than other teams using SOLIDWORKS. But let us get something clear… it is not only describing files created using the Toolbox add-in. In some cases, hardware can be a standard component that has been added from a library. It may also be purchased or even manufactured in bulk internally. In any case, you can define what you want to call hardware.
How do I create an assembly view that I can work in that is free of any “hardware?” By using the “Select” and “Advanced Select” tools in SOLIDWORKS.
If we look at the select consolidated menu, you will see several predefined selection tools. One of them is called “Select Toolbox.” Now, this may seem a bit confusing, considering my previous statement about hardware not being toolbox-related. When the Toolbox add-in is used to create hardware, it automatically creates a custom property called “Isfastener” and sets its value to “Yes.” The property name “Isfastener” is used as the selection criteria when “Select Toolbox” is selected.
That’s great! But how do we use that same technique for our definition of “hardware” or something not created using the toolbox add-in?? When SOLIDWORKS is installed, it places a utility called sldsetdocprop.exe in the installation directory. A typical path is C: Program FilesSolidWorks CorpSolidWorksToolboxdata utilities. With this utility, you can set the “IsFastener” custom property to “Yes” on your hardware library. Just select the directories or files you would like to set the property on.
Open an assembly and activate the menu command “Select Toolbox.” All files in the assembly with the “IsFastener” property will be selected.
Now, you can right-click to choose whether to hide, show, suppress, or unsuppress all the “Hardware.”
Do not let your team get slowed down by assemblies with lots of hardware. Using “Select Toolbox,” you can hide or show them very quickly and reduce the amount of data you are working on within the assembly environment.
Within the “Advanced Select” feature, you can set up advanced component selection criteria using custom properties other than ”IsFastener,” like maybe “IsSheetMetal” or “IsPurchased.” To take advantage of this very useful selection technique, you just have to set the property in each file.