most powerful answer is always the simplest

It is true that sometimes the most powerful answer is always the simplest...



today i was drawing the arm of the lego minifigure, I planned to build  this "odd" shape by creating the "negative" of it. So I extruded one block first, after that I add an extruded boss/base and then I want to do a "combine substract" so that I can substract my part from the new extruded boss/base. 




BUT when I look at "insert -> features" , i found that i just cannot click the "combine" since the button is grey,  i was very confused and cannot figure out why it's happening. I even thought that if there was anything wrong with my solidworks software. 

After a while, I went back to recheck my sketch, then I finally found the solution : when I added my second part, I forgot to unselect the "merge result" box and therefore I actually had only one part which cannot be combined.

Problem solved by just cancel the merge result. how simple!

So here is the upper armed after "combine" and "fillet"

lego minifigure

Today I start modeling the lego minifigure.

Firstly,I disassembled this minifigure I just bought this week. There are more pieces than I thought. head, upper body,arm, hands, waist and legs.

Starting from the head which is the simplest part, just one step of revolving will do.then came to the upper body, the internal structure of this part is a little bit tricky since they are really too small to be measured precisely. the vernier caliper cannot even get in. and the fillet is just roughly measured by my eyes

After done with these two parts, I wanted to apply some decals to the parts.so I googled some pictures from internet and started exploring the decal function. at first I thought it might be the same way with keyshot, which can keep the backgroundof the decal transparent as long as the file format is png. but clearly I was wrong. It turned out that in solidworks, I must create a mask file first since decal without a mask would result in the background appearing in the image. so I used photoshop to make the black/white image, areas to be retained as white color while areas to be ignored as black color.

so here are what I have done and learned today. will continue and try to finish the rest by tomorrow.

Sparking bottle finished

Finally, sparking bottle done!

I have learned so much about solidworks from this single bottle. Fist of all, define!!  it would be much better to define every single line before sketch the next, otherwise it could become quite a mess. I basically redraw the whole thing because my first sketch was so messed up and i just cannot fully define it. Secondly, relations! must be very careful with the relation between two entities, missing of one relation can make a difference for the whole part.

I have checked every dimension of my sketch, they are all the same with the drawing provided, but the part volume is still not the same with the drawing. I use 4mm for the part below the neck. and the part above is (28.5-18)/2=5.15mm, if I'm not wrong. unless i misunderstanding some of the dimensions.




Also, I was just  wondering why the edges of the knurl seem so not smooth, i thought there was something wrong with my sketch, but it turns out that it it just the matter of the image quality.

one more thing, I still cannot figure out why my delete button doesn't work. I have to right slick to complete the delete every time..so troublesome. I have checked the keyboard shortcuts settings but it seems all correct.

Anyway, start measuring the lego minifigure now

Week 1 Hello Solidworks

Doing my first assignment using solidworks. I can't believe I just spent almost 3 hours on drawing a bottle...Most time were spent on adjusting the dimension and I realize it is not as easy as it seems to keep every dimension accurate. But I can see that solidworks is really much more powerful than rhino and I'm getting excited to get to know it:)

Still left the knurls to be done..Hope I can finish it within one hour...