I just finished the “Mechatronics design in SOLIDWORKS” course held by Justin Flett on LinkedIn Learning. It was a short but very intense course that allowed me to review and keep up to date on the software features.

The course deals with different themes starting from the design of basic components to get to the most advanced extrusions and draft analysis tools or the addition of reinforcement elements. Assembly creation, cable routing and other topics are then covered.

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What is SOLIDWORKS?

SolidWorks is a three-dimensional parametric design and design software, produced and marketed by Dassault Systèmes. It was born as a software specifically dedicated for mechanical engineering and is therefore particularly useful for the design of mechanical equipment, even complex ones.

The software provides for the creation of 2D and 3D drawings of solids and surfaces, through a completely customizable and parametric geometric system. Solidworks is extremely intuitive, so its use is not difficult even for less experienced users or users coming from other CAD systems. Solidworks allows you to bring drawings from 2 to 3 dimensions and vice versa, with simple operations, by importing and exporting AutoCAD files (DWG, DXF).

     

The software is also able to import and export geometries in a large variety of three-dimensional formats, in particular it is able to import (even if only as a graphic body) files created with other mechanical design programs. Parametric design allows you to set up many types of relationships (parallelism, concentricity, perpendicularity, collinearity, equality, coaxiality, symmetry and many others). The Equations tool also allows you to set relationships between geometric dimensions (for example, in order to keep the fillet radius equal to a quarter of a side, or by defining an angle as a triple of another).