Spend more time on actual design work and not on remedial tasks.

The add-in myCADtools is a set of forty plus (40+) API macros developed to increase your productivity in SOLIDWORKS by making time-consuming tasks much faster. This ensures more time is spent on actual design work rather than remedial tasks such as bulk creation of drawings or modification and creation of weldment cutlists.

myCADtools is fully integrated into your SOLIDWORKS environment and is available to all our subscription customers for free for the first year as a benefit of being a MECAD customer.

To access your myCADtools in SOLIDWORKS, follow this process:

There are several scenarios where myCADtools can save significant time:

Scenario 1: The Bulk Creation of Standard Drawings

Typically, creating drawings in SOLIDWORKS involves general 3D modeling in the part or assembly environment and then creating a drawing from there. However, creating a drawing for each part can be tedious and incredibly time-consuming, whether done one by one after each part is created or right at the end of the design process when production drawings are required for the manufacturing floor.

Consider the time spent creating drawings; here’s an example of creating two basic drawings with predefined views and model item dimensions: Total time spent: +- 1 Minute

Introducing SmartDrawings

SmartDrawings is a tool that allows you to create any number of drawings depending on the type of drawing you require: Part, Assembly, Sheetmetal, or Weldment. You can specify a specific template for each drawing type, ensuring consistency throughout your drawings. By adding either the “ACTIVE” SOLIDWORKS window (the model currently open) or specifying a file or folder location where the models reside and selecting Apply, the tool will create your drawings for you.

SmartDrawings includes additional features depending on the drawing type, such as specific dimension types (Model Items), Centerlines, Balloons, and different table types like BOMs, Weldment Cutlists, and Revision tables, which can be added to any drawing according to a specified table template.

SmartDrawings ensures consistent drawing creation, meaning less time on drawing creation and more time on design. Some tweaks may be required, but the bulk of the work is completed for you.

Here’s a video of the tool creating thirty-eight (38) drawings with predefined views and model item dimensions: Total time spent: +- 4 Minutes – that’s the equivalent of 9.5 drawings per minute!

Scenario 2: Optimisation of Cutlists

Minimising waste in your workshop, especially with different beam lengths, is crucial. While you have your cutlists according to your models, how does this affect your stock and how it’s cut to length? Often, cutting new stock items is faster than working out what scrap you can or cannot use.

Generally, this manual process involves measuring lengths, calculating the number of stock items required, and ensuring correct cutting on the workshop floor. This can be long and sometimes inaccurate.

Introducing Cutting Optimisation

Cutting Optimisation within myCADtools allows you to do this from within SOLIDWORKS.

Requirements:

• A Weldment Cutlist in a drawing
• A few minutes to generate the report and configure the tool

This tool generates a cutting optimisation report showing information about different beams and calculates the optimal way to use stock and scraps, ensuring minimal wastage while considering blade sizing. All segments are color-coded for easy reference and split into sections on a per-profile basis.

Scenario 3: Standardisation of Your CAD Files

Ensuring all CAD data is of a specific standard is crucial for cleanliness and consistency across your design office. “Legacy” data may have been created before a CAD standard was implemented or by a different user with varying standards.

Manually rectifying and making all this data consistent is no easy task. An example is standardizing your MASS unit of measure for all files. This doesn’t change the data’s actual size—merely the standard units associated with the file. This is one of many capabilities of this tool.

Introducing Integration

Integration within myCADtools allows you to standardize your files once using a single tool. Once set up, this tool uses conditions and operations to determine which rule to follow and executes certain operations accordingly.

Example: IF the file is a SOLIDWORKS part file OR SOLIDWORKS assembly file, CHANGE the mass from (x) to KG.

For more information on these tools, visit the myCADtools playlist on our YouTube channel or our myCADtools webpage.

If you are a subscription customer and want to benefit from these tools, please call our offices. We will be happy to assist with installations and provide a brief explanation to get you started on your myCADtools journey!