SolidWorks Weldment Profiles: Now Configurable!

By Holly Cheek

SolidWorks Weldments has added an excellent enhancement for the 2014 release. The weldment profiles of structural members are now configurable! Previously, weldment profiles were managed on a file-by-file basis.

So, why would you want to configure SolidWorks weldment profiles? Some benefits include:

• When creating a custom property to for the profile, you only need to add it in one location for the profile, and all variations of the profile now have that custom property.
• When adding location points onto the weldment profile when inserting a Structural Member, all sizes get this location point as well. So if you need to change the size of the weldment profile later on, the reference is not broken.
• You can use design tables to create the various sizes, this is a good solution for managing all of those sizes.

These benefits are a huge time saver in creating and using weldment profiles.

The picture below shows a screenshot of a weldment using the new Configurable Profiles.

A configuration in SolidWorks is variations of one part maintained in one part document. Below is a screenshot of a square profile, and the Configuration Manager showing just a portion of the various sizes available.

The new PropertyManager has not changed at all with this enhancement; we just need to choose a configuration instead of a type file.

You do need to point SolidWorks to the correct file location of those weldment profiles. This is done in the System Options (1) > File Locations (2) > Weldment Profiles (3). You will want to save this somewhere outside of a SolidWorks file, so create a new file on your C:// drive for this. The reason you want to do this is because if you uninstall/reinstall SolidWorks, it will write over documents and delete the files.

Did you know that SolidWorks comes with weldment profiles right out-of-the-box? From the SolidWorks Content in the Task Pane you can download the standard you require. Just  Ctrl+click on the standard you want. However, these out-of-the-box weldment profiles don't include the new, configured profile set, so save some time and use the link below to download the profiles from Hawk Ridge Systems.

Download Weldment Profiles Configurations

This is a .zip file, and will automatically begin to download when you click the link.

Want more info? Here's a quick video from our YouTube channel that I made about SolidWorks Weldment Profiles.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6klAAOivRU

Will the new configurable SolidWorks weldment profiles save you time in your day-to-day design work? Let us know what you think in the comments.