Transferring Custom Materials

This guide is written to demonstrate the process of transferring custom materials from one machine to another. Often times parts sent between machines that utilize a custom material do not carry over the material’s properties when transferred.

To view the custom materials, right-click on “Material” in the Feature Manager Tree, and select “Edit Material” shown in the image below.

A material window will then appear showing a list of SOLIDWORKS materials, as well as any custom materials located in the “Custom Materials” folder. For the purpose of this guide, a TEST with the same properties as 1023 Carbon Steel will be used.

Typically the custom materials library is stored in the location found in System Options>File Locations>Material Databases. In most cases the path should resemble C:\Program Files\SOLIDWORKS Corp\SOLIDWORKS\lang\english\sldmaterials. Any material created under the “Custom Materials” library will be stored in the pathway mentioned previously. Alternatively, a new library can also be created by right-clicking in the material window and selecting “New Library” shown in the image below.

Creating a new library will prompt you to save the library to the same default location shown in the “File Locations”. After creating a library and saving it to the desired location, right-click the library and select “New Category”. Materials can now be added or copied to the desired category. After adding any custom materials to the new category, select “Save”. This will update the materials file to include any new materials that may have been added.

To transfer the library to another machine, copy the library that was saved previously and transfer the .sldmat file to the desired machine. On the machine that the materials are being transferred to, select “Edit Material” once again. In the material window, right-click and select “Open Library” as shown below.

After selecting “Open Library” SOLIDWORKS will prompt the user to browse to the .sldmat file. Select the library file that was saved and transferred previously, and select “Open”. The material library will then be added to the list of materials with the correct properties.