At the heart of SOLIDWORKS Electrical’s power is the manufacturer’s part library. Parts carry all the metadata, datasheet information, connection information, and symbol affiliations to populate your drawings, SOLIDWORKS assemblies, and reports fully. As a part enters the Electrical Library, it is available for continual use by anyone in the same environment. Let’s take a look at the journey a part takes…from finding and adding a part from the portal to reporting and exporting.
SOLIDWORKS Electrical Content Portal
While there are many ways to define parts in our shared application library, the improved Electrical Content Portal tab (ECP for short) allows you to gather and customize part information to your specific needs quickly. Once a part is added from the portal to our Library, users can finalize the part’s properties by defining company-specific information by linking to datasheets, customizing the Article Number, choosing symbol illustrations, and validating the connections.
Adding Connection Points to SOLIDWORKS Electrical 3D Components
With a part added to the Library, the part’s data and links come to life when added to a project. The component with symbol and part show key information in our drawings and give users the descriptive information team members need. Turning to SOLIDWORKS with the Electrical 3D add-in, it’s easy to use the part’s connection data to position our cpoints for routing. With some more streamlined shortcuts, lining up sketch points for routing on the SOLIDWORKS part model is simpler than ever; the part is now ready for routing if Electrical 3D is in use!
Adding Origin Destination Arrows Links
With the safety relay symbol dropped into a drawing, adding Origin Destination Arrow links takes a few minutes to complete the connection to the DC Power Supply. Adding some key “connected to” attributes gives the arrows even more detail, clearly displaying component connections on either end of the OD pair. These additions were originally proposed by the SOLIDWORKS Electrical userbase and highlight the continued development of SWE! Improvements like these make the tool even more powerful and easier to use while delivering clear results.
Generating Project Reports and Exports
With the symbol for the safety relay wired up, it’s time to put the finishing touches on project drawings. Reporting and exporting are often the final stages of project documentation, and capturing project data is simple with the custom reporting built into SWE. The Safety Relay used in the circuit is accounted for, and the reporting previews and results give users more links than ever to review where the component is drawn and extra datasheet links to communicate better and document design intent. After the project’s drawings are finished, exporting with hyperlinks maintains all the navigable outputs from symbol, part, component bookmarks, and exported datasheets, which can now embed WITHIN the project’s PDF drawings.
Check out the part’s journey from concept to completion, and try out any and all of these features next time you’re putting together a project in SWE!
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