Robert Andersson

As an alternative to stereolithography, you can use this 3-Axis milling/ scanner machine created by Roland. Cost around 3000$ and handles up to hard wood, and small aluminium parts. inkludes a kind of CAM software. Connects as a printer. Robert Andersson

If you need to use a table besides the ordinary BOM table, you can do that. -Create a drawing of a scene. inklude a BOM table. -then select the BOM button again, and select a BOM table of choise. -Before you click OK, change the BOM type to Template in the lower right of the dialog box. -The table is placed in the drawing. Edit it and then save it as a Template for future use. You can have as many templates as you like. The templates can also hold data on load. It's all saved as a template. To edit, just dubbleclick, or rightmouse and select Edit. This can be usefull if you want to put in geardata and such. You dont need to insert an OLE spreadshet using this metod. Robert Andersson

-In adition to that, you can scan a stack of paper. Then apply that image as texture. Works pretty good. Robert Andersson

You can easily move from what line a dimension is referering to, in a crossection. You can move the arrows from whatever the arrow is refering to, to another line. Just drag the arrow and snapp to another line. It's also possible to change the angles of the W and H blue lines. Robert Andersson

-In an animated scene, show "Smartmotion editor" -Rightmouse in the gray background in "Smartmotion editor". -Select properties. -Change the current frame rate from default 15 frames/ sec to something higher like 24. -Export the AVI. That AVI will play more smoothly in Windows with that new frame rate. Could affect filesize do. Robert Andersson

If you doubleclick the BOM table, you can put in more text in the table. If you want that text to be transfered to 3D, you can rightclick the column header and chose "Assign Column property values". Then the parts/ assys in 3D are updated. Robert Andersson

To be onest, I dont follow... What do you want to do? If you want to animate a large assembly, you can always supress most of the parts to speed up previews, create the part/ assy/ intellishape animations and the camera animationpaths you want. Then render the final AVI overnight. For simple AVI mixing use MGI Wideowave For extremly good Videomixing controll use Adobe Premiere. Regards, Robert Andersson, Solidmakarna

This a traktor I modelled up. It needs some work do. It's supposed to be a Massey Fergusson 168. Use if you like it. Robert Anderson

Two alternative metods could be: 1. -Triball copy the part to a even distance. (CTRL Drag) -In the copy, delete all but the new feature (Intellishape). -In the orginal, delete the nevest feature. -Use the Triball to back the newest part back in place. 2. -RightMouse the part, select COPY. -Delete the newest feature. -Surpress the part. -CTRL V in the copy part. -Delete all but the newest feature in the new part. -Unsurpress the orginal part. Robert Andersson

It's some problem with the creation of the solid. -Try to change the parts solid kernel from ACIS to Parasolid (or the other way around). -Try to supress some intellishapes that may cause the problem. -Try to export a SAT or X_T from the problem part, and import it. Hope this helps. Robert Andersson

Rightclick the part, and select "Unlink (external(" from the meny. Robert Andersson

Could be a dot/ comma issue. Do you have different operatingsystems/ lang versions? Try to change the delimiter to a dot in the Win controllpanel/ local settings and restart IronCAD. Hope this helps. Robert Andersson

Strange... -Be sure to turn of any antivirus program before installing IronCAD. -See that your windows temporary folders in emty. Default location: C:\documents and settings\username\Local settings\Temp Actually it's a good idea to make a shortcut to the desktop to this folder. Hope this helps. Robert Andersson

Tools/ Options/ Rendering, uncheck automatic. Check OpenGL. This makes realtime animation much faster. You may need to use a solid color as background. Robert Andersson

In addition to this, it can be a good idea to use IronCAD's 3D template function. Save that good looking rendering scene as a template, to be used in future projects. (File/ Save as/ change to template file type) Then open a new scene from that template, and drag/ drop your models from a catalog (or File/ insert ) and create the images needed. Then you can fine tune your renderings scenes with more or less lamps, different background images, cameras and so on. This can be more effective compared to doing this every time you want a nice rendering. Robert Andersson

Acctually Icon files are .BMP files just renamed to .ico Besides that they have a specific size (in pixels) and a specific number of colors. Make sure that your icons contains the standard icon sizes (16x16, 32x32, and 48x48 in both 16-colors and 256-colors). Robert Andersson

If you box select a number of files in windows explorer, you have a rightmouse meny saying "Send to" The options shown here can be customized. In Windows2000, windows explorer, go to : C:\Documents and Settings\your username.domain\SendTo Create shortcuts here to what ever you want to see in you right mouse meny. Then you wont have to browse so much when you are moving documents around. (Other OS have different paths to this option) Robert Andersson

-Create new scene -Drag in a block -Use the "Lock at" tool (F7) to look at a face of that block. -Hold down CTRL and SHIFT keys. -Click on the "Orbit camera" tool. -Press down the mouse button and move the mouse. IronCAD now rotates the view in 45 degrees step. To change from horizontal to vertical, you have to release and re press the mouse button. This can help for example if you have a draft of that block, and you want to position the camera for 2D drawings views. If you only press the Shift key, you can rotate the camera freely, but only in one plane at a time. Also notice that you can create and save cameras in the scene. See the browser three. Right click a camera and select "Look trough Camera" Robert Andersson

-When applying Smartdimensions in 2D drawing, remember that you can hold down the SHIFT key to force IronCAD to attach only the first arrow of the Smartdim. Then you can use Smartdim to create a angle dim for example. Also good for creating a side view diameter dim of a shaft with a smaller diameter in the midsection. Robert Andersson

You may also want to look in to using Teamvault. It have some really nice features. You place all documents on a local Teamvault webserver All clients have local mirror folders. Then if you check out a large assembly from Teamvault, the system checks if you already have some of those files locally in the mirror folders. Is so they are used. All this is fully automatic, and the user don't have to think about it. Also you can check out the main assembly with out locking all sub assemblys up, which you cant do without Teamvault. Then if you click on a sub assembly that you don't have checked out, Teamvault asks you if you want to check that assembly out now. Robert Andersson

If you are working in VERY large assys you may found this metod useful in some cases. Lets say you and you team are working on a industrial production line togheter with suppliers and/ or consultants. If a supplier of one assemblystation (machine) have that machine as a 3D modell, you can import that hole assembly in to IronCAD (prefered linked). Then the trick is to select all of the important faces of the machine assembly, and right click any of the selected faces and select "Create surface shape". You can shift click a lot of surfaces in one step. The easiest way is to change the selection filter from "Any" to "Faces" before clicking. Then you dont have to drill trough the assembly levels. Then you can surpress (or delete) the orginal machine assembly. The surfaces are handled as new parts. This can speed up things with like factor 20 or more. If you have the inserted machine assy surpressed, you can allways go back and unsurpress parts of it, if you need more geometry at a later time. If you have the machine assy inserted as a link to the main assy, it will not add file saving time to the toplevel assy. Robert Andersson

I always use ACIS for 3d sweept parts. Robert Andersson

Try this: Tools/ Options/ Rendering Uncheck Automatic. Check OpenGL. In some cases you may want to change background to solidcolor. Robert Andersson

Tools/ Customize/ Keybord/ Change "2D constraint" to "View" Change Commands to "Show sizebox dimension" and activate ALT-S or some other key. Then you can easy activate sizebox dims in the scene by hitting ALT-S. Robert Andersson

About bearings, if you are working much with bearings you may want to take a look at the bearing supplier web page. Like http://www.skf.com/ for one. There you can select exactly your model of bearing and download it as a SAT/ Parasolid or STEP AP203. No fee. There is also extra help with calculations if you need that. Here you know that everything is updated. On the otherhand it is often not needed to have the full model of the bearing. Large number of bearings with balls takes resources to handle. Robert Andersson