Mechanical Design Handbook

Which software are you using in your mechanical design project? I have been using Solid Edge 3D CAD software for 1-2 years for my mechanical design projects in the past. But now, according to the standardization in my design organization, I have to switch to use Unigraphics software instead, or we call it in short as "UG NX4" (the latest version is NX6). To be honest, at first I still like Solid Edge because I think I can make modeling and assembly in Solid Edge faster and easier than in UG. But one of the good thing for UG is Motion Simulation module that help me simulate the movement of mechanical assemblies before releasing for manufacturing. I know that Solid Edge also has this kind of simulation module, but I didn't have a chance to use (no license). So in this post, I would like to share how easy to set up motion simulation in UG NX4. Let's start with a very simple modeling. I would like to see how the cylinder moves when it is pushed by the rotating l

In previous example , I showed how to control variables in Solid Edge sketch using direct link to excel spreadsheet. In this example, I am going to show how to use VBA (Visual Basic for Application) in excel to control the variables in Solid Edge sketch. 1) Create new file in Microsoft Excel 2) Press Alt+F11 to enter Microsoft Visual Basic windows as shown below 3) Right click in Project Explorer at new file name (in this example, new excel file name = Book2) > Insert > Module 4) To make Solid Edge type libraries available to the Visual Basic Object Browser, click References on the Project menu. On the References dialog box, select the Solid Edge libraries you want to access. All variable automation is accessed through the Variables collection and Variable objects. The Variables collection serves two purposes: it allows you to create and access variable objects, and it allows you to work with dimensions as variables. Note: When debugging programs that interact with the Variable