2004 Wall thickness check

I just tried it the other day - I design a fair few plastic injection moulded components ( and then pass on the problems to the toolmakers :-))

I have to say it does not tell you anything about the part you should not already know if you have been designing correctly. The colour shading and interface left me confused and I gave up.

However I suppose it can be usefull if you want to check other peoples work and you are not confident in their ability.

I find the new 'section' viewer in sw2004 far more useful for looking at wall thicknesses and their transitions around a component. There will be parts of a component you want to look at closely and this tool seems to be more useful.

The thickness detector is a bit like the 'undercut' detector. If you design in an undercut unintentionally - you have rushed the job or don't understand geometry. But then we all have to rush jobs and perhaps SW are only trying to be helpful!! I just wish they would be helpfull elsewhere. I get round this with a note on my control drawings to tool makers saying that any undercuts are unintentional and if they find any they should get back to me immediately plus they will get a ticket in my Xmas raffle ;-). Perhaps I ought to offer a tee - shirt.

Sum up - there are better reasons for using 2004 than the thickness detector. I just can't thick of many at the moment.

- I have thought for a moment - Use of multiple configuarions of sub assembly in a main assembly is now possible - no need for Mike Wilson's very inventive work arounds. But I stand to be corrected on this as I only have re-visted this issue for a few hours on sw2004.

Regards

Jonathan Stedman

Where is this feature, I cant seem to find the button?

Kev

Its part of the SolidWorks Utilities Add-in (part of SW office)

--Todd

Ahhh, that explains it.