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Exploded Views/Instruction Sheets

I need to be able to create 'exploded' views for instruction sheets for each project I create in SolidWorks. I'll need views that document each step for the customer to follow to assemble the product. Think of ready-to-assemble furniture... the first steps will only show a few parts, and each additional step will add parts. A typical instruction sheet might have 10 or so assembly views.

For those of you that migrated from Mechanical Desktop, I used MDT's scenes to create the views I needed. MDT is set up in such a way that you can have any number of scenes with as many parts as you choose to show in each view, and they all can be exploded differently. It APPEARS that in SW you can only have one Exploded view, which is a child configuraiton of the Default configuration. Is that correct?

If it is, then can anybody recommend a working way to produce a number of exploded views from an assembly? I've considered individual assembly files with parts in their exploded (or partially assembled) states, but that seems like a messy way to do it. I thought about using Animator, but I've never used it and I'm not sure that it would do what I need.

Suggestions? Do any of you have experience with this sort of thing? I'm open to anything. Thanks,

Brian

Reply to
Brian Mears
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The only thing I can think of is to create a new config for each exploded view. In SW 2005 there are some new options here aswell....You can select subassembly parts, or re-use subassembly explodes. I haven't really played with it myself yet so I can't tell You how well it works. From SW 2004 You can automtically animate the exploded views......but You need to create the exploded steps first.

Krister L

Reply to
Krister L

Hello Brian- I'm not using 2005. In 2004, you can create configurations that can have different exploded views and that can hide/show different components. Once an exploded view is created, you can "drag" it to another configuration. In drawings, insert the view the assembly was exploded in. Then right click in the view and select "show as exploded". Also, in drawing views; right click the view, and select the tab to hide components. Then you can select components to hide. "Exploded Lines" are created in the assembly. They are 3-d sketches. They look good. Look in the help file under "explode". Best Regards, Devon T. Sowell

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Reply to
Devon T. Sowell

I was successfully able to create exploded views in different configurations. I think that'll work. Thanks for the help!

Brian

Reply to
Brian Mears

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