In the previous edition of this blog series, we covered different types of errors we encounter when using SOLIDWORKS – Understand SOLIDWORKS modeling errors and fix them with no difficulty.
Additionally, we looked at some tools that facilitate us to find the errors manually. In this week’s blog, we will investigate additional features that SOLIDWORKS provides us to find and repair errors automatically.
Check sketch for feature
With the help of this feature, you won’t need to look for errors manually anymore but have SOLIDWORKS find them for you. You can access it by navigating to Tools> sketch tools > check sketch for feature.
To select this feature, you need to be editing a sketch. Upon clicking it, an options window will pop up where you can select which feature you will check for the sketch. Select the desired feature from the drop-down menu and press check.
At this point, SOLIDWORKS will display the found errors and highlight them with a magnifying glass. You can repair your sketch without having to close the repair sketch window.
Repair Sketch
This feature works similar to the “check for feature” option. However, when you use the “repair sketch” feature, you don’t need to specify which feature to check for. Instead, SOLIDWORKS will jump straight to the previously presented repair sketch window where you can clean up your sketch manually.
Freeze Bar
You can use the freeze bar to freeze features. Frozen features are not rebuilt and can not be edited. You can recognize a frozen feature by the lock symbol beside it.
This tool is useful when you want to prevent a feature from being edited and examine the source of the errors of your part without a specific feature being rebuilt. To access the freeze bar, navigate to Tools > Options > System Options > General > Enable Freeze bar.
FeatureXpert
This option is available for specific conditions when a fillet or a draft fails to be built. You can enable FeatureXpert by navigating to Tools > Options > System Options > General > enable FeatureXpert.
To access it, you can click the FeatureXpert button from the “What’s Wrong” window when available.
In the part shown in the following image, fillets could not be created in the highlighted edges. However, leveraging FeatureXpert, SOLIDWORKS will recognize these errors, make the appropriate adjustments for these fillets and build the part to our desired specifications. And best part – we didn’t even need to find the error.
This concludes our review at how to solve design problems and SOLIDWORKS modeling errors, so next time you encounter an error, you have many tools at your disposal to quickly fix the mistake and continue your design process!
