yang686526

structural steel toolbox; wtf;over?
say i want to make a detail part, say of a rolled shape like an angle.
i open a new part, select an extruded feature, pick a sketch plane, pick the structural steel toolbox, select a shape, say l angles, select a size, say 3x3x3/8, and press 'create'.
at that point, sw generates a sketch of what looks like the correct part at the correct size, partially behind the dialog box, all in grey. so far so good.
then, before i can press 'done', the sketch changes its proportions and goes all green. so i press 'done', and then i 'smart-dimension' the part.
guess what? it's not 3x3x3/8! it's 1x1x1/8!
if i try to override the smart dimensions, the shape goes crazy, like the center of the internal fillet radius is tied down.
some days it happens like that, some days i get what i want.
i think i've caught it in similar chicanery on other shapes, too. ... but again, not always.
what am i doing wrong?

mike halloran
pembroke pines, fl, usa
check out our whitepaper library.
i'm not sure what's wrong, but you might be running a version of solidworks newer than v2007
what i do is go directly to the toolbox tab, select the profile i need, the length, and then select create part (like i do with nuts, screws, whatever). seems to work properly for me, even in v2009.

jeff mowry
sorry; i'm using 2009.0.0.
i'll try it your way and see how it goes.
thanks.

mike halloran
pembroke pines, fl, usa
i get the structural steel to work correctly by:
1. select a plane
2. create the profile using the menu toolbox: structural steel then click done.
3. i then have a sketch that is the correct profile and just needs to be edited to set the location and orientation.
4. finally extrude as needed.
if i try any other order (such as start with extrude, start in a sketch, etc) i get a "default" size profile with no dimensions. this is the way it has always worked for me in prevous versions of sw also (currently on 2009sp2).
well, there's another sticky note for my monitor.
thanks.
i hate fragile software...

mike halloran
pembroke pines, fl, usa