I started learning Soidworks(SW) at my local community college in the fall semester of 2013. After 2 weeks of classes, Colorado experienced a flood that restricted my movement to town for many months. I made an arrangement to send the assignments to the SW instructor via email. My SW education was then reading the textbook and learning what I could from the internet. The final project for the class was open-ended and I chose to model an 8 harness loom that I have. I learned a lot by taking on such a large project and used many different techniques.
These are a few of the techniques I used:
- I used top-down design with assembly layout sketches for the heddle lifting mechanisms
- Toolbox hardware, as well as custom, created hardware with the different configuration for multiple sizes
- Default mates for faster insertion of parts in assemblies
- Subassemblies in assemblies for repeated identical heddles mechanisms
- Animated explosions and reusing the subassemblies explosions
- Rendering video
- Design tables driven configurations
- and many more
Since I was not sure if I would be able to attend the final presentation I created a video of the part explosion and shared it on youtube for the class to watch. You can still see it here