SolidWorks 2010 Bible

Part II: Building Intelligence into Your Parts

Controlling Items with Configurations

With every new release of SolidWorks software, it seems that more items become “configurable;”

that is, able to be driven by configurations. Configurable items for parts include the following:

l Feature dimensions, tolerances, driving/driven state

l (^) Suppression of features, equations, sketch relations, and feature end conditions
l Sketch plane used by a sketch
l (^) Configuration-specific custom properties
l Part, body, feature, and face colors
l (^) Derived configurations
l Properties that can be assigned, such as mass and center of gravity
l (^) Configuration of base or split parts
l Sketch pattern instances
l (^) Sketch text
l Size of Hole Wizard holes
You can control configurations in several ways:
l Making changes manually to dimensions and features
l (^) Using the Configure Feature/Modify Configurations table
l Using an Excel-based design table
l (^) Using the Configuration Publisher
Finding configurations
SolidWorks lists configurations in the ConfigurationManager. This is a tab at the top of the
FeatureManager area.
Tip
You can split the FeatureManager interface into two by dragging the splitter bar at the top of the panel. This
very useful function enables you to see the FeatureManager in the upper panel and the PropertyManager or
ConfigurationManager in the lower panel. Remember also that starting with SolidWorks 2009, you can detach
the PropertyManager from the left-hand side panel area. n

Deleting configs .............................................................................................

Each part has a default config named “Default.” There is nothing special about this config; you can

rename it and even delete it. At least one config must always remain in the tree, and you cannot

delete the configuration that is currently active. If you would like to remove a config, then you

need to switch to another config (by double-clicking the other configuration in the

ConfigurationManager), and then delete the one you want to remove.