There’s no doubt that SOLIDWORKS has a lot of tools, functions, bells, and whistles in its Standard package. To that end, I have never heard of anyone complaining that it is too small a download or too fast an install. That might be why SOLIDWORKS decided not to stuff everything into your initial download, and instead made a few things like an additional download.
If you use the SOLIDWORKS Weldments tools on a regular basis, there are some free Weldment Profiles available for download that you should know about.
Step 1
Go to the right side of your screen, as seen on the image above, and within your Design Library expand the SOLIDWORKS content folder. From there, dig down to the Weldments section. While holding down your Ctrl key, click on the standard you would like to download. I normally download it to my desktop and unzip its content there for temporary storage.
Step 2
Now we need to figure out where the current Weldment profiles are stored. Easy enough, just go to Options->System Options->File Locations->Weldment Profiles and capture the path, as seen above.
Step 3
Copy and paste the unzipped content into this folder location using Windows Explorer. Beware that the folder structure does count in here. When looking in the property manager inside SOLIDWORKS, you will see Standard, Type and Size as drop down boxes. That is how the folder structure should appear inside the Weldment Profile location also. So if things do not appear as you thought, check on this 3 layer folder structure.
Once everything is downloaded and set up right, you will see your Weldment Profiles drop-down powerfully enhanced, as seen above.
Want more?
This among other topics were just covered on one of our fun Lunch & Learn sessions on the power of Weldments, check it out!
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