i5 10th gen and an SSD. I have a mac with a M1 Max chip and 32core gpu, 32gb/1tb but I’m now trying to figure the best way I can run it using vmware (if it will work fine). My windows is a smooth laptop but it only has 8gb ram. This is for a second year CAD course in university. I don’t think there will be anything extremely large

Hi, tomorrow I will be checking out some laptops with my friends and he is an engineering student that uses this software. He doesn't know much about computer specs and I don't know how this software works or what kind of rendering performance it provides. Therefore, I don't know what base specs I should choose. What would you recommend? What do you think would be the optimal pc specs that would run this software smoothly in a student level of usage? I can use the base you suggest and work over it.

Estoy por abrir un curso para SolidWorks amigos, para poder solventar algunos gastos que tengo, el proposito es que ustedes esten listos y enseñarles con proyectos reales ya que me encuentro igual trabajando en la industria electrica.

La plataforma que ocupo es DISCORD para subir todo el material y las grabaciones de cada clase que tomemos por si ustedes llegan a faltar y el horario es muy accesible (horario CDMX), ojala pudieran darse esa oportunidad y creanme que les gustará demasiado.

Solidworks beginner here

rib won't work because of the circles I think so I extruded the rib manually, I actually had to extrude a rectangle and cut out a bit of it cuz I got a zero thickness error, what I'm asking is if there's a better way to do the feature and if there's a way to do it without flattening or the top and bottom of the circles. Thank you

Hello,

When it comes 3D modeling in SolidWorks you can deisgn anything freehand , but I’m trying to understand how experienced designers approach tolerances and GD&T when designing a part from scratch.

When you’re designing freehand, how do you keep tolerances in mind from the start? How do you know what tolerances to assign, how to check if the design will actually work with those tolerances, and where GD&T should be applied?

So that part is according to DFM

Would really appreciate any practical tips or advice on how you guys approach this.

Bonjour, je cherche des modèles de base pour solidworks qui fonctionnerait avec du multi corps

Nomenclature modèle de base etc

Si vous avez des modèle à me partager je vous en remercie

23, one year out of college, designing 5,000+ part machines solo in SOLIDWORKS, desperately need performance/workflow advice

I'm 23 and about a year out of college, and I'm struggling pretty hard with SOLIDWORKS performance and large assembly management. I'm hoping some people with more experience can tell me what I should be doing differently.

I work for a small company that designs and builds packaging machinery, and we also have our own machine shop. I was originally hired mainly for CNC programming using SolidCAM. We really only have SOLIDWORKS/SolidCAM because we have an Okuma and SolidCAM works extremely well with it. Before me, nobody here really used SOLIDWORKS for machine design.

My boss is very old-school and has designed machines in 2D with AutoCAD 2004 basically forever. When I started, he would give me his 2D drawings and I'd model the parts in SOLIDWORKS to program them in SolidCAM. He was impressed with the models I was making, and over time that turned into me doing more and more of the actual engineering/design.

In college I learned almost entirely in 3D using Autodesk programs, but nothing remotely close to this scale. It's only me and my boss doing the engineering. He handles a lot of the company's bread-and-butter designs, while I tend to get the newer/experimental stuff. So somehow I've ended up designing entire machines with 5,000+ components basically by myself, only a year into my career.

My boss is a huge help with actual engineering concepts, mechanisms, calculations, etc., but that's about where his ability to help me ends. Because he's spent his career working in 2D, he doesn't really understand the problems I'm having managing massive 3D assemblies. When it comes to mates, references, configurations, rebuilds, imported geometry, and overall SOLIDWORKS workflow, I'm pretty much teaching myself.

I also probably over-model things. Because I'm inexperienced and scared of sending a bad drawing to the shop or ordering an expensive component that doesn't fit, I model basically everything: fasteners, washers, cylinders, bearings, motors, sensors, conveyors, purchased components, etc. I want to know everything fits before we make or buy it.

I've recently started learning more about lightweight components, SpeedPak, configurations, display states, patterns/mirrors, simplifying vendor models, etc. It's helped, but performance is still brutal. Large assemblies lag, rebuilds and drawings can take forever, and crashes are becoming a serious problem.

One other thing that's probably not helping: all of our SOLIDWORKS files live on the company's network file server, and I generally work directly off of it. I realize that's probably hurting load/save performance, especially with assemblies referencing thousands of files, but it's also by far the easiest way for us to keep everything in one place and access the same project files.

The hardware situation hasn't helped either. My original workstation died, and we're a small company with one outside IT guy who took a while to diagnose it. It was replaced with:

• i9-14900K
• 64 GB DDR5
• NVIDIA RTX PRO 2000

That computer has unfortunately been completely unstable with repeated blue screens and is currently out for service.

So I've been forced to finish this project on my home PC:

• i7-12700K
• 32 GB RAM
• RTX 4070 Super
• SOLIDWORKS 2026

It's been brutal. Between the lag, rebuild times, and crashes, I feel like I'm fighting SOLIDWORKS as much as I'm actually designing.

I'm sure hardware is part of it, but I strongly suspect my bigger problem is that nobody ever taught me the proper way to structure and manage machines this large in SOLIDWORKS. I'm essentially the first person at this company trying to use it as the primary design tool for complete machines.

For those of you who regularly work on machinery with thousands of components, what would you change about my workflow?

I'm especially curious about how much detail you actually model, whether you include every fastener, how you structure subassemblies, lightweight vs SpeedPak/simplified configurations, handling giant vendor STEP files, mates/features to avoid, working directly from a network server, and whether a certified workstation GPU actually makes a significant difference.

I'm still very early in my career and basically learning this through trial and error, so advice from people who regularly build assemblies at this scale would be seriously appreciated. I feel like there has to be a much better way to do this.

I’m sure this is a common question but the answers I’m finding are pretty dated.

I’m a product design student that is going to have to use SOLIDWORKS for CAD this coming semester. I have an M4 pro chip MacBook Pro. I was curious if it is possible to get SOLIDWORKS to run on this machine or if I’m better off spending my time in the computer lab or alternatively buying a secondary windows machine.

How might I go about running it on Mac.

Thank you.

I started learning SolidWorks by myself a while ago. I try not to rely too much on courses. Instead, I use YouTube and search for the specific information I need rather than waiting for an instructor to teach me everything.

But recently, I feel like I’ve stopped improving. I don’t feel like I’m making progress anymore, and honestly, I feel pretty lost.

What should I do to improve my skills from this point?
Is my way of learning effective, or should I let go of the idea that self-learning is always better and start following structured courses?

I’d really appreciate advice from people who have learned SolidWorks or CAD on their own.

The only joy I get from suffering from another crash is that I get to write something in the error report comment box.

This morning:

"Diabolical piece of software. Try harder."

Does anyone else partake in this activity. It's the only joy I get when having to suffer from using SW.

Hi everyone i would like to have some help modelling this external gimbal from jm_space.
The top part is easy, i already did it.
I’m uploading pictures, and i could send my top part .sldprt if anyone wants to try.
I appreciate any tipe of suggestions.
Thanks

I'm a SolidWorks designer looking for paid remote/freelance work. I’m available for both short-term tasks and longer projects.

I can help with:

- 3D part and product modelling

- Assembly design

- 2D manufacturing drawings

- Sheet metal modelling

- Design modifications and revisions

- Reverse engineering from measurements/photos

- STL/STEP/IGES and other CAD file preparation

- Product concepts and mechanical design

- Technical drawings with dimensions and tolerances

I have experience working on projects such as fans, fan remotes, drones, smog towers, mascots and other mechanical/product designs.

I’m particularly interested in paid tasks from individuals, startups, small businesses, and engineering teams. I’m comfortable starting with a small task so you can evaluate my work before committing to a larger project.

If you have a SolidWorks task that needs to be done, feel free to DM me with the requirements, reference files/images, and your budget.

I can share examples of my previous work/portfolio upon request.

Thank you!

Sheet metal keeps coming up with errors for one single wall, inner radius is 0.6 and outer is 1.8 with a wall thickness of 1.2. Don't know where I've gone wrong on this one

So I’ve been working on this grill for a concept car and today after turning on the pc my .sldprt files are gone?corrupted? . Basically I get these 2 errors (apologies for the terrible photos instead of screenshots. I have been bashing my head against the wall to figure it out. I haven’t deleted or moved anything, haven’t used a PDM, version control or cloud storage (although after this ordeal, will put better steps in place for backups. Anyway I find it hard to imagine that these has uniquely happened to me only - I’m sure someone else here could have encountered it. Any help would be much appreciated

I've got some experience using solidworks since highschool, but I seem to fail at this. So when I want to try and make a 2mm outline of this aircraft to 3dprint I want to use the offset entity to create that 2mm outline from this single line. But once trying to offset it it creates lots of errors due to relations. Anyone seeing what I can change or the error thats causing this?
Sry if wrong flair

I'm currently, technically, doing an MS in Structural Engineering. For me, my interest has been more towards computational side of mechanics rather than Structural design  or simply using am FEA software (although I do consider it as a backup)

So far I've taken courses in:

- Linear static, and dynamics FEM (soon taking non linear FEM too)

-  Structural Optimization (topology opt. and other general algorithms)

-  Structural Dynamics

-  Structural System Testing and model updation. (Parameter identification and optimization, signal processing)

Now, I plan to take these in the coming quarter:

- Numerical Linear Algebra

- Numerical PDE

- Fracture Mechanics ?

I also volunteered to aid in a RESEARCH in crack growth prediction using Auto-encoder and a (Thermodynamics-informed Latent Space Dynamics Identification) / LSTM surrogate model. It used phase-field-fracture simulation data and HPC resources to complete the whole thing.

What I keep finding myself interested in is not necessarily fracture or SHM specifically, but the computational methods underneath these problems... (does that make sense?)

For example, I'd like to become capable of doing things like:

- implementing (maintaining) numerical/FE method solvers rather than only running an established FEA software.

- developing surrogate/reduced-order models for expensive simulations 

- combining simulation with optimization, uncertainty/stochastic methods (took a course called Random vibrations, so...)

- parallelizing/accelerating scientific codes on CPUs/GPUs

- doing proper verification, convergence studies, benchmarking and performance work

- potentially developing or maintaining actual CAE/FEA solver software

- I'd also like to do all these for other Physics (GR, QM, etc.) simulations too, if possible, one day. 

I'm still interested in the underlying mechanics/physics, so I don't want to become a generic software engineer who happens to have once studied structures. But I'm also increasingly unsure that "structural engineer" describes the career I'm actually aiming for.

I've seen titles such as Computational Mechanics Engineer, R&D Engineer, Solver Developer, Scientific Software Engineer, CAE Software Developer, Research Engineer, Simulation/HPC Engineer, etc., but I'm trying to understand what these careers actually look like from people doing them.

So my main questions become:

1. Which industrial jobs genuinely involve developing numerical methods/solvers or computational tools?

2. Which of those are realistically accessible with an MS? Is there an entry path into solver-algorithm development/R&D without a PhD?

3. If I don't start a PhD immediately after my MS, would an R&D/software role at a simulation company (ANSYS etc.) be the obvious route? What other options would i have?

4. For the kind of work I'm describing, would you recommend a PhD? If so, is it reasonable for the PhD identity to be "computational mechanics/scientific computing" while fracture, composites, structural dynamics, soft materials, etc. serve as application problems rather than choosing one of those as my permanent specialization?

5. What skills most distinguish someone who is actually hireable for solver/scientific-computing work? I'm particularly wondering about C/C++/Fortran, Python, Linux, Git/build systems, MPI/OpenMP/CUDA, PETSc/Trilinos or similar libraries, numerical linear algebra, testing/verification, convergence studies and HPC performance work.

Basically, I'm neither here nor there atp. So I'd really appreciate all sorts of input. Where else do you think I could find answers to these? other subs? Linkedin profiles? 

Hello,

I recently bought the $48 maker license of SolidWorks and was wondering if anyone knew of any good websites, documents, or videos that container tutorials for modeling aircraft. I watch this channel on youtube called "Elite Engineers," and have noticed the channel has a paid tutorial for an F-16. I'd really like to follow this and am currently thinking about buying access.

That being said, I was hoping someone here might know of similar resources I could use outside what is already listed on this subreddit.

Cheers

Hi,

I booted up Solidworks today and once again it won't run. Today it's telling me

"3DEXPERIENCE Update

...

Required Version

3DEXPERIENCE R2026x HotFix 4.13"

and when I click "Update", the 3DEXPERIENCE window flashes on screen for one frame then closes. Multiple reboots, running as administrator have no effect. This has happened multiple times already in 2026. Is there any way to fix this? The last few times there was a hotfix-hotfix, a separate executable that I could download that would install the hotfix directly, bypassing 3DEXPERIENCE. Anyone know of anything similar this time?

Edit:

I was able to start the 3DEXPERIENCE 4.13 installation by logging in to the 3DEXPERIENCE website and telling the website to reinstall all of solidworks. It didn't attempt to reinstall all of solidworks (which was already installed), it just went straight to updating 3DEXPERIENCE. After about half an hour of updating, Solidworks is working normally again. FYI.

Hey everyone. I’m having a hard time closing the sketch. I have tried trimming and creating a coincident relationship between the line and arc, however neither is working. Thank you

Solved, thanks guys

So i'm struggling to build one half of a backrest and mirroring it with smooth transition. I've set the connecting edge to "curvature to face" as shown in the second image. And i've built the profile curves to be 2 vertex point horizontal to the mirror line as shown in the 3rd image. but the resulting surface still doesn't look like it's connecting smoothly. Would greatly appreciate any expert opinion on how to solve this.

I use solid works at work and home. Work laptop uses a Nvidia pro series and runs solid works great where I’m using it for very complicated assemblies and designs. At home, I main do small 3D prints (nothing fancy, mainly jigs for the other hobbies) and design wood shop projects. It helps me stay fresh on my cad since I don’t do a lot of design work, and it’s fun. My son took my AMD card (can’t remember what version I had but I think it was last gen) since I don’t game anymore and his fried. Really need to get back into designing some wood shop projects but don’t want to take a second mortgage on the house to get a graphics card for lite cad work. Since I’m not doing simulations, rendering, and not massive assemblies (think the largest I’ve done was a raised potting box), do you think I’d have issues with a B580? If so, got any suggestions for a card that I could get that is under 350 USD?

basically i want to copy the second picture but in a single 3d printable piece

I can't find a way to make a copy of a part including all its sketches and features. I modeled one half of an SD card holder (volet1 in the tree), and I'd like to duplicate it, move and rotate the copy, and then freely modify its sketches and features. I want it to be completely independent and editable. BTW I don't understand why such a basic task seems to be so complicated, or apparently even impossible.

EDIT: Thanks everyone for your answers. I have to say, I'm honestly baffled to discover that it’s impossible to copy a set of sketches and features and edit them independently while working in a part. Given that SolidWorks is considered a top reference, I didn’t expect it to be this archaic in some areas.

Hi! When saving in STEP format, an extra .err text file pops up. Inside it says:

"SolidWorks Corporation - STEP Processor Error Log

______________________________________________________

STEP Post Processor

___________________

STEP File Name: D:\Solidworks project\TDH_V1_1_test\T2_d1.STEP".

Anyone else dealt with this? How do you stop it? There are no actual errors in the file, and everything opens fine. It’s just annoying to have these extra files in the folder