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DriveWorks Ltd
DriveWorksXpress Hydraulic Cylinder Example

DriveWorks Ltd April 2008

DriveWorks Ltd - DriveWorksXpress Hydraulic Cylinder Example

Table of Contents
Table of Contents .................................................................................................. 2 Overview.............................................................................................................. 3 Setup .................................................................................................................. 3 About .................................................................................................................. 7

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Overview
This document guides you through: loading the files from the distributed zip file so they can be run straight away loading the files from a location of your choice It also contains information about the example has been constructed

Setup
Download the Hydraulic Cylinder.zip file. To run the example from the as built location follow Setup Type A. (recommended) The as built location will be C:\DriveWorksXpress\Hydraulic Cylinder if you require the files to be run from another location see Setup Type B. Setup Type A

1. Create a DriveWorksXpress folder at the root of your C: (Ensure the spelling is identical). So you now have C:\DriveWorksXpress 2. Extract the contents of the zip file into this folder. This should create the subfolder \Hydraulic Cylinder. 3. You now have the folder C:\DriveWorksXpress\Hydraulic Cylinder 4. Launch SolidWorks and click Tools>DriveWorksXpress 5. From the DriveWorksXpress dialogue select the option Create/Change Database. Click Next.

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6. From the Open dialogue, browse to the directory C:\DriveWorksXpress\Hydraulic Cylinder 7. Select the database Hydraulic Cylinder Xpress.mdb. 8. Click Open. 9. You can now go directly to the Run tab to specify and generate a hydraulic cylinder to your specifications. Alternatively you can progress through the wizard, by clicking Next, to view the captured parameters, user form and rules used. Setup Type B

1. Extract the contents of the zip file to the folder of your choice. This will create a sub-folder \Hydraulic Cylinder 2. You now have the folder XXX\Hydraulic Cylinder where XXX is the location of your choice. 3. Launch SolidWorks and click Tools>DriveWorksXpress 4. From the DriveWorksXpress dialogue select the option Create/Change Database. Click Next. 5. From the Open dialogue, browse to the directory XXX\Hydraulic Cylinder 6. Select the database Hydraulic Cylinder Xpress.mdb Click Open.

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7. The DriveWorksXpress wizard will now display the Models already in DriveWorksXpress. Any marked with a red cross, are models in a different location from when they were created and will need referencing. Highlight the Hydraulic Cylinder in the DriveWorksXpress dialogue. Click Next.

8. A dialogue will appear with a message

Click Yes. 9. From the Open dialogue, browse to the directory XXX\Hydraulic Cylinder and select the SolidWorks Assembly Hydraulic Cylinder.SLDASM. Click Open. 10. DriveWorksXpress will now re-reference all the models to your new location. Please note however that the drawings that are associated to each model will require re-referencing independently. Click Next.

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11. Highlight the Hydraulic Cylinder at the top of the tree view and select the Drawing tab. Click Browse.

12. From the SolidWorks Drawings dialogue, browse to the directory XXX\Hydraulic Cylinder 13. and select the SolidWorks Drawing Hydraulic Cylinder.SLDDRW Click Open. 14. Repeat steps 11, 12 and 13 for the following parts in the assembly:-

Model Spacing Seal Front Cap Boss Seal Shaft Spacer Front Cap Insert Casing

Drawing Spacing Seal.SLDDRW Front Cap Boss.SLDDRW Seal.SLDDRW Shaft.SLDDRW Spacer.SLDDRW Front Cap Insert.SLDDRW Casing.SLDDRW

15.

You are now ready to proceed directly to the Run tab to specify and generate a hydraulic Cylinder to your specifications. Alternatively you can progress through the wizard, by clicking Next, to view the captured parameters, user form and rules that have been put in place.

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About
The Hydraulic Cylinder example has been produced to represent how DriveWorksXpress benefits the machinery component industry by automating the design and production of manufacturing drawings of a hydraulic cylinder.

This is particularly relevant to companies who offer a bespoke product that is made exactly to customer requirements. In the past this offering impacted the design with each order requiring manufacturing drawings to be manually detailed. DriveWorksXpress eliminates this impact by automating the design function. The form constructed to automate the hydraulic cylinder requires the following information to be entered: -

Bore The bore of the hydraulic cylinder is a drop down with a range of selections in inch increments. It is also used in the file naming of most of the files.

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Stroke Inches Entering a decimal inches value between 8 and 32 inches will affect the overall length of the hydraulic cylinder, as well as a value that is used in most of the new file names. Clevis There are 3 different options of clevis available from the drop down. Pressure Range This drop down allows selection from a range of pressures. This does not affect the model, but is used to populate Drawing Annotations. Port Size This drop down has 6 options, made up of three different sizes in both straight and elbow. The Bore selection also drives the shaft diameter, of which there are two possible values. This is determined using the rule:=If(VALUE(LEFT(Bore, LEN(Bore) - 3))< 4.5, 0.75, 1) Where we are using LEFT and LEN to get the Bore without the inches (in) This Shaft size in turn selects the correct size of clevis, the type of which is driven from the drop down. The file names are built using intelligent part numbers, driven by the relevant selections that affect each part, with the exception of the Valve and the Clevises where the file name rules ensure that existing components are swapped in The Valve component has a rule for its file name such that each selection results in the use of one of 6 existing files, which are swapped in accordingly. The function SUBSTITUTE() is used in this rule to ensure that there are no invalid file characters used. The top level drawing has been created to resemble a technical data sheet.

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