Mastering Assembly Features: Cuts, Holes, and More in SOLIDWORKS

This video shows you how to use assembly features in SOLIDWORKS. These are special features you can add at the assembly level, like cuts or holes, and they can even be applied to individual parts. It's a neat way to make changes that affect multiple components at once.

Key Takeaways

• Assembly features are created at the assembly level but can affect individual parts.
• You can control which components are affected using the Feature Scope.
• Features can be propagated down to the part files, creating external references.
• Common assembly features include cuts, fillets, chamfers, and holes.

What Are Assembly Features?

Assembly features are basically tools that let you add things like cuts, holes, fillets, and chamfers directly to your assembly. Think of it as modifying multiple parts all at the same time, right within the main assembly file. These features usually happen after you've put all your components together, and they often impact more than one part. The cool part is that you can decide exactly which components get changed using something called the Feature Scope.

In your FeatureManager design tree, you'll find these assembly features listed below the Mates folder. You can access them through the Insert menu, under Assembly Feature, or from the Assembly Features drop-down on the CommandManager. SOLIDWORKS offers several types of cut features, plus fillets, chamfers, holes, and some other special ones. There are even five different pattern types just for assembly features, which is pretty handy.

Creating Your First Assembly Feature

Let's walk through creating a simple sketch-based, extruded cut assembly feature. It's a lot like doing it in a part file. You start by making a sketch on a plane or a flat face of any component in your assembly. When you do this, you'll get a little warning message letting you know you're working at the assembly level, not the part level. That's normal.

Once your sketch is ready, you can add any geometry, relations, and dimensions you need. Then, you'll go to Assembly Features, select Extruded Cut, and choose your end condition, like Through All. But before you hit OK, check out the Feature Scope. This is where the magic happens for assembly features.

By default, it's usually set to Auto-select. This means SOLIDWORKS automatically picks all the components that the preview of your cut goes through. In our example, it might select three components. When you click OK, all three parts will get that cut feature. This feature will show up at the bottom of your FeatureManager design tree.

Controlling the Feature Scope

Here's where assembly features get really interesting. If you open up one of the parts that was cut by the assembly feature, you won't see any sign of the cut directly in that part file. That's because, by default, the feature only exists at the assembly level. But you can change that.

Let's say you made a mistake, or you just didn't want the last component in the path to be cut. No problem. You can just edit the assembly feature. Instead of Auto-select, you can choose Selected Components. Clear the current selection and then pick only the components you want to be affected. In our case, we'd select the first two components.

Propagating Features to Parts

Now, what if you do want those cut features to actually appear in the individual part files, not just in the assembly? You can do that too. Edit the assembly feature again, and this time, go into the Feature Scope settings. You'll see an option to Propagate features to parts. Check that box and click OK.

Now, when you open those individual parts, you'll see that each one now has its own cut feature. These part-level features will have external references back to the assembly, meaning if the assembly feature changes, these part features can update accordingly. It’s a powerful way to manage changes across your entire design.