Mastering SOLIDWORKS Exploded Views: A Simple Guide

This video is all about making your SOLIDWORKS assemblies easier to understand using Exploded Views. We’ll walk through how to pull apart your designs step-by-step, showing exactly how each piece fits together. It’s a great way to create clear drawings and presentations.

Key Takeaways

• Exploded Views visually show how assembly components or part bodies fit together.
• You can move components individually or in groups.
• The Triad tool helps control the direction and distance of movement.
• Exploded Views are saved in the ConfigurationManager and can be used in drawings.
• This feature works for both assemblies and multibody parts.

What is an Exploded View?

An exploded view is basically a way to show how all the different parts in your assembly or bodies in a single part come together. It's like taking the whole thing apart, piece by piece, but keeping it all in one picture. When you create an exploded view, the mates that hold the parts together are temporarily ignored, and you can move the components away from each other along specific axes. This makes it super clear how everything is supposed to line up.

Creating Your First Exploded View

Let's get started with an assembly. Once you have your assembly open, you'll find the 'Exploded View' button on the Assembly CommandManager. The first thing you do is pick a component you want to move. As soon as you select it, a Triad appears. This Triad is your tool for moving the component. You can grab one of its axes – like the X-axis – and drag the component away from the rest of the model. When you're happy with where it is, click 'Done'. It's important to click 'Done' and not 'OK' at this stage, because 'OK' would close the whole Exploded View tool.

After you click 'Done', that first move you made gets recorded as an 'Explode Step' in the dialog box. These steps are added one after another as you go. You don't have to move just one part at a time, though. You can select multiple components, like a gear and a collar, and move them all at once. Just drag them together, and then click 'Done'.

Sometimes, you might want to move a part a bit further or in a slightly different way after you've already moved it. No problem. You can select that part again, drag it, and then right-click to add a new step for just that component. Remember, you can use either version of 'Done' to finish each step.

Working with Subassemblies

When you select a subassembly to move, you have a choice: you can move the entire subassembly as one unit, or you can move just a single component within that subassembly. This depends on a setting called 'Select subassembly parts'. If this option is cleared, the whole subassembly moves. If you check it, you can then pick and move just one specific part from inside the subassembly.

For example, if you want to move just the cover of a subassembly, you'd click 'Select subassembly parts', and then you can drag only that cover component. You can also move other components, like a motor, in the same way.

Advanced Movement Techniques

SOLIDWORKS also gives you an 'Auto-space components' option. This is handy if you have a bunch of parts, like screws, that need to be spread out. You can select all the components you want to space out, including, say, four screws and a face component. When you drop them, they'll be spaced automatically. Now, they might not be in the perfect spot or the right order. But you can easily fix that. You can drag the arrow next to the screws to move them further out, and drag the face component back. All these moves so far have been along the standard X, Y, and Z axes of the Triad. But what if you need to move a component in a completely different direction?

To do this, select the component first. Then, drag the center of the Triad itself and drop it onto an edge or a face of your model. The Triad's arrows will then reorient to point along that edge or perpendicular to that face. Now, when you drag a component using this reoriented Triad, it will move in that new direction. Once you've moved all the components and added all your explode steps, you can finally click 'OK' to finish.

Where to Find and Use Exploded Views

Your Exploded Views aren't lost once you create them. They are stored in the 'ConfigurationManager' section of the FeatureManager design tree. From here, you can add more detail. You can even add lines that connect the components back to their original positions, making it even clearer how they fit. Plus, you can take your exploded view and put it directly onto a drawing sheet, which is super useful for documentation.

And it's not just for assemblies! You can also create exploded views for multibody parts. It's the same idea, just applied to the different bodies within a single part file.

Thanks for watching! If you found this helpful, there are more great tips waiting for you.