Latest News from SolidSolutions.co.uk

Brompton Cycles - A Story of British Design

Thu, 04 Mar 2010 18:27:07 GMT

The Brompton folding bicycle is a fantastic pieces of British design. Working from their base in West London, Brompton are currently producing 26,000 folding bikes a year. The story of how they began and how they got to where they are today is in the current issue of Develop3D.

From using pen and paper, Brompton Cycles have been through the process of transferring all their work from 2D to 3D, which culminated with them purchasing SolidWorks a year and a half ago with support from Solid Solutions. Since then, all the original 2D work has been updated, with SolidWorks being used to design new components as well as developing specialist tooling for the factory.

Full the full story, click here

"Lets shout about UK design talent" - Young Designer Competition

Mon, 22 Feb 2010 15:07:56 GMT

Agentdraw have launched a product competition (the Young Designer Competition) to highlight young British design talent. It was a response to the Phillipe Starck Programme, Design for Life. This was purported to highlight the great design talent in the UK, however, it seemed to the opposite, with the programme stating that there had been no decent design out of the UK for some time!

The Agentdraw competition gives young designers (the competition is open to individuals under 25) the chance to have their product prototyped, marketed and potentially manufactured by Agentdraw Ltd. The winning competitor will also receive the Agentdraw Young Designer Award, which will be presented at the prestigious Plastics Industry Awards at the Park Lane Hilton Hotel.

For more information, head to the Agentdraw website here

A pdf on the competition can be found here

Engineering Dinosaurs! (BBC Link)

Wed, 03 Feb 2010 13:55:01 GMT

On top of the thousands of commercial products and engineering solutions the SolidWorks has been utilised for, there is now a new use for the software, building dinosaurs! Over at the Griffin Hoverwork factory in the Isle of Wight, Bob and Jack Rushton have been helping researchers from the University of Portsmouth construct giant pterosaur models. Some of these models will have a wingspan of 10m! Griffin Hoverwork (one of SolidSolution’s many customers) have been helping out the researchers by applying their knowledge of building Hovercrafts in SolidWorks to designing the frame work for these giant models.

The models will be on display outside the Southbank Centre, London for three weeks next summer as part of the Royal Society’s summer exhibition. The original news story and video can be found here.

SolidWorks World 2010, with James Cameron!

Fri, 29 Jan 2010 20:14:22 GMT

Coming up over the next week is the annual SolidWorks World event, this year held in Anaheim, California. It promises to be an eventful time, with more than 150 in-depth training sessions alongside numerous hands-on learning opportunities. More than 100 SolidWorks-designed products will be on display along with hundreds of partners demonstrating software products that complement the SolidWorks software.

One of the highlights of this event will be James Cameron, appearing as one of the keynote speakers. Cameron has risen to impressive heights with his spectacular new film "Avatar". Complementing his already impressive film directing career (including Titanic, Aliens, and the Terminator franchise) his newest film has been a technological masterpiece, transforming cinema with its spectacular 3-D CGI effects. Cameron’s talk should be an interesting look at the innovative technology that he has helped to pioneer over the years.

On top of the headline talk, there will also be a sneak preview of SolidWorks 2011 software and presentations from DS SolidWorks CEO Jeff Ray, Dassault Systèmes President and CEO Bernard Charlès, and DS SolidWorks Co-Founder and Group Executive Jon Hirschtick.

Keep your eyes open for news of any awards for SSM!

More information can be found here.

Windows® 7 Compatibility (Educational Edition)

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 15:18:04 GMT

Since the release of Windows 7, there have been a number of enquiries about compatibilty. Below is some infomation on this:

1. SolidWorks EDU products 2010-2011 academic year (Education Edition, Student Edition, and Student Design Kit) will officially support the Microsoft® Windows 7 operating system. This new release is planned in the spring of 2010.

2. SolidWorks EDU products 2009-2010 are officially supported on Windows XP and Vista. While the SolidWorks EDU products 2009-2010 installation is not prevented on Windows 7, the products are not officially supported. This means that they have not been fully validated by QA and therefore the full scope of potential issues is not known. There will not be any SolidWorks product updates available for any Windows 7 specific issues. For an optimal experience with the SolidWorks EDU products 2009-2010, it is recommended that a user install on Windows XP or Vista.

More information can be found here

SolidWorks used to help design squeezable bottles of Marmite

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 15:01:33 GMT

This week is has been announced that SolidWorks 3D CAD design and engineering package was extensively used to help develop the squeezy bottles now used for Marmite and Colman's Mustard.

Read the full article in our SolidWorks Blog here.

How Sustainable Is Your Design?

Mon, 14 Sep 2009 11:13:23 GMT

In the Global market today, it is increasingly the case that for a company to succeed, it needs to be responsible. More and more consumers are demanding "green" products. Solidworks Sustainability helps designers using SolidWorks to understand the impact of their work to the environment. It is an easy to use program that integrates fully with SolidWorks, allowing informed choices to be made earlier in the design process. Click here to learn more.

Solid Solutions Management Acquires Another Reseller

Tue, 08 Sep 2009 08:42:19 GMT

On 18 May 2009 Solid Solutions Management, the UK’s largest and main SolidWorks reseller, purchased CadConnect, the Newcastle and Leeds based SolidWorks reseller, which commenced trading in 2001. Solid Solutions will operate this business as a wholly owned subsidiary trading as Solid Solutions CadConnect. ....read more

SolidWorks Acquires CircuitWorks

Fri, 10 Jul 2009 08:31:16 GMT

SolidWorks acquires CircuitWorks provider Priware - March 26, 2008 - SolidWorks CEO Jeff Ray. "As products become ‘smarter’ , the lines are blurring between electronic and mechanical industries, and this acquisition is a natural step toward helping engineers be proficient in this climate.” SolidWorks is an indispensable platform for complex mechatronics systems. CircuitWorks is immediately available as a component of SolidWorks Office Premium.

Full Story....

SolidWorks Corporation today announced it has acquired U.K.-based Priware Limited, a SolidWorks Gold Partner and developer of CircuitWorks™ software, which bridges the gap between electronic CAD and mechanical CAD software. The acquisition gives engineers around the world a platform to integrate electronic and mechanical designs for the millions of electronic products developed every year.

According to BCC Research, the electronics industry will reach $3 trillion by 2012. CircuitWorks enables engineers to accelerate and simplify electronic product design by integrating ECAD files into their 3D models and 2D drawings. As a SolidWorks Gold Partner Product, CircuitWorks allows engineers to ensure electronic components such as printed circuit boards (PCBs) will fit and work correctly in their products – all within the SolidWorks® software design window.

“The electronics industry is inherently becoming more complex, meaning we as engineers are increasingly challenged to arrange for proper interaction between electronic components and their mechanical environment,” said Gert Lamberts, project manager at security and electronic control unit supplier N.V. Nedap (www.nedap.com). “Working in separate programs with PCB makers slows the process and increases the chance we’ll have to re-work something. The integration of SolidWorks and CircuitWorks is a marriage of high-performing tools that lets us innovate and collaborate, rather than simply recreate new products.”

Previously, much of electronics development involved designing the product to fit around the electronic components. SolidWorks and CircuitWorks together let engineers design PCBs to fit inside ever more stylized product frames, whether an MP3 player or the dashboard of a new car.

For example, a mechanical engineer can use CircuitWorks to include a PCB design (in industry-standard IDF and PADS file formats) in the SolidWorks solid model of a new global positioning system (GPS) device to help ensure the PCB is not too close to any metal contacts. SolidWorks Routing would allow the engineer to create the wire harness to connect to the PCB. The engineer would also be able to gauge how the PCB will stay in place using COSMOSWorks® design validation software, and check heat flow using COSMOSFloWorks™ thermal dynamics analysis software.

The acquisition further establishes SolidWorks software as an indispensable platform for developing highly complex mechatronics systems, which combine electrical, mechanical, and information processing components found in consumer electronics and robotics. SolidWorks and CircuitWorks combined let mechatronics engineers use digital modeling to improve product quality, reduce prototyping, and streamline development.

“Very few products made today are purely mechanical,” said SolidWorks CEO Jeff Ray. “As products become ‘smarter’ with more complexity, electronic components are increasingly driving the design. The lines are blurring between electronic and mechanical industries, and this acquisition is a natural step toward helping engineers be more innovative and proficient in this changing climate.”

SolidWorks - The Film 21 (Interesting)

Fri, 10 Jul 2009 08:21:01 GMT

It's in the cards - From 1984 to 1994 Jon Hirschtick (Co-founder of SolidWorks Corporation) , was a member of the MIT blackjack team. Their exploits were chronicled in the best-selling book "Bringing Down the House" and are now the subject of the movie, "21," which opened Friday, March 28. ( In Metro West Daily) by Bob Tremblay: Link , In Design News by Beth Stackpole: Link