Chapter 14: Using Toolbox
In This Chapter
Learning how Toolbox works Exploring the Hole Wizard Gaining experience with the Hole Wizard and Toolbox tutorial
Toolbox is a hardware configurator that enables you to select from a wide range of styles and sizes to populate assemblies with standard hardware. It has many functions that allow you to automatically place and size fasteners.
Toolbox is integrated with the Hole Wizard through a database of fastener and hole sizes. The Hole Wizard is a function that applies mainly to parts but also has some relevance for assemblies. The Hole Wizard can create either holes in-context, or assembly feature holes.
Most of this book deals exclusively with SolidWorks Standard. Toolbox is part of SolidWorks Professional and so is not included in SolidWorks Standard. One way to know if you have Toolbox is to go to Tools⇒Add-ins, and if you see Toolbox in the list, then you have it.
Understanding Toolbox
To get the most from the automated functions in Toolbox, you need to configure it, and you may need to alter the goal of using an automated library to some extent. If you are planning to implement Toolbox, but don't already have a clear idea of what it is or does, then this chapter is a good place to start.
There are as many different ways of implementing Toolbox as there are companies who have implemented it, but they all have one thing in common: ...
