Settings: each step explained

Before you can use Lightning you need to go through this settings wizard to set up your fasteners. You also use this window to make changes afterwards.

Steps in the Lightning Settings window

We split the wizard into the smallest steps possible. These are the steps right now, and the estimated time you need for each one:

1. Welcome page with video (1-10 minutes)
2. Add folders (1 minute)
3. Set a fastener type for each folder (2 minutes)
4. Explanation about patterns (2 minutes)
5. Creating all patterns (5-30 minutes)
6. Setting thumbnails and descriptions (2 minutes)
7. Choosing washers (1 minute)
8. Done + summary (1 minute)

Step 1: Welcome page with video

The video shows you how to go through each step. We’ve added two buttons at the bottom: one to visit the Knowledge Base (which is where you are now) and one to view this video in your browser.

Step 2: Add folders

Add the root folder that contains your fastener parts. You can remove any subfolder or file that you don’t need.

Once you add a folder, we find all files and read their configurations. This takes about 1 second per 100 files.

We only read in parts, but we may add support for assemblies in the future.

Step 3: Choose fastener types

In this step, you need to choose a fastener type for each configuration. You can set a fastener type on the folder level, part level or configuration level.

The second column turns green for valid values. You are done when the progress bar reaches 100%.

Step 4: Patterns explained

You don’t want to enter fastener data for all thousands of files. So we worked hard to automate this.

We let you create patterns to extract data from filenames and configuration names. You can build these patterns using tags and normal text. We will check if your pattern matches the filename and if so, we extract data for each tag.

Step 5 is still the most complex and time-consuming step, so we explain how we use patterns in this step.

The available tags are:

• <Standard>
• <Diameter>
• <Pitch>
• <Length>
• <Fit>
• <Material>
• <Coating>
• <Ignore>
• <OptionalOpen>
• <OptionalClose>

A few examples:

You can read more on this page.

Step 5: Creating all patterns

Read all about it on this page.

Step 6: Setting thumbnails and descriptions

When you’re all done with extracting data, you can add some metadata. In this step, you can add a user-friendly description and a thumbnail image.

Select one of the built-in thumbnails or use your own image from the fastener folder.

Step 7: Choosing washers

Lightning can add a washer to the bolts and nuts you just dragged into your assembly. See this article.

Because washer materials have different names than bolt materials, you need to choose your preferred washer type and material here.

Please note that the top row is empty because at least one bolt and one washer do not have a material assigned. This is not a problem.

Step 8: Done + summary

When you clicked Next in step 7, we stored all data in our database file. We show you the results in this step.

You are now good to go. You can add fasteners to your assembly with the Add Fastener window and replace existing files with the Replace Fastener window.