{"id":13936,"date":"2024-04-23T15:21:42","date_gmt":"2024-04-23T13:21:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/staging.cadbooster.com\/?p=13936"},"modified":"2025-03-30T17:36:33","modified_gmt":"2025-03-30T15:36:33","slug":"new-in-lightning-lock-rotation-for-non-toolbox-components","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cadbooster.com\/nl\/new-in-lightning-lock-rotation-for-non-toolbox-components\/","title":{"rendered":"New in Lightning: lock rotation for non-Toolbox components"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lightning<\/a> is a SOLIDWORKS add-in that makes working with fasteners fun again.<\/p>\n

Instead of scrolling through endless lists of fasteners, we let you select a type, size and material. After that, you just drag the part into your assembly and we’ll add a washer and a pattern for you.<\/p>\n

We just released a new version. Here are the highlights:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Lock concentric mates – even for non-Toolbox parts<\/a><\/li>\n
  2. Internal cleanups<\/a><\/li>\n
  3. Improved consistency in the settings<\/a><\/li>\n
  4. Show the Stock Level of a selected component<\/a><\/li>\n
  5. Prevent identical configurations<\/a><\/li>\n
  6. Simplified Database Management window<\/a><\/li>\n
  7. Update thumbnail images<\/a><\/li>\n
  8. Bug fixes<\/a><\/li>\n
  9. What\u2019s next?<\/a><\/li>\n
  10. Start filtering today<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    1. Lock concentric mates – even for non-Toolbox parts<\/h3>\n

    SOLIDWORKS can lock the rotation of a concentric mate. This is great when you don’t care about the rotation of a part, like with fasteners. These concentric mates get a locked rotation icon:\"Lightning<\/p>\n

    See Preventing Rotation in Concentric Mates<\/a> in the SOLIDWORKS knowledge base.<\/p>\n

    To enable automatic locking for Toolbox components, enable this setting in the SOLIDWORKS settings:<\/p>\n

    \"Lightning<\/p>\n

    Lightning now completely honors this setting, there is no setting in Lightning for this. But to make it even cooler, we do this even when your fastener parts are not Toolbox components<\/strong>. We will lock all concentric mates for fasteners added with Lightning, it’s awesome.<\/p>\n

    2. Internal cleanups<\/h3>\n

    Lightning seems so simple, but that’s because we hide all of the complex stuff.<\/p>\n

    And as things got more complex, we needed to take some time to clean up the code. So we made this the main goal for this release. Zero new features was the second goal, but we failed at that \u00af\\_(\u30c4)_\/\u00af<\/p>\n

    The results are great. We improved the quality of the code by removing duplicates, organizing it differently, adding more tests and splitting big objects into smaller ones. This will make it easier to add new features in the future.<\/p>\n

    If everything goes well, you will never see any of this.<\/p>\n

    3. Improved consistency in the settings<\/h3>\n

    As Lightning gained more features, we kept adding panels to the Settings window. But we lost track of the complete picture.<\/p>\n

    So we redesigned every settings panel to make it simpler, more consistent and easier to understand. Every step now has these three sections:<\/p>\n

      \n
    1. A list with properties on the left<\/li>\n
    2. An explanation and extra buttons on the right<\/li>\n
    3. Buttons and a progress bar at the bottom<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      The result:<\/p>\n

      \"Lightning<\/p>\n

      4. Show the Stock Level of a selected component<\/h3>\n

      Lightning makes replacing fasteners easy. Just select a bolt, click Replace selected<\/em>, select a new type and click a button.<\/p>\n

      \"Lightning<\/p>\n

      We also help you manage preferred fasteners using our Stock Levels<\/a> feature. Every fastener size gets a label like\u00a0Preferred\u00a0<\/em>or\u00a0Avoid<\/em> and a color for easy identification.<\/p>\n

      This lets you to nudge your engineers into using more preferred or in-stock fasteners.<\/p>\n

      From now on, we show the stock level of the selected fastener at the top of the replace window<\/em>. A tiny, useful change.<\/p>\n

      \"Lightning<\/p>\n

      5. Prevent identical configurations<\/h3>\n

      We used to allow fasteners with identical properties. If you selected one of these while adding a fastener, we had to make you choose one of the identical ones.<\/p>\n

      This confused our users, so we fixed the problem at the root. Now, we do not allow identical configurations in the settings. You will get a popup that tells you which sizes need fixing.<\/p>\n

      6. Simplified Database Management window<\/h3>\n

      Lightning stores your data in a database file called database.db<\/em>. You can store this file in PDM so everyone uses the same data.<\/p>\n

      We simplified the window to manage the database location. There used to be three options, two of which let you select a folder. So we merged those two into a single\u00a0Select folder<\/em> option.<\/p>\n

      <\/p>\n

      We also removed the\u00a0Rebuild database<\/em> button because people didn’t understand what it did. We now always perform this action silently.<\/p>\n

      But instead, we added a\u00a0Reload database<\/em> button that refreshes all data in your current session. That one should be more useful.<\/p>\n

      7. Update thumbnail images<\/h3>\n

      We have refreshed our Fastener Models library<\/a>, our user-friendly Toolbox alternative, and added 12 new fastener types. The thumbnails we created for these parts are now also added to Lightning. Here’s a preview:<\/p>\n

      \"\"<\/p>\n

      8. Bug fixes<\/h3>\n

      We found and fixed a few bugs. Thank you for reporting them, you are making the product better!<\/p>\n