Mechanical Toolbox Overview¶
The Mechanical Toolbox contains a set of standard 2D design, drafting, and detailing tools to help you create and annotate drawings.
With Mechanical Toolbox, you can:
Choose a default standard from a collection of data tables that define industrial and national standards, or create a custom standard based on one of the standards provided.
Insert standard hardware into your drawing in a number of 2D views by choosing from a collection of bolts and screws, nuts, pins, and washers.
Add predefined holes to a drawing by choosing from counterbored or countersunk holes with blind or through clearances.
You can also specify geometric or textual hole dimensions and create associative charts of hole locations, which you can then add as annotations to drawings.
Detail drawings by creating, previewing, and adding surface finishes and welding symbols.
Design and add balloons to drawing entities.
Use the item data associated with balloons to add bill of materials tables to your drawings.
You can export the contents of the tables as comma- or space-separated text files.
Track changes in drawings by creating revision tables with links to revision symbols.
Contents
Managing Mechanical Toolbox Standards
Mechanical Toolbox includes a collection of data tables that represent existing industrial and national standards. It is highly recommended that you create your own standard from one of the standards provided.
Selecting Mechanical Toolbox Settings
The Toolbox - Settings dialog box lets you specify basic settings for Mechanical Toolbox features.
Managing Mechanical Layers and Layergroups
The Toolbox - Settings dialog box lets you manage Mechanical layer definitions, layer properties, and layergroups.
Mechanical Toolbox Hardware Options
Mechanical Toolbox includes standards-based hardware components that you can insert into drawings.
Mechanical Toolbox Screw Connections
The Toolbox - Screw Connections dialog box lets you combine bolts and screws with nuts and washers using a dialog box.
Mechanical Toolbox Hole Options
Add 2D representations of holes to drawings based on national standards or your custom standards.
Setting Layer Preferences for Toolbox Hardware, Holes, and Symbols
Using the Toolbox - Settings dialog box, you can set layer properties to specify layers, colors, linestyles, and lineweights you want Toolbox to add to the active document. You can then assign these properties to Toolbox entity categories that are used for hardware, holes, and symbols.
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Store specific hardware components or hole configurations that you use frequently as favorites in your Mechanical Toolbox profile and access them from the Toolbox - Hardware or Toolbox - Holes dialog boxes.
Editing Hardware and Hole Definitions
You can modify the definitions of Mechanical Toolbox hardware and holes that you have added to a drawing.
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A detail view shows a specified area from the drawing at an enlarged scale.
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Section lines indicate where cutting planes cut the model to create section views. A section view shows interior parts when hidden lines cannot represent them.
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Add surface finish symbols to specify the surface texture for manufacturing.
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When your drawing is for a project that requires welds, you can add welding symbols to describe the type of welds, their sizes, and other processing and finishing information.
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A feature control frame is a rectangular symbol used for displaying the conditions and tolerances of a geometric control on a part’s feature.
Adding Datum Identifier Symbol
Datum identification symbols identify datum features for feature control frame symbols.
Working with Part References, BOMs, and Part Lists
Parts Lists are generated from BOMs. Placing Part References and Balloon Callouts in the graphics area define the data for BOMs and Parts Lists.
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Use a revision table to track revisions in a drawing.
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Use Mechanical Utilities for various specific situations while working with the program.