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Scaling a drawing from full to 1/5

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worldraft

New member
Nov 22, 2011
14
I am drawing the Instrument board of a WWII airplane. Now I want to scale the Board to a 1/5 scale for a model airplane, but I don't know how to do this.
So how does one scale down a drawing in Solid works?

Jean
 
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Are you wanting to scale a 2d drawing or 3D model?

If it's a 3d model, and the feature sketches are fully dimensioned and constrained, you could use the ModelRescaler macro from
If the feature sketches are or aren't fully dimensioned, you could use the Scale function within SW.

If it's a 2D drawing created from a 3D model, you could adjust the print scale but that's not the best method.

If it's only a 2D drawing ... why are you using SW?
 
Thanks for the response, but yes it's a 3d drawing in SW that I've drawn full scale. Now I'd like to convert it to a different scale, because I might use it for a 1/5 or 1/4 scale in the future depending on the need, and I have all the dimension in full scale so converting each part as I draw is a lot of work and the error potential is hight.

Jean
 
I apologise if this comes across as condescending, but in SolidWorks;
A model (part or assembly) is a 3D solid (or wireframe) which can be rotated and viewed from all angles.
A drawing is the 2D representation of the 3D model, shown in various views on a flat "paper" sheet.

If the Instrument Board is a single part, make a copy and use the ModelRescaler macro.

If the Instrument Board is an assy, you will have to make a copy of the assy, and copies of all the parts and scale them individually. Then you will have to re-reference each part within the copied assy.

 
In the drawing, you could make views scaled 1:5, then print full size.

If your drawing views are 1:1 scale, you can still scale down right in the print menu, under "Page Setup".
 
Thank you and your right about Drawing and Model or assembly.
I will try what you said and get back to you.
Jean
 
I'm using SW 2007 and I'm looking for ModelRescaler macro! Where can I find this command. Is it under TOOL - ??
 
Hi CorBlimeyLimey, and thanks for the info. I admit that I had to find the Icon but I did finally and now it's working perfectly. Do you know if one can scale down an assembly or just a part?
 
Do you know if one can scale down an assembly or just a part?
Read my second post.

Alternatively you could create scaled configurations of each part, and use a Design Table in the original assy to control which part config is active.
 
As another alternative... at some point (may be before SW2007), SolidWorks added the "scale" feature for parts. Effectively allowing you to scale up or down. Since you have an assembly, you can save it as a part and then scale the part.

Going down this path you will lose the feature tree in the part, so you won't be able to edit the dimensions... so make sure you full size representation is correct before you saveas part.

-Dustin
Professional Engineer
Pretty good with SolidWorks
 
3D sketches are difficult to deal with. Did you actually create a 3D sketch? Impressive. A 2D sketch is much easier to work with and would certainly give you the result you want, which I expect is a scaled drawing of the panel?
If you plan to scale and print a drawing to use as a template for panel layout leave the sketch (which is actually a part model?) at 1:1 and create a _drawing_ at 1/5 scale, print at 100% (not 'to fit') and use that. Keep in mind, most printers do not scale accurately, so you will need to fiddle. I do this by drawing and printing a ruler in the sketch or having a known distance. Adjust the 100% scale up or down until it prints correctly.

--
Hardie "Crashj" Johnson
SW 2011 SP 4.0
HP Pavillion Elite HPE
W7 Pro, Nvidia Quaddro FX580

 
Actually the reason I need to scale a 3D model is that I want to print the part ether 1/5 or sometime 1/4 scale depending on the need. By the way I neglected to mention that the printing is to be done with a 3D printer in order to make a part to be fitted in a model airplane.
 
what do you mean "create a config for each scale", and then what do you mean
 
Hi fellows well I'd like to thank you all for your help, now i've got very good

Jean
 
I have an other problem
I want to save a copy to STL format but don't know how

Jean

Jean Forgues
 
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