- [Instructor] Blocks are independent non solving sketches
that can be used in a variety of ways inside of SOLIDWORKS.
The most common would be the copy a sketch
and then use that sketch somewhere else in your design.
By creating a block,
all the entities in the block become frozen,
and can be manipulated as a whole.
We can save blocks for later use,
as well as open blocks that were created
in the SOLIDWORKS format,
as well as formats like the AutoCAD DWG and DXF formats.
To insert a block into your design,
we first need to turn on the blocks toolbar.
And that's what I'm going to do right now.
So if you come up here to the top of the screen,
you can see we've got the individual tabs here.
We can turn things on or off
using these Toolbars tabs right here,
or you can just right click anywhere
in the gray area here and come over here.
Same thing. And click on Toolbars.
Then, come down here to Blocks. Turn that on.
And here's our little blocks menu.
And I'm going to go ahead and just dock that over here
on the right hand side of the screen.
So to use blocks,
the first thing we need to do is start a sketch.
So I'm going to choose this top surface here, start a sketch.
And now, I'm going to come over here to my blocks toolbar.
So the first one is make a block,
but you have to have some sketch entities to create a block.
So we're actually going to import a block.
So that's the one down here called import block.
If you had an open block, it would show up here,
but otherwise come down here to Browse.
Click on that button there.
Come over here to Desktop > Exercise Files.
Come down to Chapter 10
and then there's a folder in here called Blocks.
If you open that one up,
I've placed a whole bunch of blocks in here.
We're not going to use all these.
I just wanted to give you some blocks
you could play with if you'd like to.
And those down here,
we're choosing SOLIDWORKS Blocks,
but you can also choose AutoCAD DWG or DXF files.
So if you're looking for a DWG or DXF file,
a lot of time it's not going to show up
unless you switch over to that type of block.
But for right now,
I'm going to use this VGA-Cutout.
Click on that one there. Click on Open.
And notice, that block is now attached to my cursor.
Anywhere I click, it's going to drop that block.
So this is a great way to add a whole bunch of cutouts,
all we using a fairly complicated graphic.
And then just by clicking, you're placing it there.
So instead of doing that sketch work over and over again,
we can just bring in that one block and use it
and place that anywhere I want in my drawing.
I can also place this block on multiple sketches.
So if I were to change one block,
all those blocks would change in my design.
When you're done adding these little blocks,
hit escape, it'll turn that off.
And now you have a bunch of blocks added to your screen.
Now, I do want to point out these are all associative.
So if you modify one block, they'll all change.
Now, I can grab a block and I can move that one block around
and nothing thing else will be affected.
I can also grab this block over here,
and come over here to the left.
And I can say, "Hey, I'd like to make
this one block a little bit bigger,
or I can rotate this one around if I wanted to."
So I'm only controlling that one block.
But the block itself is a container, right?
It's allowing all that sketch entities
to be controlled as a unit.
So I can't go back and modify
any one line or change the block at all,
because it is a self-contained block.
I mean, you could go back and edit it
but it's going to edit all the blocks.
So let me show you how to do that. Right over here.
If I were to click on this one here, and I say Edit.
Now, I'm modifying the block itself.
So I'm going to go ahead and just grab a circle.
And I'm going to put that circle right
in the center of the block.
Click.
And notice that all those blocks now have that circle.
So check out this one over here, this one down here,
they all have had that circle added to them.
When I exit out of the block,
now everything's been modified,
because they're all using the same block.
Now, notice this one here.
I did make it bigger and I rotated a little bit
but still using that core block entity.
Very important.
Now, if you have one of these
that you don't want to be a block anymore,
you can actually click on it.
And then right click.
And you can see I can edit the block itself,
which we already did.
I can save that block out as a separate block
or I can explode it.
If I explode the block,
now I've taken that block,
and I've removed it from the block entity itself.
And I've just turned that block's entities
into regular sketch entities.
Now, I can come over here
and I could add a dimension for instance,
and I could change that dimension to like 0.5.
Make it bigger.
I can modify, I can add dimensions.
I can do everything I want.
This is no longer a block.
It's regular sketch entities.
But, I also want to point out it has no relationships.
So if I start moving this around,
it's just going to go haywire.
So be careful with blocks, because again,
you only have these sketch entities,
but there's no other relationships holding them together.
So you need to go back and add all those things in there,
if you wanted to control this little bit better.
Anyways, that's how you can take a regular block
and turn it into sketch entities,
as well as we have the ability to take a sketch,
and then turn it into a block for later use.
And we'll be covering that in a later move.
But for right now,
let's go ahead and actually use these blocks
and create a cut.
But before I do that,
I want to get rid of that circle in the center there.
So let's go back up here,
jump into this block here.
And I'm going to right click on it.
And say, Edit Block.
Let's go ahead and get rid of that circle.
Notice all these other blocks got rid of it.
Same thing down here.
Let's just delete that one,
'cause it's going to cause a problem
if we start cutting it through.
Come up here to Features.
Do an extruded cut.
And let's go ahead, and just say up to next.
Click OK.
You might get the selected contour dialogue box
that pops up right over here.
And then you're going to have to go in here,
and actually choose which of these shapes
you'd like to use in our extrude.
Of course, I can choose all of them,
or none of them, or any selection that I'd like.
And come down here, let's grab this guy as well.
So I'm selecting all those contours.
Click on OK.
And just that easily,
we're able to add in all those different shapes,
modify them, operate them on a block,
as well as explode them out,
and then use them as just basic sketch entities.
So again, blocks are really powerful.
There's a lot of cool things you can do with them.
This is just scratching the surface of what you can do,
but hopefully you can integrate them
into your design process.