In an ideal world, we would have just one system of measurements. However, we do not live in an ideal world. SolidWorks does its best to compensate by doing conversions automatically and effortlessly for you, but the one area it falls short in for the time being is in BOM’s. You get stuck using the units of the drawing. You can switch the units on the drawing, but then your dimensions all get switched, too. However, despite the half-dozen Enhancement Requests for the functionality of units on a BOM, there is no easy way to do this.
But there is a way, and if you’ve set up some custom properties in advance, then it can be easy. Watch this!
It may have been a bit hard to see, but the syntax I typed in at the end of the equation is {}” IN”{}
The entire equation reads {2}`Length`/25.4{}” IN”{}
Now, apparently in newer versions of SolidWorks, the {} before and after the ” IN” are no longer required! One of the things with newer versions of SolidWorks is that the old workflows still work! This workflow will work in older versions as well as current versions, but chances are you won’t need the {}. Test it on your own machine!
The same procedure applies to the mass column, except that the multiplier would obviously be different. I had mentioned that there were some Enhancement Requests for this functionality. Please see below for the list I found:
Vote for one of these if you would like this functionality to be even easier!
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