Hello,
I can’t seem to scale a geometry body down in solidworks. The scale feature only permits scaling up, when I enter a scale factor less than one (say 0.7) it pops up with an error: “inconsistent geometry”.
Any advice will be greatly appreciated!
Thank you,
Greg
Just do the scaling twice. Sometimes, it can just be too much to handle all at once.
Do you have filets or some other geometry that might be causing an interference? I seem to remember scaling some parts using Solidworks, and it worked fine.
most of the time scaling down is due to some feature on the body. usually a surface that “goes crazy” and is not “possible” at the size you’re trying to get it to. try disabling all fillets, etc… get the most basic shape of your body then scale down. and then rebuild the disabled features
A lot of times I get files from designers that are giant and I just scale them down in solidview.
Huh?
Are you telling me that the designers don’t model to scale? Or is this a metric to imperial (vice versa) conversion issue?
i often run into the situation where i i start in mm and realize midway that i need to be in INs… or vice versa…
1in to 25.4mm - the most important ratio a designer should know! 
Occasionally one of the quoting software we get quotes from switches the inches and mm for whatever reason. Not a big deal because its pretty obvious no one wants an SLA that’s 10 feet long. 
Other times we get work clients that are looking for a scale model, so they send a file in life size and we have to scale it down to 1/35 scale for example.
Wait a second, we are talking about SW, right?
1- If you model in inches and use dimensions to full scale…then all you have to do is change the units to mm. SW will convert everything. There should be no need for scale.
2- I have never used the scale tool. I build with dimensions, then adjust the sizes. A few master sketches, and geometric relationships can go a long way for adjusting size. Maybe it is just me, but that seems to be the advantage of SW?
Note, Scale would make sense for a RP that is smaller…as mentioned above.
well lets say you start you’re model in IN and it’s height is 10in. but you actually wanted 10mm. if you just change the units in SW you are right that SW will convert everything to mm but you will have a part that is 254mm instead of 10mm hence the need to scale using the oh so important ratio mentioned above. 
madhero,
Yes, if you follow the method you described…that would be correct. But, hopefully next time you notice the mm/in at the end of the number in the dimension pop-up box. Everyone makes mistakes as you mentioned, just hopefully less over time. 