Another approach to assembly solver (A2plus)

[herbk]

It's not a big prob, Fasteners WB creates a "BOF" (bill of fasteners) by it's own, but having only one "paper" for all would be nice to

BOM was designed to read out a information spreadsheet from a sourcefile of an imported part.

The button for that i moved to my personal toolbar of Part WB.

On another thread, i saw, you are a teacher.

Not realy... Basicly i'm a machine builder, i give only a few hours per week with the goal to bring a little bit practice into school...

[kbwbe]

It's not a big prob, Fasteners WB creates a "BOF" (bill of fasteners) by it's own, but having only one "paper" for all would be nice to

I should do a closer look at Fasteners WB next time !

[triplus]

I should do a closer look at Fasteners WB next time !

You're really missing out!

[kbwbe]

.
Hi all,

a new release of A2plus is out: V0.1.6. What has been changed ?:
- old code has been messed out
- some minor bugfixes
- topological naming for designs done with Part WB had to be changed. (Unfortunately!)

Important note:
If you used A2plus with activated toponaming on Part WB designs, you should switch toponaming to OFF on preferences page for these projects. Otherwise all constraints are recognized as broken. For new projects, it works now better than before.

[kbwbe]

It's not a big prob, Fasteners WB creates a "BOF" (bill of fasteners) by it's own, but having only one "paper" for all would be nice to

Hi Herbert,
i did some tests with fasteners WB and had a quick look at it's code. For the purpose, it has been designed, it is a very fine piece of software. Perhaps it can be integrated to A2plus, but this is nothing which can be done "during an afternoon". There are several difficulties.

- fasteners WB uses it's own placement code (very logical, as it was there before A2plus)
- Like many other software for/of FC, it is vulnerable by the unfamous topological naming issues (screws jump arround after editing of parts)
- chamfers for countersunk screws are not compatible with A2plus-shells (these shells are hollow) and should not be used.
- there is a new userinterface necessary, if it should be integrated, to make it working in a proper way within A2plus.

So this would be a bigger project for it's own. Don't know if it is the most important one at this moment. OK, having all screws with one click in an assembly WB, would be fine.

[herbk]

Hi kbwbe,

Don't know if it is the most important one at this moment.

certainly not.

May be there is the need for i little explanation what im thinking about...
In my mind a well working assambly WB is a very important part of a CAD Software to get a professional standard. Part, PartDesign and some other WBs are the base, a base where a each single part can an should be created. - not less but also not more. Putting parts together, here is the Assembly WB the place for.
For a prof. way to assembly single parts, there is the need for sevaral things more: You need fasteners (of course ) and a lot of things which we buy somewhere: Bearings, gears (i know we have a gears WB, but for a assembly with gears i usualy buy the gears and get a CAD file from the supplier) profiles and so on.
For bearings, gears and other "buy parts" assembly should be able to import and handle .stp (or other usual formats) like at FreeCAD created parts.
For profiles i'm thinking about something like fasteners WB work: Just import a profile (e.g. a L) and set all dimensions after importing it.
If the assembly is finished should it be possible use something like the Animation WB to check if the assembly somewhere "jams", all needed constraints allready existing at an assembly.

But that are just some thoughts...

[triplus]

Combining Fasteners and A2plus workbenches doesn't make all that much sense in my opinion. At least not now. A2plus will hopefully focus on improving solver robustness and introduce new sensible relations. As for TopoNaming and multi-document management. I like the improvements in A2plus. But somehow feel this two areas might end up migrating to functionality introduced in Assembly 3 effort. That is in A2plus multi-document management would likely improve in combination with the Link effort. Loading of documents to extract data could i guess improve. Now basically document side-loading is happening? In Link effort improvements were introduced in this area (making this more straightforward). But there are still some issues and hopefully all module developers providing solutions in this area will weight in (in FreeCAD 0.19 development cycle). As for TopoNaming i don't know yet. That will likely come after. When it comes to A2plus, i like the fact, it provides more relations, compared to Assembly2. When adding relations, at least for now, i feel it's more robust. When it comes to handling the initial conditions (the initial part position). Compared to Assembly3.

[jbe]

Can we use Datumplane in A2plus, to make contraint ?
Best regard

[kbwbe]

Can we use Datumplane in A2plus, to make contraint ?

Hello JBE,
no, it's not possible. Datumplanes live within PartDesign, not within A2plus (or even Assembly 2).

[kbwbe]

.
Hi all,

there is an update of A2plus available, V0.1.7

What's new:
- a new constraint "axisParallelConstraint"

Two axis' are rotated to be parallel, but not moved to be coincident.
It works with linear edges and axis' of cylinder faces.

Have fun !