future in assembly? a2+, assembly3, what else?

[polemidis]

Hello, I am using freecad a lot for designing open source agriculture equipment. So far I am using the Assembly2 workbench with all its flaws
But since the new approach on the PartDesign workbench, and the introduction of Bodys and Parts, I sense that the Assemby2 workbench is not the best way.
After some research I found the A2+ and the Assembly3 workbenches. My question is if there is any official or an "educated" answer to what is the future of these? I hate to redo all the assemblies, I would like to stick to one for a while at least.

Also there is a "sticky" post on the forum for the current state of the assembly workbench. Is that deprecated? Can we have a sticky post so new users would know which assembly WB is more compatible with Freecad features (especially the Part container)

Thanx!

[triplus]

Hi @polemidis.

There was an assumption that introduction of new (PartDesign related) features such as Body and Part will lead to Assembly capabilities but that unfortunately didn't happen (yet). What did happen is Assembly 2, A2Plus and Assembly 3 modules for FreeCAD were developed. Assembly 2 is the oldest one and not much development is ongoing ATM. Therefore if you already used Assembly 2 in your projects that option i guess should work as usual. A2Plus is under heavy development ATM and therefore things can still change. There is much focus on improving the solver. Assembly 3 (effort) brings SolveSpace solver to FreeCAD and currently it contains a lot of new features such as Links, TopoNaming ... But not much of that was upstreamed yet. Therefore at least for a while you will need to use the Assembly 3 related builds (to use Assembly 3).

Therefore in short my suggestion would be try them all and use the one that suits your needs the best. A while back there was nothing to choose from. Therefore we are getting there.

[chrisb]

The safest way is to not use any of these not-yet-official assembly approaches. It's not an assembly replacement, but you can group solids together in one Part container and move that around. Manipulator workbench can help with aligning. It adds nothing new, it only sets parameters accordingly.
Have a look at ppemawm's brilliant models in the Showcase subforum. They are made without any additional assembly workbench.

[herbk]

Hi polemidis,

if you are using Assembly2 in the past, i would say: take A2+, you will be familiar with it qickly.

I don't know how it works with PD Bodys, because i don't use PD. Till now i can solve all my conditiones with Part and Sketcher.

A2+ is under defelopment, but well, whole FC is.... It works very fine for me and and topo naming problems are solved largly.

@ Chris:

They are made without any additional assembly workbench.

Of course thats possible, but it's not "a very professional approach"...

[kbwbe]

Hi polemidis,

if you are using Assembly2 before, i would say: take A2+, you will be familiar with it qickly.

I don't know how it works with PD Bodys, because i don't use PD. Till now i can solve all my conditiones with Part and Sketcher.

A2+ is under defelopment, but well, whole FC is.... It works very fine for me and and topo naming problems are solved largly.

For information: Importing models to A2plus with Part/Body containers is working.

[triplus]

At this point i would recommend using A2plus for new projects. Assembly 2 should continue to be used for existing projects that were created using Assembly 2. Exploring and using Assembly 3 is recommended for more experienced CAD users. FreeCAD 0.19 development cycle will hopefully make things more clear in this regard (Assembly 3).

The safest way is to not use any of these not-yet-official assembly approaches.

All 3 options are a rather safe bet if you follow some simple guidelines. For example use the same software version through entire product design lifecycle. Therefore the same strategy should be applied as when using only upstream FreeCAD functionality. A nice example is PartDesign workbench that evolved. And therefore older projects don't work in newer FreeCAD anymore. And nobody is saying it isn't safe to use FreeCAD because of that. As this is normal and expected and has to be included in strategy on how some specific project will be managed.

[dcapeletti]

Hi, I have tried assembly2 and A2Plus. Both have defects, it is difficult to decide for one or the other. With assembly 2 I have this problem https://forum.freecadweb.org/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=31748 and with A2Plus, it is complicated to link to source files when the assembly file is opened on another computer. I have to do it for each of the source files.

There are several assembly benches that are sometimes difficult to decide which one to go for.

Greetings

[triplus]

with A2Plus, it is complicated to link to source files when the assembly file is opened on another computer.

And with Assembly 2 it is not complicated? AFAIK A2plus was influenced by Assembly 2 and therefore if you will mention the observed difference here:

https://forum.freecadweb.org/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=29207

It likely will get addressed.

[dcapeletti]

If I had to choose, I get A2Plus.

[triplus]

Looking at the changelog this looks related:

support for relative/absolute pathes of imported parts

When was the last time you have tried updating A2plus and creating a new assembly? To test if the issue still persists.