Assembly 4 / Part Design Feature design best practice

[dh9ts]

Hello all,

for my last project I started to learn Assembly 4, I had some bumps while learning but in the end it worked really well. It is a great way to assemble and design things.
I designed a lasercut rotation axis for a K40 Laser:

k40.png (204.67 KiB) Viewed 1642 times

While designing it, I had to work with several similar features across different parts (the links for the lasercut and also the "teeth" for the adjustable width).
I struggled to find an easy and also parametric solution.
In the end I constructed and repeated in every part the sketches to match the other part. This works, the parameters like length of the axis and
thickness of the plates are adjustable by the valus in the spreadsheet.

But for me I spent a lot of time designing the repeating features of the links. I'm wondering how you would design this and if there are ways to make
such designs easier. I was thinking of a kind of master sketch which could be imported and used in other parts but I do not know how to make this work.

For demonstration I made a smaller example of a box:

box.png (155.21 KiB) Viewed 1642 times

It would be very interesting for me, how you would solve this (the adding of the intersections, so that the box remains adjustable):


Thanks for your help
Thorsten

[reox]

There is a plugin for laser cut interlocking modules: https://github.com/execuc/LCInterlocking

However, I find it awkward to use and never had much luck with it... But that is my personal opinion and probably due to the fact that I did only played around with it for a short time until I gave up.
The images and workflow videos on youtube are very promising though!

[dh9ts]

Hi Reox,

thanks for your answer, I did play around with this workspace, works well for a starting point for lasercut designs.

But this did not integrate into my parametic design workflow. For example for the rotational axis I designed all the part for 4 mm acryl. When I was finished I realised I had not enough. So I switched the parameter to 3 mm and I could laser the parts.

I'm looking for a more generic solution with PartDesign / Assembly for such task.


Best regards.
Thorsten

[Zolko]

It would be very interesting for me, how you would solve this (the adding of the intersections, so that the box remains adjustable):

1) why do you use a Spreadsheet, and not the Variables included in the Model ?

2) I would do an assembly with all parts in the same assembly document, in the "Parts" group, so that you can reference them directly from the Variables of the assembly. You can do it by including the MasterPart in all parts, as you have done, but you have more steps.

3) as for the actual cut-out for each part ... I've never done that. So, let me see ... I would try it first by doing the cuts at distances specified in the Variables, thus all parts obey to the same values. If necessary, you can have several values for each face. But you'd still have to design all sketches by hand, I don't know how much you can automate this process.

[reox]

I'm looking for a more generic solution with PartDesign / Assembly for such task.

Yes, a fully parametric solution would be nice...
maybe the plugin can already do that, but I doubt that it stores all the information in the model in a parametric way

[dh9ts]

Hi Zolko,

1) Oh, I did not realize / know variables! That is looking very interesting, thanks!

2) I like to have separate files for the single parts for re-usability, in case of the lasercut pieces you are right, I could put them in one file because they all belong to each other.

3) That is my main point of the question. Also you see the blocks for the ball-bearings in my picture above. There are 4 of them, for each one you have to repeat the pattern with the same 5 holes for the screws in each drawing. It would be nice if there ist a simple and quick solution, to automate this rather boring task
I was thinking (and hoping) of some kind of template sketch...


Best regards
Thorsten

[dh9ts]

Hi,

I endend up creating a template sketch which I then copied into the several parts to save construction time. The template reads the base data from the spreadsheet / variables.
This template then I used to attach the quaders for pockets / pad operations.

template_sketch.png (227.57 KiB) Viewed 1470 times

This works reasonable well and reduced construction time for the finger joints.

Still, would be great if there was a possibility to link the sketches into the parts instead of copy/paste.



Best regards
Thorsten

[Zolko]

Still, would be great if there was a possibility to link the sketches into the parts instead of copy/paste.

I believe that realthunder is working on that. It might come in some near future.