Best way of doing this?
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- Posts: 2
- Joined: Tue Jul 27, 2021 3:07 pm
Best way of doing this?
I am building a work table. The surface is a simple polygon that I built from a sketch on the XY plane, no problem there.
For the legs and supports, I am using a common structure: a 1"x1" hollow square tube. I use 6 for the legs, and ~10 for the supports. The length of each instance differs and is thus unimportant to this question, just know that the base structure stays the same. I have attached photos of this base structure. Each support is an individual part, which I will then weld together when I begin construction to create the frame.
The problem arises when I try to position these correctly. I figured this would be simple because they are all the same shape, only sometimes differing in length and direction, but I was wrong. First, I tried making an initial "template", then copying it each time and repositioning them as Bodys in the PartDesign workbench. This took up quite a lot of time, and I realized I wasn't actually "attaching" them to eachother, just changing the position of each so they visually matched up. Plus, I seemed to be copying a lot of dependencies as I went on and was getting my Combo View clogged up with seemingly useless items. I tried a bunch of different techniques/workflows to keep everything nice, tidy, and parametrized, but none seem to be working well.
So what would be the best way of completing this project? The way I was doing it "worked", but it was messy, inefficient, and required a lot of effort. There must be a better way, right?
OS: openSUSE Tumbleweed (KDE//usr/share/xsessions/plasma5)
Word size of OS: 64-bit
Word size of FreeCAD: 64-bit
Version: 0.19.Unknown
Build type: Release
Python version: 3.8.10
Qt version: 5.15.2
Coin version: 3.1.3
OCC version: 7.5.1
Locale: English/United States (en_US)
For the legs and supports, I am using a common structure: a 1"x1" hollow square tube. I use 6 for the legs, and ~10 for the supports. The length of each instance differs and is thus unimportant to this question, just know that the base structure stays the same. I have attached photos of this base structure. Each support is an individual part, which I will then weld together when I begin construction to create the frame.
The problem arises when I try to position these correctly. I figured this would be simple because they are all the same shape, only sometimes differing in length and direction, but I was wrong. First, I tried making an initial "template", then copying it each time and repositioning them as Bodys in the PartDesign workbench. This took up quite a lot of time, and I realized I wasn't actually "attaching" them to eachother, just changing the position of each so they visually matched up. Plus, I seemed to be copying a lot of dependencies as I went on and was getting my Combo View clogged up with seemingly useless items. I tried a bunch of different techniques/workflows to keep everything nice, tidy, and parametrized, but none seem to be working well.
So what would be the best way of completing this project? The way I was doing it "worked", but it was messy, inefficient, and required a lot of effort. There must be a better way, right?
OS: openSUSE Tumbleweed (KDE//usr/share/xsessions/plasma5)
Word size of OS: 64-bit
Word size of FreeCAD: 64-bit
Version: 0.19.Unknown
Build type: Release
Python version: 3.8.10
Qt version: 5.15.2
Coin version: 3.1.3
OCC version: 7.5.1
Locale: English/United States (en_US)
- Attachments
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- support sketch.png (13.96 KiB) Viewed 885 times
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- padded.png (11.78 KiB) Viewed 885 times
- papyblaise
- Veteran
- Posts: 7793
- Joined: Thu Jun 13, 2019 4:28 pm
- Location: France
Re: Best way of doing this?
For me, even after 25 years of CAD, the fastest formula is to redo the profile in each direction, even if they are identical profiles
and, I will do it with Part
for fun, i tried with PartDesign, but to do the miror, i only succeeded with Part
and, I will do it with Part
for fun, i tried with PartDesign, but to do the miror, i only succeeded with Part
- Attachments
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- table.PNG (16.23 KiB) Viewed 858 times
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- Posts: 2
- Joined: Tue Jul 27, 2021 3:07 pm
Re: Best way of doing this?
That sounds fair, but I can't even properly copy it for legs in the same direction. I used a ShapeBinder so I could attach the sketch to the bottom surface of the table, but when I copy and paste the leg it A. brings along a bunch of dependencies outside the body which is a pain to clean up and B. The ShapeBinder seemingly doesn't work because I am seemingly unable to reference geometry on the table surface like I was before. I guess it will all have to be in one body now, which makes things a little awkward I guess. Devs pls fixpapyblaise wrote: ↑Tue Jul 27, 2021 4:59 pm For me, even after 25 years of CAD, the fastest formula is to redo the profile in each direction, even if they are identical profiles
and, I will do it with Part
for fun, i tried with PartDesign, but to do the miror, i only succeeded with Part
I think the devs do a little trolling, it's called they do a little trolling.
Re: Best way of doing this?
When copying you should carefully inspect the list of dependencies before confirming the copy process. Instead of copying, I would rather use a Draft->Clone.
A Sketcher Lecture with in-depth information is available in English, auf Deutsch, en français, en español.
Re: Best way of doing this?
And concerning your sketching:
- minimize the number of measures in favour of geometric constraints
- use symmetry to center the rectangles.
- minimize the number of measures in favour of geometric constraints
- use symmetry to center the rectangles.
A Sketcher Lecture with in-depth information is available in English, auf Deutsch, en français, en español.
- Shalmeneser
- Veteran
- Posts: 9443
- Joined: Wed Dec 23, 2020 12:04 am
- Location: Fr
Re: Best way of doing this?
* Symmetry of opposite corners with O
* Equality of length
(btw, my Sketcher doesn't want to follow Preferences modifications. How can I fix that ?)
* Equality of length
(btw, my Sketcher doesn't want to follow Preferences modifications. How can I fix that ?)
Code: Select all
OS: Windows 10 (10.0)
Word size of FreeCAD: 64-bit
Version: 0.20.25311 (Git)
Build type: Release
Branch: master
Hash: c5524bb58a7126fa2242d6137eb82ee9d54e82d4
Python version: 3.8.10
Qt version: 5.12.9
Coin version: 4.0.0
OCC version: 7.5.2
Locale: French/France (fr_FR)
- Attachments
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- BarreDeFer.png (10.81 KiB) Viewed 713 times
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- Veteran
- Posts: 5505
- Joined: Thu Apr 05, 2018 1:53 am
Re: Best way of doing this?
Just for fun, a sketchless version using Part workbench primitives and Draft clones and arrays.
basic_tube is the template for the other tubes. It is the cut result of cutting a smaller cube out of a larger one. Both are 1" tall to make it easy to scale the clones. For example, long_tube is 6' long, so it's scaled z = 72 (for 72 inches since 6 * 12 = 72).
basic_tube is the template for the other tubes. It is the cut result of cutting a smaller cube out of a larger one. Both are 1" tall to make it easy to scale the clones. For example, long_tube is 6' long, so it's scaled z = 72 (for 72 inches since 6 * 12 = 72).
- Attachments
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- square_tube_table.FCStd
- (45.92 KiB) Downloaded 18 times
Re: Best way of doing this?
Could you open a new thread regarding this topic? Does it only effect the Sketcher?Shalmeneser wrote: ↑Tue Jul 27, 2021 11:05 pm (btw, my Sketcher doesn't want to follow Preferences modifications. How can I fix that ?)
Regards / Viele Grüße
Max
Max
Re: Best way of doing this?
Some of the preferences are defaults for new sketches. You can apply them in the preferences to existing ones. If you mean that an open Sketcher doesn't take other changes such as font size into account: I am very sure that this has to be fixed in the C++ code.Shalmeneser wrote: ↑Tue Jul 27, 2021 11:05 pm (btw, my Sketcher doesn't want to follow Preferences modifications. How can I fix that ?)
A Sketcher Lecture with in-depth information is available in English, auf Deutsch, en français, en español.