Vendor Parts Workbench

[alex_55]

Fusion 360 has a native tool to import parts from McMaster-Carr. (see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LOQMrwywE0c)
I've seen multiple people express interest in an equivalent feature for FC.

edit: removed, sorry

[Cekuhnen]

Can you late edit the imported part ?

Glides for drawers for example I reposition

[alex_55]

Can you late edit the imported part ?

Glides for drawers for example I reposition

That depends somewhat on the quality of models that are provided, But generally yes. There are ~20 lines of code that try to make sure that imported objects don't get squashed to monolithic grey blobs. I tested out a drawer slide, and I am able to move the individual subcomponents after importing:

[kisolre]

Nice integration

[jamtek]

Purely anecdotal, but seeing this gave me a a flashback to the beginning of the lock down last year, before I switched to FreeCad from F360. With lots of time on my hands and a shortage of hand sanitizer, I came up with the idea to distill my own product at home! I started modeling a still head and Liebig condenser using nothing but imported McMaster-Carr parts.

Still_head-Liebig.png (191.17 KiB) Viewed 6569 times

That is until my partner walked past me and looked over my shoulder and asked what was I making. I'm designing a distiller, so we can make our own hand sanitizer and (cough) alcohol. You're not building that, it's illegal and dangerous, she implored! As you can see from the screen shot of the unfinished design, I decided to not press forward and keep the peace.

All joking aside I can definitely see the value of your workbench and will see if I can figure out how to test it.

[TheMarkster]

Just installed. Looking forward to checking it out. If anybody wants to add it to the addon manager.

Click the configure button:

Snip macro screenshot-a2bc67.png (47.26 KiB) Viewed 6540 times

Add the github repo:

Snip macro screenshot-dda7f1.png (22.37 KiB) Viewed 6540 times

Might need to restart FreeCAD, not sure, but it will appear in the workbench section.

Snip macro screenshot-2b64ca.png (43.22 KiB) Viewed 6540 times

[alex_55]

Just installed. Looking forward to checking it out. If anybody wants to add it to the addon manager.

Thanks for looking! I didn't know you could add custom sources directly in the addon manager. (I usually just "git clone" stuff )

[TheMarkster]

Working great so far. One thing I noticed while typing in my password some of the letters wouldn't register. I had to keep retyping until finally the "a" would register. No problems with that key before now, but maybe it was just some dust or something in it.

I just downloaded a plastic garden hose fitting. Running checkgeometry on it right now, but it seems to be choking on the task. I can hear my cooling fan motors kicking into high gear. I've heard some manufacturers intentionally put defects in their cad models, I guess to keep competitors from using them.

After some time the check has finished. Lots of errors, but that could be just that threads are sometimes difficult.

You can add the custom repo, but I think it only works for workbenches. It sees macros as workbenches and puts them in the wrong place. That's what it looks like anyway. Haven't actually tried it, but I put a macro repo in and it appeared in the workbench section.

[chrisb]

Great addon, thanks for sharing!

Could you tell something about the implementation? I ask because it could be interesting to adapt it to other hardware shops, e.g. for people where McMaster-Carr is not available.
Until now I have seen basically two possibilities for such downloads: direct download as STEP or as zipped STEP.

[jamtek]

Alex_55, this is a great addition to FreeCad. Easily installed the workbench thanks to the tip from TheMarkster. Using the latest LinkStage3 release with Vertical toolbars, via the 'Preset Configurations' menu option.

Funny, in the past I don't recall needing to login to access the CAD models, but I had no difficulty inserting STEP files into FreeCad once logged in.

OS: Windows 10 Version 2009
Word size of OS: 64-bit
Word size of FreeCAD: 64-bit
Version: 2021.911.24301 +3846 (Git)
Build type: Release
Branch: LinkStage3
Hash: 426a333ced22218ed5f06ca8bb7e63ea8042fc2d
Python version: 3.8.6+
Qt version: 5.15.2
Coin version: 4.0.1
OCC version: 7.5.0
Locale: English/United States (en_US)