FreeCAD Assembly 3 - How to Make Assemblies and Avoid Errors (Multiple Methods) |JOKO ENGINEERING|

In this video we cover how to make an assembly with external files, how to make an assembly with bodies internal to a single file, and how to avoid "Inconsistent Constraints" errors.
I have an open invitation for all to edit/add detail to the engine that has been started if anyone is looking to practice working with the A3 workbench. Feel free to edit/re-upload this (shoutouts welcome!) and we will see what a community can do with a vague engine model.
In addition to what is discussed in the video, inconsistent constraints may also appear if the constraints added are physically impossible to exist.
Download this model:
grabcad.com/library/freecad-a...
Official Documentation on this Workbench:
wiki.freecadweb.org/Assembly3...
RealThunder Branch Downloads:
github.com/realthunder/FreeCA...
0:00 - How to get Assembly 3 Workbench
1:35 - File Management of External Files
10:44 - Importing External Files To Assembly Using Link
12:10 - Establish Parts and Create Mates
14:13 - Degrees of Freedom and Avoiding Errors ("Inconsistent Constraints")
21:03 - What are elements? Demonstration of Editing Parts In an Assembly
26:56 - Quick Recap
28:05 - Example of Managing Assembly of Internal Bodies
42:04 - Quick Look at Documentation
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[@brunof1734]

I have been using Assembly 3 for my personal projects as it resembles Solidworks' assembly. Thank you for supporting the open source community with your fantastic tutorials!

[@qewer]

The reason behind the inconsistent constrains blew my mind. No other tutorial mentions it either. I've been using Assembly3 with linkstage branch for quite a while now but never knew how to properly handle constrains. Thanks for the video!

[@dickmorris6310]

I've viewed a couple of other videos on Assembly 3 (there aren't many), this is the first time it made sense. Thanks!

[@ExMachinaEngineering]

This is a great help to using the Assembly3 workbench. The coplanar error was as far as I got because I have projects that need to be delivered and didn't have the time to do a deep dive into Assembly3 and figuring out the error. So, you are actually adding value to our user experience and quality of work with your videos. And that's amazing!!!

[@carbonbased5041]

This video is the key to use Assembly 3. So very essential. Thank you!

[@dottybucannon7527]

WOW there are not a lot tutorials and what there is dont really explane everything. Then I saw your tutorial end this is really verry nice and makes it easy to undertand. Thanks a lot and keep up the good work.

[@alimozaffar6884]

Thank you for this good toturial

[@imoldovan]

Thank you for your videos. Been using Freecad for light CAD work. The problem I see with it, besides the topo bug (which I think is a deal breaker for a lot of people, but hopefully fixed soon ), is the fact that Freecad wants to do too many things in one package, and everything looks like it is piecemealed together. For me at least, coming from Solidworks, a lot of things are sooooo... unintuitive. At my age learning something new gets harder everyday :)

[@basilwatson1]

John , I was just sitting here thinking the same thing but couldn't put my finger on why ... yes, unintuitive,, an example, a slot in a cube .. I drew two cubes one inside the other .. boolean subtract, all looking good ..... one cube drawn in part design, the other in the part workbench .... all looking good until I wanted to do something else, I forget now, but realised I had drawn 2 separate models of whom communication was the last thing on their minds .... google, part design , sketch on face, groove , job done , elegant BUT ,,, and who would figure out to click on a dot ..I can't even see it ! ..... ON saying that freecad needs a good housekeeping, I remember its only maintained by a few really good fellas , quite literally a handful I think with others chipping in when they can ,,, so despite all that ,,, they have done a sterling job , and with videos like the above ,,, things are getting better .... I remember freecad .....15 ... shudder !

[@andreacecchettomuson]

Thanks you so Munch from italy. You are very clear to explain.

[@JokoEngineeringhelp]

Much respect for Italy! My cousin used to lie in Milan.

[@IGBeTix-Electronique]

Thanks for this valuable video, you can add bodies in assembly with drag and drop and alt key !

[@BaradDurTV]

Очень полезный ролик, информативно. Very useful video.

[@Rami7605]

Thanks for tutorial

[@chrisBruner]

Good video.

[@Sizifus]

Super helpful. Until now I've only been tipping my toes in FreeCAD, because I'm so used to Solidwork user interface, but there's no Solidworks on Linux to my knowledge and other alternatives like Fusion360 and OnShape are becoming less functional in their community versions. FreeCADs UI seems super clunky but the program seems to be pretty powerful and I can use it directly with KiCAD. Thank you for doing these tutorials, you're really good at explaining the functionality of this program in a concise manner

[@DucBanal]

If you don't like the UI of FreeCAD (like I did) take a look at the VertUI settings that change it quite dramatically. Search "VertUI FreeCAD Studio Petrikas" on KZbin if you want a tutorial on installation.

[@yondaime500]

Check out the channel OficineRobotica. He shows how to customize the UI on RealThunder's branch, and how to download and apply presets if you prefer. You can change pretty much anything you want in the UI.

[@Sizifus]

Thanks, will check these out!

[@tiborkemeny8644]

unfortunatelly, Solidworks won't be available on Linux, because SW was written with a lot of VBA scripts, not even the Mono-framework could solve this problem. For me, the Linkstage 3 (version of RealThunder) was the perfect choice.

[@kenlam1433]

Thanks, assembly 3 is really hard to use. Many constraints are either invalid or report errors. Can you come up with a basic usage guide? For assembly 3. Really useful for us beginners.

[@thepragmatic6383]

It's the resurrection of Assembly3, a good compromise between Assembly2 and Assembly4. The question is whether Assembly3 can also automate movement like Assembly4 does?

[@lawrencegray3145]

I found the section using multiple bodies from one file interesting. I was wondering how the process would be different, if at all, if the multiple bodies are in a part container. This is how I use Freecad, I create multiple bodies that would logically be an assembly in a part container. I have multiple part containers for other sets of multiple bodies

[@JokoEngineeringhelp]

Good question. Part container use is very common in Assembly 3 and should not pose any problems. I meant to mention part containers in the video.

[@berndkonemann5049]

Love this introduction to moving parts in Freecad. Well done. Question, was Assembly 4 not released at that time or do they not do the same thing ?

[@JokoEngineeringhelp]

I'm not brilliantly familiar with Assembly 4 yet; I know it has the same end goal but uses a different way of making geometry that bypasses topological naming errors than Assembly 3 does.

[@berndkonemann5049]

@@JokoEngineeringhelp thank you to clarify this. I presumed that one is just the successor of the first... Enjoy creativity and know that your video guides even 60+ to learn new tricks :-)

[@NavinF]

Huh this is pretty neat. Is there any way to do FEM analysis on an assembly?

[@tiborkemeny8644]

not yet, because of the topology and connection issues. I've made some test with Freecad/Salome-Meca and Prepomax and it worked fine. The same stands for the meshing (e.g. having structured mesh works the same way - or with GMSH)

[@donaldmccallum8453]

When I add bodies to parts to an assembly in A3 by dragging the parts all show up in the assembly and onscreen, unfortunately they are all "stuck" together and none of the movement tools will move them apart. Using V.20.1 with assembly 3 that I got from real thunder on a win 10 machine. What am I doing wrong?

[@donaldmccallum8453]

I just found out what I've been doing wrong😅. I had the mouse navigation set to "OpenInventor" instead of "CAD"😯. At 14:41 in your tutorial you are explaining the DOF concept, but if your mouse is NOT in CAD mode you cannot move your part independently of all the all the other parts. Without this ability, it is all but impossible to set the constraints properly. By the way, I think, IMHO that you are producing an excellent quality video tutorial from the point of view of voice modulation and intelligibility, speed of your mouse on the screen (not too fast) and the all important content in terms of how well you seem to know the material but also in how well you convey this understanding to your audience. I am now looking forward to viewing all of your other tutorials. Fine work, Sir!

[@giovannibianchessi1578]

Cant' you use addon manager to add Assembly3 workbench to FreeCAD? I am using a 0.20 git version and it works.

[@JokoEngineeringhelp]

It does come with version .2, that version is merging the RealThunder fork. Good point.

[@wertiaaudit5746]

How

[@sharpfang]

What's that file selector at 9:41? The mouse cursor just vanishes, there's no key pressed shown on the key preview, and suddenly there's a file selector... How do you get that?

[@JokoEngineeringhelp]

Good question, I'm not sure what I had to edit around there. If you're using linux, that's nautilus, if you're using windows, that's the regular file explorer, it's not connected to FreeCAD, it's just from files to drag and drop your parts in.

[@fishdisc7022]

None of this works on my FreeCad 20. You show selecting multiple items with CTRL key, this does nothing. If I click on add assembly it places it inside the part tree and can't drag anything into it. If I click on link button it shows a link in the tree but no parts in assembly. Downloaded the realtunder version and it is the same, in both looks and funtion.

[@hyykhyyk]

Do you have any thoughts on the differences between Assembly3 vs Assembly4 vs A2Plus?

[@JokoEngineeringhelp]

I have not used Assembly4 deep enough to really have a strong opinion yet, I would say A3 is best for assemblies that you plan on editing in the future in any way; I would go for A2 for an assembly to put together fast and simple without the need to edit in the future.

[@TryScienceChannel]

FreeCAD is slow. No movement is good. Look at my videos and workbench. whenever you have continuous redrawing (recalculate) and many objects, FreeCAD will not work. This is the nature of the OCC and FreeCAD also. No way to fix that unfortunately.

[@JokoEngineeringhelp]

You're workbench looks great! I think your videos need more viewers. Do you mind if I make a video recommending your channel?

[@TryScienceChannel]

@@JokoEngineeringhelp Yes please. Try to use, comment, and give your ideas to me. Suggest tools that you wish to have ..etc. Thanks :)

[@JokoEngineeringhelp]

@@TryScienceChannel Sounds great, do you mind if I use some footage from your channel to help?

[@TryScienceChannel]

@@JokoEngineeringhelp you are free to use any thing helps your effort and thanks for your help. I hope more people will be intrested to the work I do and might join the development. Thanks again

[@wertiaaudit5746]

Should I make freecad in C

[@Sevalecan]

Sitting here being angry(Not at you). I'm not sure your advice on inconsistent constraints is applicable to me right now. I thought I misunderstood two similar constraints at first, and switching between the two (plane coincident vs plane alignment)... But no, inconsistent constraints, once it starts complaining, I delete the most recent constraint that caused it to whine and it doesn't go away (And trust me the only way I know it's the right one is because it only complains after I make it and solve and solving is fine before hand, and it seems the effing print function is throwing an exception)............ Sigh. Then if I close the file and reopen it (Of course saving it in this whiny broken state), it stops complaining until I add another logical constraint. FreeCAD Link is great, Assembly3 is driving me nuts(In my case it's a short putt, right?). I guess I'll have to dive into the code myself.

[@JokoEngineeringhelp]

That sounds frustrating. A2+ is a good fallback if needed.

[@ohd_logs]

You just used the wrong constrain for planes. You should have used "Plane Alignment" and there are no errors. "Plane coincident" is used to center two planes. Basically 5 minutes of your videos is about your own error..