Intro To FreeCAD Assembly Workbench

[@kenschweim6159]

I would vote this video as your best one to date! Everything I design requires assembly and this workbench looks like it will be one of my favorites.

[@Adventuresincreation]

Excellent, glad to hear that!

[@56redgreen]

I am new to Freecad and been watching a few from different people. You are definitely the best.

[@Adventuresincreation]

Thank you for your kind words.

[@Foggy3657]

Just adding my thanks for these videos. You are a great teacher. You mentioned that you use FreeCAD for woodworking projects. It would be great if you could do a video on say a cabinet or a book case. Best wishes.

[@Adventuresincreation]

Thanks, I will consider that.

[@Ed_Downunder]

Congrats again, your videos are opening up opportunities for people, myself included. We can all see the potential, and that is why we persist, your video adds a practical solution to workflows. My design intentions are now gaining clarity.

[@Adventuresincreation]

I am glad to hear it. Thanks!

[@jeffholloway8345]

I just want to add my voice to the choir: thanks for a great series! This is my first attempt at CAD and if I'm ever going to learn it, it will be thanks to this excellent foundation.

[@Adventuresincreation]

Thank you!

[@GlassCanvas]

Thank you very much. This is an excellent and practical lesson with the new FreeCad 1.0 assembly module

[@Adventuresincreation]

I am so glad you enjoyed it.

[@sidnzrael2433]

Great Vid. Many thanks for your time.

[@Adventuresincreation]

You are welcome 😉

[@jonathanrichards593]

That seems so much easier than my stumbling attempts with Assembly4 many months ago. I'm going to explore!

[@Adventuresincreation]

I agree, it's the best assembly workbench so far.

[@DonovanBrown]

This was a very valuable video. 1.0 is really nice. Thanks for the videos.

[@Adventuresincreation]

You're very welcome!

[@arcode_channel]

Thanks a lot!

[@Adventuresincreation]

You are welcome 😉

[@LuizEnger]

Super insightful, thanks a lot for the video!

[@Adventuresincreation]

You are welcome 😉

[@SuperLittlewillies]

Thank you for these videos they are a great help in my learning curve

[@Adventuresincreation]

I am very glad to hear that.

[@electronicsafrica]

Thank you for sharing ❤

[@Adventuresincreation]

You are welcome 😉

[@matthewbennett]

Great videos! 🎉

[@Adventuresincreation]

Thanks!

[@gryzman]

love your videos, thank you for making these

[@Adventuresincreation]

You are welcome 😉

[@agroturystykadworwgajlitac6195]

Great video. It would be fantastic if you added an episode on making technical drawings and their cross-sections from assemblies.

[@Adventuresincreation]

I might do that next.

[@goodwill7643]

​@@Adventuresincreation yes, Technical drawing is a good topic. Helps to do scaled print on a papter or carton, so you can measure parts before put it into CNC or 3D printer.

[@Adventuresincreation]

@@goodwill7643 I don't have a printer big enough for scaled drawings of most things I design but you can do that for smaller stuff.

[@goodwill7643]

@@Adventuresincreation agree, but in some cases, you need precision in specific units, not a hole part. For example you have 10cm PCB and want to check mounting holes. Box itself doesn't matter, but buttons, LEDs, Displays should match together. So you can print specific sketch and make sure if any adjustments are needed. I mean this could be interesing topic for your channel which often googled on internet. And if you going to do such video, then small tip. KiCAD allows to export PCB as a step file, which you can import to FeeCAD. Very handy feature.

[@Adventuresincreation]

@@goodwill7643 Good point, that probably works well.

[@marcianodejupiter]

Really good! I hope you keep doing the others assembly tools too! 👍

[@Adventuresincreation]

Thanks, I am working on the next topic.

[@rodneysmith1750]

This was a fun video today. At first, I was not interested in this particular area so I skipped the video for a bit, but I got curious and watched. You did a great job of showing and describing the process which I appreciate. I still don't know how I would use this feature, but now I have an understanding of what it does. My favorite part would be the exploded view and bill of materials, they are a pain to create manually.

[@Adventuresincreation]

I use it for woodworking projects. It's a great feature.

[@TomLeg]

I was about to mention that as well, good I checked for previous reports

[@tomthompson7400]

Im loving this bracket ,,,

[@Adventuresincreation]

Ha ha 🤣

[@ajarivas72]

@@Adventuresincreation I am loving this KZbin channel.

[@philchadwick9470]

At 17:38, you can see that the fixed joint has pulled the pin and sunk the right hand side of your bracket into the base.

[@Adventuresincreation]

Yeah, I thought it would be good to demo how to fix that.

[@wadeduvall7026]

One thing I would say with this vid vs the others is I can't really follow along like the previous vids. Still super useful (and I could probably create those pieces if I was interested enough) but figured I'd mention I liked being able to follow along even if it made the videos a bit longer.

[@Adventuresincreation]

This video is almost an hour long, I tried to keep it moving along or no one would watch it.

[@elokjerside8680]

Great video----What about weight and materiale of each part in the BOM?

[@Adventuresincreation]

I think they would be manual adds.

[@0LoneTech]

You can assign materials with the Material command, allowing Python to access e.g: weight = FreeCAD.Units.Quantity(obj.Shape.Volume, FreeCAD.Units.Volume) * FreeCAD.Units.parseQuantity(obj.ShapeMaterial.Properties['Density']) This could be used in a macro to fill in a weight column. I don't think Assembly CreateBom has a feature to describe new columns, though. I also think expressions (like in spreadsheet) can't do indirect object lookups via names in other fields. Material seems more meant for the FEM system, but we can improve it.

[@Adventuresincreation]

@@0LoneTech Thanks for the tip, I will give that a try and see if I can get it to show up in the BOM. - I'll let you know.

[@Adventuresincreation]

@@0LoneTech I think you are right, I could not access these attributes from the spreadsheet or the bom directly. It would have to be a separate macro that populates the spreadsheet. It's definitely food for thought.

[@Adventuresincreation]

@@0LoneTech OK, a little further investigation and I could access Area and Volume directly in the BOM but the density proved more tricky. The method __getitem__ does not appear to be accessible in the BOM directly so I had to use the python console (or a Macro) to read the item from the ShapeMaterial.properties dictionary for density. I could populate a spreadsheet cell with the entire dictionary but could not index one item using FacePlate.ShapeMaterial.Properties.__getitem__('Density') - There is definitely a lot of potential there.

[@bmndjd]

Excellent tutorial, thank you. Maybe I would figure it out by experimenting, but let’s say your top plate has some clearance built in so it slides without binding. You wouldn’t assemble it as you did with the two edges touching. If, for example, you wanted to assemble a dovetail joint that has a bit of clearance on all surfaces. Is there a way to center out the male part in the female space?

[@Adventuresincreation]

There is a distance joint that you could use. Especially if you are looking to confirm fit and clearance.

[@davidch3085]

Could Freecad 1.0 assembly workbench be used to update an older Freecad A2+ workbench assembly?

[@Adventuresincreation]

I don't think that would work but, great practice to recreate it.

[@brankelly1921]

Thanks so much for this video, liked and subbed. Just a question, is there a replace/substitute face command like in solidworks? Can’t seem to find it anywhere. I mean if I create a complex surface and want to replace a solid’s face with that. Much appreciated,cheers !

[@Adventuresincreation]

I do not think there is a command for that.

[@TheREALDocRabbit]

Did you try affixing the brackets using a revolute on the first hole and a fixed on the second hole. This seems logically that it would be the proper way to assemble those two parts.

[@Adventuresincreation]

I did but it didn't work the way I would have expected. It's definitely something to play with.

[@guillaumevincent716]

Instead of rotating by 90 deg when you did the firts joint, could you have made a second fix joint to mate second hole. Is there a function that makes co axial type of mate ? I think the big L shaped legs could have been made with a coincident mate and two coaxial mate ( one for each hole). I will try to see if assembly workbench has a coaxial function.

[@Adventuresincreation]

There are lots of different joints. I thought, like you a second fixed joint would align it but it didn't. There is a coaxial joint and a distance joint. I tried to demo both. I would have just used fixed joints for all of them in practice.

[@guillaumevincent716]

@@Adventuresincreation i belive its preferable to use two coaxial joint because if it doesnt work it means that the connexion is impossible therefore the distance between the holes on one of the part mated is wrong (not the same).mating one ole and turning 90 deg will always work even if there is a mistake in the design.

[@Adventuresincreation]

@@guillaumevincent716 I understand your point but the joints don't always work that way.

[@guillaumevincent716]

@@Adventuresincreation Maybe you should try the a2plus workbench, it has all the types of mates that you may need including stable co axial type of mate.

[@Adventuresincreation]

@@guillaumevincent716 I have tried and made the video LOL. - I am trying to work with 1.0 and the included assembly workbench as that is the where the developement effort is being focused.

[@to.l.2469]

What I noticed is that the videos on the playlist are not in the usual order, but in reverse. (The newest is currently at the top. Normally the "oldest," (the "introductory video" for the playlist), is at the top and the newest at the bottom)

[@Adventuresincreation]

Someone else said that too however, I can't change that. I checked and it showed they should be in the playlist in the order they were added. I am sure it's something to do with KZbin.

[@to.l.2469]

@@Adventuresincreation I don't know if there is a difference with public playlists. In my private playlist I can change the order like this: - Click on the playlist under the "Playlists" tab - Click on the playlist caption to switch to the detailed view of the playlist.. - Set an order using "Sort". With "Manual" you can change the position of the titles using drag & drop, for example. ( the actual names of the buttons may vary in English, because I used the direct translation from German)

[@Adventuresincreation]

@@to.l.2469 It's a bit different in the KZbin studio but I found a but that let me reverse the order, take a look and see if it changed for you.

[@to.l.2469]

@@Adventuresincreation Yes, it worked perfectly. Thank you!

[@Adventuresincreation]

@@to.l.2469 Glad it worked for you.

[@maks223]

I wonder if there is a way to create new part during assembly (for example to adjust new part for existing one). In Autodesk Inventor is the best I know - you create new part and you can cast geometry from other parts to new part sketches. Then design process is much easier, at least for me.

[@Adventuresincreation]

Yes, it's quite easy to do. You can literally switch the referenced part. I almost showed that but the video was too long.

[@tomhoekstra1088]

Your video is (again) Top ; however using this new wb does raise questions: 1) I needed to copy my (3) bodies from different files into a new tree first; one of the bodies contains a speadsheet w sizes. Assembly does not recognize this body. iow I cant get it into the assemby 2) how and where can you toggle the grounded item and switch to another body to be grounded? 3) continued with (2) items, applying the rotation joint, worked fine! but afterwords trying to swop the grounded item to the other item made Freecad block or crash; had to restart FC.

[@Adventuresincreation]

As long as the body is in a valid freecad file you should be able to add it to the assembly, remember one of the options is file... So you can from other files, no need to move bodies. The change locked body is in the menu. A tip here is to consider which item is least likely to move in your assembly before you add items then add the fixed item first. Worst case delete that assembly and have fun building a new one. I have found it is possible to crash freecad and it will try to recover your file. Another tip always save before doing any procedure that is going to make a major change. You can use save as or save copy to keep additional copies with your progress so far.

[@guillaumevincent716]

When it says «do you want to ground the first part automatically» , does freecad position the part at the origin ?

[@Adventuresincreation]

It makes it imovrable where it is.

[@konradrosenkranz6814]

Hello, the middle piece is incorrectly placed.

[@Adventuresincreation]

Not sure what you mean?