FreeCAD Assembly4 and animation the easy way
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 1 พ.ค. 2024
- In this video we will create an assembly from parts designed in Part Design. I wanted to simulate the assembly as if I had created the parts separately then decided I wanted to create an assembly from them. We show you how to "import" the parts from separate files and use them within the assembly. We also cover the creation of local coordinate systems (LCS) to position everything. Finally we show the simple method of animating the parts within the assembly using variables.
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Songs:
Raw Space by Spazz Cardigan (intro)
00:00 Introduction
00:50 Subscriber News
01:30 Creating the parts in Part Design
04:32 Creating the master sketch
07:26 Creating LCS
11:16 Creating the main body
16:47 Creating the Assembly File
20:08 Importing the bodies into the assembly
22:50 Linking the parts into the assembly model
27:50 Animating the assembly
35:00 Final Thoughts - แนวปฏิบัติและการใช้ชีวิต
![ถ้าเธอไม่รักทำไมไม่บอกฉัน - PAPER [ Musicvideo ]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/pfeBhDda7m4/mqdefault.jpg)
Strange how most other FreeCAD demos take a simple part and make it seem really complicad.
You’ve taken a pretty complicated assembly and made it simple.
Well done mate, cheers for that.
You are welcome, thanks for the feedback ☺️
I've been watching this series of videos. You're making difference. It helps a complete noob to 3d cad drawing to watch someone use the software's tools in simple examples. Thanks for putting in the time for us.
You are welcome John, glad to hear it, thanks for taking the time to give me feedback
This is exactly what I needed! Thank you for explaining this so easily.
You are welcome
Loving your tutorials. Creating designs is becoming easier and easier. Keep it up.
Thank you
This is a very clear and easy to understand tutorial - THANK YOU
Glad it was helpful!
Glad Ifound your channel this is the first assembly tutorial I have watched. I am amazed at how much freecad offers and for free.
Thanks, it is a really powerful tool for designers.
I love your tutorials, just what you need to get it done. Please continue with these tutorials :).
Thanks, will do!
This is a perfect tutorial. Very good explanation and a good example you chose. Thank you!!!
Thanks for the feedback
Thank you for the clear explanation. I appreciate the pace of the lesson and the clearly spoken voice. I've subscribed by now. I'm looking forward to new material.
Thanks for the feedback, and subscribing. I am working hard to publish new material every week.
The best assembly4 tutorial that Ive seen - Thanks
Thanks!
Calm voice speaking at the perfect speed and axplaining what you are doing. So miny Tubers are so fast and then only playing some music with no explanation. Still love that pointer.
Thanks, glad the pointer works for you.
I just installed Assemly 4 yesterday and today I find your video on it. Thanks for another great video
You are welcome, glad it was timely for you. I am working on doing a similar animation in blender for those parts.
@@Adventuresincreation, great, looking forward to that. I downloaded and installed Blender today after watching your "Rendering FreeCAD models in Blender - The Easy Way". I did install it about a year ago but got rid of it because it looked very complicated. You make it easy to learn so gonna give it another try. Keep them coming mate, I love your videos and the way you take your time to explain things unlike a lot of other TH-camrs who sound like they are in a speak fast competition! LOL
@@TankTurk I will show how easy it is to animate the same assembly in blender. It is a complicated piece of software but I don't touch most of it just the bits I need. I use it to edit all my videos.
Thank you for making a complicated topic relatively easy to understand.
You are welcome
Excellent tutorial, you have made Assembly 4 animation and LCS's so much clearer to me than many other tutorials I have also viewed in TH-cam. Thank you.
Glad it helped!
Very nice coverage of Assembly 4. Thank you!
You are welcome
Well this is a great tutorial on how to create an assembly. You covered many items and equally importantly you pointed out several pitfalls to a new learner. The animation was well done. Great articulation of voice and mouse selections. Really like the mouse beacon that shows the location.......so many videos could use one. Thank you for sharing you fantastic knowledge of this rather complex topic!
Thanks for the feedback
Great Job! Easy to follow Assembly 4 Video.
Thanks I am glad it was easy to follow
done. It works after 1 hour practice. Thank you so much
Excellent, well done.
Really this tutorial helped me a lot to know the technics of assembly and animation. Thanks.
Thanks for the feedback
Great Videos! your an Excellent instructor, very practical, educational and you are able to keep me watching. Thank You.
Much Appreciated,
Steve Marshall,
That's good to hear, thanks for watching. I am glad the videos are helping.
Your videos are perfect for ramping folks with little CAD experience to doing useful work in FreeCAD. I'm a long term technical CAD user (Catia, NX, ...) and have found I can create very good geometry in FreeCAD, including complex surfaces. As I've helped a few others start using FreeCAD I've struggled with the right series to recommend. Yours series is excellent for the beginner and on a topical bases for experienced users transitioning from other sw. Appreciate the time and effort you put into these.
Thanks, I appreciate the feedback ☺️
Great Video! I have to say that for a beginner (me), it was difficult. But in the end, it works! I need to go back and do this several more times to cement the concepts. Thanks!
Assembly is not intuitive in FreeCAD at the moment. I am hoping it will improve and become far more user friendly but for now, it works and you can get there if you just follow the process.
I know everyone has probably already covered this, but I wanted to take a moment to say thank you for sharing your knowledge with me and others. My boss just handed me his own personal project to see if I could model and analyze it, and this helped me knock the challenge right out of the park. Thank you so much.
That is great to hear Lucas. Well done!
20+ years ago I used Auto cad 10, 11, and then 14. I just found FreeCad about a month ago. Thanks to FreeCad and tutorials like yours I am better now than I was then. I have not used a cad program for 15 years and only use it now as a memory exercise. I agree completely with pieter cloete,s comment. Looking forward to more tutorials from you.
Thanks James, a new one coming tomorrow. I too used Autocad a long time ago 😉
Excelente, gran video.
Gracias por enseñar Freecad.
Saludos desde Chile.
Thanks, I am happy that you enjoyed it.
First video after dozens similar which helps me to understand
I am happy that it helped
Great for helping to understand the possibilities with Assembly 4 - Thanks very much.
It's a good start to an assembly workbench
Thank you for great content and congrats on your now 10.5K subs. I stumble upon your channel when I was looking for FreeCAD instructional videos. I'm a jack of all trades DIYer and know how to sketch on paper but I needed to learn a CAD program to help my son, a freshmen mech eng student so we can tinker around with a 3D printer I bought him for Christmas. So far, I was able to design and print an AC vent knob that was broken in my car thanks to your videos and have many other projects FreeCAD will be super useful. Cheers from sunny Puerto Rico.
Thanks Fred, you and your son will have great fun together.
Amazing video. I have been looking for something like this for a very long time. Thank you
Glad it was helpful!
Thank you once again for a brilliant video.
Thanks Patrick
Another one of our great videos, keep 'em coming!
Thanks! Will do!
Oops, my fat fingers typed "OUR" and should most certainly have been "YOURS"...
Excellent approach for conveying learning, appreciate very much your generosity sharing. Thanks so much
Glad it was helpful!
Very clear and concise tutorial. I would live to see a tutorial on how to import Freecad assemblies into Blender and animate them! That's exactly the workflow I've been looking for...
Keep looking at the videos there is one that shows that work flow. Look in the blender playlist
Looking forward to the blender video!
I think that would be fun
Excellent Video ! Easy watchable. Thanks !
Glad you enjoyed it!
Brilliant video explaining assembly 4; so thanks for that, as a newbe I was struggling with it, so this was exceptionally well timed for me! I'd also like to say that I'd certainly be interested in a video showing how to export parts to blender and use physics as I think that would be really interesting. Thanks again for making this and keep them coming!
I am glad you liked it. - I will take a look at the Blender one too. I have done some simulations there but it will take me a little while to put that together.
Excellent presentation. It contains the basics of simple part design, incorporates the necessary techniques to create an assembly from parts, and throws in a little extra with the animation. Exactly what I was looking for, the big picture on how to do it without getting side tracked into minutia that, though nice, are not relevant to the learning exercise. Thank you.
Glad it was helpful!
Great video! I just started learning CAD and your channel has really helped.
Glad to hear that. I hope you will keep watching.
Great intro to assembly in freecad
Thanks!
Discovered your channel by chance after looking at some freecad tutorials. Yours are splendid. Clear speech, speed right and interesting.
Glad to hear it.
@@Adventuresincreation I am now using sketcher much more and parameter driven designs where appropriate; Many thanks.
@@alanfryd that's great to hear.
Nicely done video. The narration and pace was very good and the pointer was perfect
Thanks for the feedback
Thank you very much. Your video helped me a lot!
I am glad to hear that.
FreeCAD初心者です。
アッセンブリのアニメーション化で困っていました。
部品の組み合わせだけではなく、移動したファイルの処理なども説明されていて、すごく分かり安かったです。
初めは上手くいかず、何度も冒頭から作業を進めましたが、今ではこのVTRを見ずに作業することができるようになりました。
ありがとうございました。
どういたしまして
Doing a good Job, I subscribed. Best Tutorials so far. Easy to understand, seems to be doing a good job. Like it.
Thanks for the sub! I appreciate it.
Nice tutorial, thanks. I would love to see what you mentioned at the end - exporting from FreeCAD into Blender and animating there.
You are in luck 🤞 check out my channel, I created a video that shows exactly how to do that. Here's the link th-cam.com/video/V03lxoE2gzg/w-d-xo.html
Very well organized and presented. Here's a hint to get normal to the sketch.
Use the number keys 1 through 6 to display normal to any of the 6 view perspectives
and the zero key does an iso projection. Great teaching style and excellent content, thanks.
Thanks Dan.
Nice explaination! Thank you
Glad it was helpful!
Great video, keep them coming, thanks.
Thanks, will do!
Great. Thanks. For the chamfers use transparency mode to select all the edges without moving the part.
You are welcome, thanks for the tip
Excellent tutorial!
Thanks!
Great tutorial, thanks!
Thanks. You are welcome!
Really great video - I am self teaching Freecad (the courses only do AutoCad) and have just reached the stage of learning the use and management of Local Co-ordinate systems. I intend to design a submarine system which will use Freecad to calculate variable buoyancy as I flood and empty tanks . I will keep going!
Brilliant!
Another excellent video thank you. I now have an animated video of a freecad designed jar with a screw lid opening and closing. I had no idea this was possible. Thanks :)
That is so cool 😎
@@Adventuresincreation In fact... having considered the logical operators in the function editor for Freecad expressions we can make some interesting moves where the lid turns a half turn and then lifts up slowly out of the way, i.e: my expression is:
"Variables.position > 40 ? (Variables.position - 40) / 3 : 0"
very good instruction clear and concise
Thanks for the feedback
Assembly4 was baffling me particularly around the Placement and Attachment properties, but I think now (and maybe with a little practice!) I can make some progress. Thanks!
Excellent
wonderful video. thank you.
You are welcome 😉
Thanks, that was great!
You're welcome!
Good tutorial, simple and clear. One thing is that for the master sketch, I think you can just have it as a sketch in the model part. It doesn't have to be in its own body and assembled into the model, unless maybe you want to place it with an LCS also.
Thanks for the feedback. To be honest I think there are many ways to reach the same end. I just wanted to show how I get there.
For this simple assembly you could but I like this approach as it looks like you can use this to combine an assembly with many more parts which might not connect to each other.
I'm a recent subscriber, but I've practically watched all the videos on your channel, an activity that made me sure: if you offer us Blender tutorials with the same mastery with which you've been presenting us with FreeCad videos, no doubt the volume of Blender users in the world will increase considerably.
Thanks for the feedback, I really appreciate it. I am not a blender expert but I love to create animations with it.
Yes Really this is very nicely presented. No ugly music and fast talking bla bla. I learned lot and I just started using FreeCAD because
Fusion is very restricted. Thanks for the nice works.
You are welcome.
That was great, thanks.
Glad you liked it.
Very clear, thanks 👍✌🥃
Appreciate it.
Great tutorial.
Thanks for the feedback
Really helpful, Thanks
Glad to hear.
thank you !
You are welcome
thanks a lot
You are welcome
I just watched the entire video and boy, do I understand everything, hell no, but it did put my feet into the assembly waters. Thank you so much for the way you laid everything down for idiots like myself.
Thanks for the feedback 😉
Great video! I learned a lot. My gears are rotating...😀
Excellent!
Nice explaning bro keep it up
Thanks!
Thankyou very very much
You are welcome
Great video
Glad you enjoyed it
You did it in a difficult way. I can see you can create parts right away in the main assembly. Just got to move them into parts folder later. Thanks for tutorial!
Yes, you can organize the models for use.
A new subscriber 👍🏻
Thanks for subscribing!
That's a very well made video and a good introduction to Assembly 4. Congratulations.
I'm not sure however why you wouldn't use the link feature to add the parts to your assembly. The link feature is just fantastic. It allows for a file structure such as in SolidWorks where parts are in .sldprt files and assemblies in .sldasm files. The parts can be shared between different assemblies and they can still be opened individually if you need to edit them.
I totally agree that the link feature is great however, I didn't want to make the video any more complicated that it was. I think a lot of people struggle with getting started on Assembly4 (I know I did) so I wanted to keep it simple. - I did mention that in the video as I knew some people would use the link feature in creating assemblies. - I may do a follow up video using the link and step imports (I don't have access to solidworks so nothing from there).
Ian. just got aaround to watching this, and another truly excellent and clearly articulated tutorial. I was just about to ask you for something along these exact same lines - e.g. animating assemblies - and lo and behold, you have already done just that. Personally, I am also trying to get my head around Blender at the same time as Freecad, and would appreciate a video showing the physics in animations such as you suggest. Another great one mate. :)
Thanks Noel. I am glad you enjoyed it.
Отличное видео! Все понятно.
Спасибо!
Лайк + подписка.
Thanks for subscribing, I am glad you liked the video
Спасибо за подписку, рад, что вам понравилось видео
Great video. Thank you for sharing.
And ... I did subscribe :)
Thanks for the feedback and the subscription
Thank you for your educational video. You explained it very well. I am now trying to use it for my requirement. I'm curious whether it will succeed.
I also like your other videos, from which I can also learn a lot.
You are welcome
Hello A.i.C. I did it! But I had to try for a long time.
My project consists of two main components, one of which should move in the y axis. My problem. The two main components consist of many bodies and smaller components in the form of compounds or simple copies. When assigning "Datum Objects LCS ́s" I could only select one body at a time.
So I created a compound of the two main components in "Parts" and a "simple copy" of it, which I then integrated into the "Model". Then I could enter "variables" and realize the movement on the y axis.
However, the conversion via compound and simple copy has the disadvantage, that all selected colors for the areas are lost. By right-clicking on the component, (under Transform) says "Override colors" - so that new colors can be assigned. But it takes a lot of time. ;-(
Maby you know a better way to work with assemblies that consist of many bodys? But you helpes me well. Thank You ;-)
Thanks
You are welcome!
you r good i liked and subscribed
Thanks!
Thankyou
You are welcome 😉
Thank u for the beautiful explanation . What is the needed of the master sketch?
It's one way to achieve the result you want
New Sub
Thanks!
Oh good very good😍😍😍
Thank you 😋
I have been trying to learn the assembly 4 workbench off and on for months. Your video has enlightened me a bit but there is still some head scratching. I'll re watch this several times more and perhaps I'll learn more. I agree with your approach to leave the links out of it for the time being in an attempt to ease the newcomer into the process of assemblies. I understand the benefit of the links but doing it your way here would also allow someone to divorce the assembly file from the individual model files if that was desired. Ie if the individual model files were subsequently moved somewhere else in the computers file system I suspect the assembly would blow up as a result as the links became invalid .
This whole workbench is powerful but extremely difficult to learn. I was using assemblies in Fusion 360 in a matter of an hour. I do hope you continue to make videos that feature this aspect of Freecad as the wiki just didn't work for me trying to learn it.
Many thanks for your efforts on this- I've been patiently waiting for someone to put out a narrated video on it for months.
Cheers from Canada,
Lewis
Let me know if you need any more help. I think if you follow the video you will get there.
I agree ,compared to the other workbenches this one is overly complicated and confusing
@@ronson66 stick with it, once you get it, it's very powerful. Also, take a look my video on making the Desk Caddy, that has more assembly 4 in it.
This is great, but is there an easy way to do sequential animation (other than loads of conditionals in the expressions)? For example make each peg move one at a time.
It's a little bit laborious. I like to animate in blender you export your models into blender then you have lots of animation tools.
Great tutorial. Thank You ... just want to point small detail that it is hard to pause Your videos without rewinding first :), or I'm just too slow. :)
Glad you enjoyed it.
Great
Thanks!
This is my first foray into "Animation". I enjoyed your presentation and after a few failures could duplicate your design. My question... is there a way to independently move each rod to a height of my choosing ?? In this Video - it appears - only two positions are possible (plus) and (minus) in the same increments of motion, UP/DOWN as well as DISTANCE.
Thanks for any feedback
This is just a simple demo but yes you can separate and move the way that you want. You should also take a look at my video that animates using Blender. The tools in there are excellent 👌
Very helpful tutorial, and thanks a lot. I'm having trouble displaying multiple documents in a Combo View when opening documents like you demonstrated at 19:00. How do I need to set it up? Thanks again.
I am glad you are finding it helpful. To see multiple documents you just open a second and a third document from the file menu in FreeCAD.
I prefer using the "Insert a link to a Part" feature in order to keep the files separate. I had the Structure toolbar hidden, so I hadn't seen the "Create a link to the selected objects" button until you pointed it out in your video. So, I've never used that and am not sure how it behaves.
Using links keeps each part in its own file, so you can modify any of them and the assembly will automatically update (usually - sometimes you need to click Update Assembly). I find it easier because it lets me focus on one thing at a time in each file: one file for each part and another file for the assembly. Using this method, I haven't yet had a need for a separate master sketch.
What do you feel is more confusing about links?
Edit: I commented before reading the rest of the comments and just saw that it's already been discussed. The video was put together very well - thanks. Subscribed!
Thanks for the input. I agree that the Links are a good option.
Wow... this really needs to be searchable by the phrase "PropertyLink does not support external object"... Thanks!
The key info is at 20min and 22min in to this video. First: Drop your Model Bodies on to the file name of the Assembly4 document.
Second: Drag them in to Parts
Thanks!
I am a newbie to the FreeCad, I wonder about the reason you create "MasterSketch" while we can add LCSs directly to "mainBody". Thank for your Video.
It's just one technique. You can do whatever works for you.
If you hold Alt while dragging the bodies from the original files into the assembly file, it makes a duplicate
Excellent!
Nice demo.
Do you have any suggestions on an design/assembly tutorial showing something like the carousel with the
horses rotating and moving vertically during the rotation. I need to design a mechanism involving four symmetric pressure chambers on a carousel a "virtual horse/piston" that performs in a similar manner. The four horse will be driven by a central axle to which the pressure chambers will be parallel.
I do not know of any videos that show that kind of mechanism however, all the techniques you need are available
At the moment a disk shape with a central axle and four symmetric holes has been created along with a "master rod". The rod and the holes have lcs attached. They will be used to assemble something similar to your demo. Then they will go into a rotating assembly,if all goes well.
@@markwilliams8892 sounds like good progress, let me see it when you get it done.
Great Video! I will try this.
A few thoughts:
Adding LCS in every model seems a bit redundant to me? You could add them in the assembly file, and only there, as well, can't you? Also, if you don't link the models, how to maintain consistency to the assembly when a part is changed? You will have to do all the work of inserting the part again I guess.
Freecad is a great tool, but it is not always clear how the tools and workbenches are supposed to be used.
The lcs is used to align the part on import so it makes most sense to add it in each part.
Dear "Adventures in creation" thank you for great job!
I have a question:
I want to "drill" the hole thruogh the few parts within of my Assembly4. After that I want to add the bolt. It is very important to have hole in the originale file of "partdesign". How to do it right?
Many thanks.
Thanks for the feedback. You can go back to your original part and create the hole.
@@Adventuresincreation Yes. You told about classic way. But I think about packet editing of few parts.
It is a pity that Assembly4 doesn't have the such functionality.
Hi mate! Great tutorial! Not sure I’ve understood why you created both the main sketch and main body.. wasn’t the main body enough with the 3 LCSs in the 3 holes?
I am not sure which bit you are referring to?
Good video. It is simple to follow. I agree linking would be a better approach to keep parts library seperate from the assembly. The assembly methodology is a bit different than Solidwork. In Solidworks, the part LCS's are drawn automatically no need to add one to the assembly, and parts are assembled using base-assembly edges and surfaces to align parts. Looks like, in FreeCAD, LCS's are the only way to align parts. It is a bit slow. May be macros can come handy to reduce assembly steps. Is there a feature to grab the parts and slide along its access? Can parts be moved in assembly space before being locked to the base assembly? Still it is very versatile. Thanks for such a good work preparing the video.
Thanks for the feedback
Excellent sauce! Just a comment for comment's sake :-)
😋