The NEW Ondsel FreeCAD Assembly Workbench in FreeCAD : Is it a game changer?
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 17 ก.พ. 2024
- At the end of December 2023, I experimented with Ondsel's new Assembly workbench for FreeCAD. However, it was still in early development, and my experience felt premature to share without sounding overly critical. Fast forward to just under two months later, and I decided to give it another try with the latest version of Ondsel FreeCAD ES - and what a difference it made!
Despite still being in its early stages, the Assembly workbench has made significant strides. With its fast solver and user-friendly constraints, the new FreeCAD Assembly workbench is showing great promise. In this video, I dive into assembling a model and share my firsthand experience with the workbench.
It's worth noting that I haven't consulted any documentation or received tutoring on using this workbench. This marks only my second time using it, and I'm impressed by the progress that has been made. Additionally, I compare it against the A2 plus workbench for added context. - แนวปฏิบัติและการใช้ชีวิต
Thanks for the video, it's good to see all the small UI traps for a new user. So I'll fix those asap :)
Ah Pierre :) You have done an amazing job!!! Props go out to you!! I thought you had a freeCAD dev channel but it looks like it's someone else?
@@MangoJellySolutions I do have the freecad dev diary channel. This one is my personal channel
I am currently practicing all your videos for freecad for beginners in Ondsel, kudos for you brother 💐💐
I think its a good concept, so downloaded it, then had to download 7 zip.. and boom.. how to install it 😂
I had a search, no info. Is it a pre register thing or something.
@@TheScotsalan you don't need to install the software, just 7zip the file, find the bin folder and find the file called freecad (Type is 'Application'). This is the executable that will run the software. It is a good idea to right click on this file and send it to desktop as shortcut. This software is updated fairly frequently so when a new version is available you can just delete the old version without having to uninstall.
@@TheScotsalan expand the zip folder, find the Ondsel exe, hit it and make a shortcut to it.
Expand the zip, find exe, hit it, also make a shortcut to it. Viola.
@@j6077xxd Yup. Done that. Found the exe file in the bin directory, and I get an error. Saw something about it being some types of motherboard that has an issue. Or maybe its cos I still use win 7 😂. No prob tho, I can wait 👍
THe TeachingTech channel just did a video on Ondsel today. He could learn a lot from your videos! Thanks for the content you produce, it is very valuable to the community.
Thank you I will take a look. Glad you enjoyed the video.
I tried Assembly 3, Assembly 4, A2plus and the new Ondsel Assembly this is the only area where I'm very disappointed with Freecad. I have worked 25 years with NX some years with Catia and looked into SolidEdge their big advantage in this area is that you can really design in the assembly context and not just assemble parts thet are already modeled. To me all these assembly workbenches are work arounds but nothing that can't hold up to the big guys. The concepts all Freecad benches are using are not sufficient, these are not just showing the real parts in the context but just some imported geometry. A sufficent assembly architecture must be able to handle large scale assemblies with thousands of parts which none of them will do, so it is a fail by design. The first step should be to think of an architecture that will be sufficient with large assemblies, and easy to design in context.
Sorry for my rant but I have seen the light and loved to see this in Freecad as well and thank you for the great tutorial vids.
I used solidedge in the late '90s and the the assembly process was much easier than this. Even solid edge then struggled with large assemblies, though.
No don't worry about the rant, your not the only one. Assemblies, as you can see from the many workbenches that have been made, all have advantages and disadvantages over the others and there is nothing solid and offered as default. And there is even a number of which I haven't even covered yet! A viable assembly solution will allow for more adoption of this software. I hope that this flavour improves over time and finally become that solution. I am glad that a team has come forth and have done some research first to see what solutions are out there and how they can offer something that could be better. Time will tell but it's been a long time waiting. Glad you enjoyed the video and thank you for adding your views. The Developers read these comments as well so views are heard.
@MangoJellySolutions Thank you for your answer let us hope the developer will develop a good solution.
This looks very good. And it's much faster. Although I find the way of joining things a bit puzzling. Although some experience with A4 might help.
For a static assembly, I still think A2+ works best at this moment.
Coming from ONSHAPE this is extremely similar and familiar. I very much like.
39:00 you cant use a fasten mate on 2 surface that cant touch each other. due to other mates up the tree preventing.
awesome video.
The main problem I'm having right now, and it may be me not knowing the best practice, is trying the add assemblies into assemblies, as well as constraining them together. The imported assembly doesn't show a coordinate when selecting anything and immediately crashes the appimage the moments I select the object I wish the constrain it to (happens vice versa as well).
Also, I notice that, while closing the file from the tab, it immediately opens a tab for the linked part from other files.
Its very good work and I can't wait to see it upstreamed to the main branch. That said, there is still a lot to be desired with the solver and I hope they continue to improve it. FreeCAD sorely needs a decent assembly solution out of the box.
I like the way you are making clear which version of FreeCAD you are using 😜👍
I am also pleased that you are having a look at Ondsel assy WB
do inserted links retain connection to originals?
if you change path will it break the link?
thank you
I don't get the joke. So this is no longer FreeCAD but a wrapper made by Ondsel, right ? I can't find it in a Linux distribution and on the website there is a 'pricing' option, so I guess FreeCAD is no longer open source. Am I wrong ?
@@trufetes
yes you are wrong 👍
Thanks for taking the time to do this.
On the failure of your last joint I assume the slider joint is also a revolute joint so it should be capable of taking care of alignments where you need a revolute joint but there is a gap between the parts.
A Mango Jelly hair pulling video 😂😂😂.
If I made Freecad vids, this is what they would be like. 😂
thanks for the video, what shortcut to move part when it already assambly
So that was just dragging the part in the assembly so no short cut needed. 😊
Is there such thing as a construction geometry part in a2plus WB?
Been using it and had assembled many parts and realized I had to change my pain parts dimensions, I did so and it threw everything out of whack because the part changed. I was thinking if I had a fake box I could reference everything off of that would be better.
With the other assembly workbench like a2 plus I have used a skeleton sketch before to hang the parts off of similar to what you have done. I haven't tried that with Ondsel yet. I wonder if it will work.
12:35 & 15:03. The random locking of parts is driving me crazy. I have two parts saved in two different files and when I originally created them and created a new assembly, they could move around just fine, but then Ondsel crashed. Now if I try to create a new assembly and import my parts, they are locked in place, after I click "Ok", with seemingly no way to freely move them around again.
Last joint didn't work because of the gap and the prrvious joint that locked the opposite face.
It'd be better to insert the pins/screws and have joints related to them. In theory, two pins into the handle, allowing a revolve joint, will lock the handle.
It looks like you don't have to position and rotate before joint definition as the solver will work it out anyway.
I am very curious about your thoughts on Ondsel, their business plan, what that could mean for freecad, and your level of trust in their interactions with the freecad community. Are they a benefit to freecad, or are they just looking to make a quick buck off of other peoples work in open source?
Did you listen to the podcast with one of the founders on the Opulo podcast? It's quite interesting
@rvowles99 first I've heard of it. I'll have to check it out.
The UI has come a LONG way from version 0.19 in my distro's repo. I may have to manually install the developer build...
how can i setup that?
Only mating holes. How do you mate a surface then if there are no holes?
You can use the edges and faces of the surface.
Hiya, your videos are great and a huge help in getting me prepped for using Freecad for 3d printing (your voice remindes me a bit of Moss from IT folk ha ha) I feel that the world needs to move on from the phrase "game changer'.
It won't install on Freecad ver 22. I get the Black window of nothing. No joy for now waiting on a working version. Read other comments below.
Problem with the last joint was most likely caused by manually rotating the handle. If you've selected the second hole which was aligned with the hole on the end of the handle It could've worked fine.
Not really. Mango should use cylindrical joint here, since these parts can rotate relatively to each other.
@@kwahoo5746Agree. I was excited when I saw this thumbnail cos toggles are exactly what I spent near 20 years doing on solidworks.
downloaded ondsel unziped it went to the folder and opened the bin file and went to ondsel app opened that by clicking on the app. when it opened all i had was a black screen, the program is there because i can find the edit and prefrences but when i click on light in display prefferences it goes black,,, cant use somthing you cant see.....
Do you have an older integrated Intel GPU by any chance? People who do tend to have similar issues with both Ondsel ES and FC 0.22dev
Could be, have it installed on my laptop. Haven't had much time with it yet.
@@williamhenry8496 The 0.22dev version of FreeCAD has the same issue, it has been tracked down to Qt WebEngine that is used by the Start workbench. There are basically two possibilities here: as a quick fix, start building with a different version of Qt that doesn't have the issue; as a long-term fix, rewrite the Start workbench to stop using Qt WebEngine. In other words, it's on the radar, but I can't say how soon it will be fixed.
@@AlexandreProkoudineThanks I was all excited to try it then I got the Black window of doom. The OP should pin. It dont work yet on 22.
Shouldn't the parts be inside the assembly? I find it confusing when the parts are at the same level.
how to open ondsel.... i installed it already but i can´t open it
Same here. I downloaded it, and the 7 zip thing.. I cant install it, nor can I find info on how to.I added the Ondsel lens desktop in Freecad.. nowt.
You just have to extract the content out of the zip file to where you want it to be and launch the ondsel/freecad.exe in the bin folder
@@steilkurbler4973 Extracted ok. Bin Folder.. ta. 👍
@@steilkurbler4973 Do you have to uninstall the freecad first then install the ondsel freecad version? I just get a black window with freecad installed but freecad not open .
I'll keep an optimistic eye on Ondsel while continuing to only use FreeCAD for now. I'm not keen on for profit interests using FOSS "cores" to make a product. Sounds more like a parasitic relationship than a symbiotic relationship if you ask me. I mean, this has happened before, Android -> Linux. Microsoft -> Github. Etc. etc.
The Ondsel people are all core contributors and long-standing members of the actual FreeCAD Project. If anything I see this as being an attempt to make contributing to FreeCAD a viable fill-time pursuit by them. I could see how not knowing that would appear to others though.
No mention of Blender in your examples?
@@verygoodbrother Not disagreeing, but where specifically is the parallel? If they have that kind of relationship, then add them to the list, sure.
@@JustAnotherAlchemist Blender, open source project, was backed by VC money which propelled it to what it is today.
The same is starting to happen with Freecad. Volunteers becoming paid staff will speed up development. The main contributor to Freecad is also behind Ondsel.
Majority of users love open source projects but never contribute to the project or support the contributors. These same users are usually the loudest in complaining of lack of features.
@@verygoodbrother I've contributed source to Blender...
This looks more like game over than game changer
In a good way, hopefully? :)
running windows 10
I realise you're doing this live so mistakes may be made, but you should at least rehearse it until you understand what you're doing. It would have been better if the parts you assembled were actually capable of being constructed into a real assembly - the handle being narrower than the v-link was just bad design.
If you select a face and perform an operation on it, why are you surprised when the operation is applied to the face, and not the object? Similarly, why are you surprised that assembly operations require the assembly to be selected?
You joined the edge of one hole on the v-link to the edge of the wrong hole on the rod, which is why you had to mess around offsetting it to line it up.
When joining the handle to the joint plate, you joined one hole to another, but then rotated the handle to try to line up the other holes. You should have created a second joint between the other two holes, and ensured they were properly aligned.
You couldn't add the second joint plate because the handle is narrower than the v-link, and you can't have links on different planes when the part is flat. It wouldn't have worked if you had physical parts to assemble either, so it's not the software's fault. The handle should be thicker than the v-link, so you can create fixed joints to the handle. Then you'd need a pin through the joint plates and the v-link, and add a revolve joint between the pin and the v-link.
None of your revolving joints were correct, even though they produced the motion you were after. A revolving joint is for a part with a hole rotating about a pin/axle, which you failed to include. That is, the v-link is not joined to the rod, it's joined to the pin, which in turn is joined to the rod. It might seem like pedantry, but the one of the main points of assemblies is to verify your design. Doing it your way would lead you to believe the design worked, but if you created a BOM for the assembly, it would be missing the required pins. If you were to market this as a kit, any customers would not be impressed to have essential parts missing.
I suspect you're not an engineer, but you should at least try to think like an engineer in order to use CAD/CAM effectively.
Halfway through the video, I thought you were being way too harsh. Now I just think you're being a little harsh.
There were a lot of silly mistakes in this video, but there are also a lot of silly design choices in the FreeCAD UI. I'm sure there are programming reasons for why things are built the way they are, but from a user experience, there is a lot of very unintuitive stuff in the software. I'm also aware that it is free software, so I'm not complaining too much. I appreciate all the work the devs have done to get FreeCAD to where it is today. If I can actually bring this project I'm working on to completion, I'll definitely be paying for Ondsel.
@@ClayShoaf In hindsight, I probably was a little harsh, but no harsher than the criticisms in the video, which annoyed me. As a software developer with a keen interest in UX, I categorise user errors as those caused by the UI design, and those caused by the user. I wouldn't hold up FreeCAD as a paragon of virtue, but most of the errors in the video were of the latter kind, yet the software was being blamed.
The Blender3D UI has been criticised harshly over the years, but if you take the time to learn it, it's streets ahead of most of the competition in terms of workflow. I guess this has made me sensitive to unjust criticism, especially when it's based on "it doesn't work like other software I've used", simply not taking the time to learn the software. 3D design software is, by its nature, complex, and there is no correct way to do it.
I have no iron in this fire. After being stung by AutoDesk's changing terms for Fusion, I was hoping for a quality appraisal of Ondsel, which looks promising. Instead, the tone of the video was unjustly negative, blaming the interface for user errors.
i dunno bout this ... smells fishy ...
What do you mean ?
Yeah not sure what’s happening here. Is this a fork of freecad or what