Thank you so much, Sir. I was missing Assembly3 in the Addon Manager in the regular 0.19 Build, discovered this branch, failed to use Assy3 properly, googled for help and now you made my day
I am fan of linkstage brach for toponaming issue fix. And big fan of assembly 4 after watching this series . Ok now only need try assembly 4 on linkstage brach . Hoping no issues 🔥. Thank you for in depth videos . 🔥
I like this video! In addition to continuing on the small engine concept, it provides a framework I can use for future projects. In my opinion, Assembly3 is much better than Assembly4. It is more intuitive, and easier to align parts.
I personally prefer assembly 4 but I think assembly 3 is going to be the standard. I am glad it helps you to create your own projects, that was the hope and intent.
It's not very as intuitive as A2Plus. It's very simple but broken mostly. So there is no scope except for these chores in order to create constraint driven assembly in Assembly3 WB or Assembly4 WB. Because beginner may find the whole day where do I add or insert part directly without opening 10s of 100s of parts.
Thank you for your great videos! Sorry to disturb you, but I’ve been struggling with Assembly3 for a while, with little success, thanks to my poor knowledge (not because of your lesson!). My reason to use an assembly workbench is, of course, to set constraints but also - forgive me for my ignorance - to be able to copy parts, for I haven’t found an alternative way to do it. Being scared of the LCSs, I haven’t tried the Assembly 4 yet. I am using FC Link Branch 2022.01.11 (stable, W10/64). I would be very much honored if you could comment and/or address some of them here or in your future videos: 1) The problem that appeared in your video, which forced you to choose an alternate constraint method to join two parts, has been pretty common to me; it has been the rule, not the exception. I ended up just using almost just "Plane Alignment", as you did. 2) It is not clear for me how to fix a part and when one should use this constraint (or not). Furthermore, FreeCad seems not to show whether one part is fixed or not. 3) The use of the Elements and Constraint files seemed straightforward at first, but once these files become heavily populated (which comes fast even in small assemblies), it is almost impossible to deal with them. Editing becomes a nightmare. Not to mention that every time you alter one item, the Model windows sends you to a completely different place on the tree. 4) It would be much easy to deal with assemblies if Datum planes could be used as reference geometries. Can Assembly3 constraints be used with Datum Planes? I couldn’t find how to make it, no matter whether the Datum Planes were created inside the assembly or imported as Link references from parts drawing - in this latter case the Link itself always produced a different plane for me. 5) Is someone really using Assembly 3 (or 4) professionally, for medium to large assemblies? I hope I’m wrong, but I am almost giving up from trying. These issues are almost beaming me back to my old (and faster) 2D CAD. One video with a bunch of repeated parts and somewhat complex constraint geometries would be very much appreciated. 6) Could be version 2022.01.11 the reason for (some) of my issues? Thank you again for your amazing videos! Sorry for so many items.
I would like to better understand your use case. I think all of freecads assembly workbenches come with some difficulty and complexity. But if you can achieve what you are doing in a 2D system then I believe freecad could be a better solution.
@@Adventuresincreation Thank you for your reply! Sure, FreeCad can handle it better than 2D software; the problem is (my) learning curve, lol! Regarding my particular case, thanks for your curiosity! I don’t want to disturb you with a beginner’s full bag of doubts but, nosy as I am, I take the liberty to go a bit ahead, as follows. To simplify it, let’s imagine a series of parallel beams, say of rectangular section, standing between two opposing inner sides of a simple orthogonal box, say running along the x-axis. After constraining the beams, including making their ending sections coplanar with the corresponding planes inside the box, I had great difficulty editing the constraints after discovering that, apparently, I had failed to include one or more of the end sections. The same happened when I tried to modify the constraints. In fact, in my case, there were other beans connecting the first mentioned ones, both in the y and z-axis of the box, totaling 16 beans, which I don’t consider a huge number of parts. Things get pretty messy on the model tree when, for instance, I tried to bring a new element to a constraint rule. Probably - just guessing - some sort of grouping of parts should help post-editing. A lesson on how to organize and hints on how to deal with the model tree of an assembly will be welcomed! In addition to that, I tried to “box” the beams with datum planes instead of the internal faces of the “real” box with no success, therefore I ask if it is possible to do so, i.e., to use datum planes as references for constraining parts in Assembly3 Workbench. The idea here is to get the parts parametrically related to these datum planes. Thanks again for your attention!
Using official stock .20 freecad with assembly3, i notice your link step around 3;58 does not dump the linked part in assembly anymore. had to drag and drop to parts and it seemed to work.
I think I experienced this in my initial fumblings (.20) - the link was being created in the part just linked rather than in the assembly. But then I realized the part was in bold and the assembly wasn't, and double-clicking on the assembly caused the link to be created there. (which means, be careful not to double-click the part you want to link). hth.
Great video as always, once again I learned something. However... wouldn't the piston rod be attached in the center most part of the crank shaft, not the side, in a working engine? It would also need to be split with a bracket on the end so you could get it on there and bolt it down, or replace it. This has nothing to do with the FreeCAD process or assembling parts, but it just bugs me a little.
Thanks for the feedback. To be honest, this was based on just free ideas, I didn't use a reference and never really intended to do more than demo FreeCAD features. If I were designing a working engine, I would base it on a known reliable engine and model from there. (The crankshaft is way too small and yes the back of the con rod should have a couple of bolts in it and be sectioned from the top or you couldn't assemble it).
All the way through this series I was hoping you found a way to have the assembly parts moving... That's basically why I watched all of it. :-( Anyhow, I like your videos nonetheless. Cheers
I recently added Assembly 3 but according to your video at 3:50 when you go back to your assembly file (after opening the other two files) the opened files should also appear in that new file. This does not happen for me so I am wondering if there is something I am missing from all this set up?
@@anguscampbell1533 I was also just struggling to get this to work, but figured there must be an option not to switch the active view. And indeed if you go to Preferences > Genreal > Selection there is an option "Auto switch to the 3D view containing the selected item" which is what switches the active document as well. I unchecked it and now it works as in the video.
Thank you so much, Sir. I was missing Assembly3 in the Addon Manager in the regular 0.19 Build, discovered this branch, failed to use Assy3 properly, googled for help and now you made my day
You are welcome
I am fan of linkstage brach for toponaming issue fix.
And big fan of assembly 4 after watching this series .
Ok now only need try assembly 4 on linkstage brach . Hoping no issues 🔥.
Thank you for in depth videos . 🔥
You are welcome, good luck with Linkstage 3 and assembly 4
I like this video! In addition to continuing on the small engine concept, it provides a framework I can use for future projects. In my opinion, Assembly3 is much better than Assembly4. It is more intuitive, and easier to align parts.
I personally prefer assembly 4 but I think assembly 3 is going to be the standard. I am glad it helps you to create your own projects, that was the hope and intent.
My "Activate Windows" watermark was working overtime, having to show up on my screen and also makeup for the one you covered 😝
It's good to work it 🙌
I really like the mouse that shows what button your depressing.
Interface is not very intuitive. :)
Fair enough! The mouse button thing is a freeware device, the link is in my description.
I came here to say I hated the mouse cluck thing and big yellow dot...made the video unwatchable for me. I so wanted to watch it, too.
You´re a genious - - how long have you been learning and trying?
I have been using CAD for a long time.
It's not very as intuitive as A2Plus. It's very simple but broken mostly. So there is no scope except for these chores in order to create constraint driven assembly in Assembly3 WB or Assembly4 WB. Because beginner may find the whole day where do I add or insert part directly without opening 10s of 100s of parts.
I agree and the new assembly workbench is no more intuitive sadly.
Thank you for your great videos!
Sorry to disturb you, but I’ve been struggling with Assembly3 for a while, with little success, thanks to my poor knowledge (not because of your lesson!).
My reason to use an assembly workbench is, of course, to set constraints but also - forgive me for my ignorance - to be able to copy parts, for I haven’t found an alternative way to do it. Being scared of the LCSs, I haven’t tried the Assembly 4 yet. I am using FC Link Branch 2022.01.11 (stable, W10/64).
I would be very much honored if you could comment and/or address some of them here or in your future videos:
1) The problem that appeared in your video, which forced you to choose an alternate constraint method to join two parts, has been pretty common to me; it has been the rule, not the exception. I ended up just using almost just "Plane Alignment", as you did.
2) It is not clear for me how to fix a part and when one should use this constraint (or not). Furthermore, FreeCad seems not to show whether one part is fixed or not.
3) The use of the Elements and Constraint files seemed straightforward at first, but once these files become heavily populated (which comes fast even in small assemblies), it is almost impossible to deal with them. Editing becomes a nightmare. Not to mention that every time you alter one item, the Model windows sends you to a completely different place on the tree.
4) It would be much easy to deal with assemblies if Datum planes could be used as reference geometries. Can Assembly3 constraints be used with Datum Planes? I couldn’t find how to make it, no matter whether the Datum Planes were created inside the assembly or imported as Link references from parts drawing - in this latter case the Link itself always produced a different plane for me.
5) Is someone really using Assembly 3 (or 4) professionally, for medium to large assemblies? I hope I’m wrong, but I am almost giving up from trying. These issues are almost beaming me back to my old (and faster) 2D CAD. One video with a bunch of repeated parts and somewhat complex constraint geometries would be very much appreciated.
6) Could be version 2022.01.11 the reason for (some) of my issues?
Thank you again for your amazing videos! Sorry for so many items.
I would like to better understand your use case. I think all of freecads assembly workbenches come with some difficulty and complexity. But if you can achieve what you are doing in a 2D system then I believe freecad could be a better solution.
@@Adventuresincreation
Thank you for your reply! Sure, FreeCad can handle it better than 2D software; the problem is (my) learning curve, lol! Regarding my particular case, thanks for your curiosity! I don’t want to disturb you with a beginner’s full bag of doubts but, nosy as I am, I take the liberty to go a bit ahead, as follows.
To simplify it, let’s imagine a series of parallel beams, say of rectangular section, standing between two opposing inner sides of a simple orthogonal box, say running along the x-axis. After constraining the beams, including making their ending sections coplanar with the corresponding planes inside the box, I had great difficulty editing the constraints after discovering that, apparently, I had failed to include one or more of the end sections. The same happened when I tried to modify the constraints. In fact, in my case, there were other beans connecting the first mentioned ones, both in the y and z-axis of the box, totaling 16 beans, which I don’t consider a huge number of parts. Things get pretty messy on the model tree when, for instance, I tried to bring a new element to a constraint rule. Probably - just guessing - some sort of grouping of parts should help post-editing. A lesson on how to organize and hints on how to deal with the model tree of an assembly will be welcomed!
In addition to that, I tried to “box” the beams with datum planes instead of the internal faces of the “real” box with no success, therefore I ask if it is possible to do so, i.e., to use datum planes as references for constraining parts in Assembly3 Workbench. The idea here is to get the parts parametrically related to these datum planes.
Thanks again for your attention!
Using official stock .20 freecad with assembly3, i notice your link step around 3;58 does not dump the linked part in assembly anymore. had to drag and drop to parts and it seemed to work.
Thanks for the input
I think I experienced this in my initial fumblings (.20) - the link was being created in the part just linked rather than in the assembly. But then I realized the part was in bold and the assembly wasn't, and double-clicking on the assembly caused the link to be created there. (which means, be careful not to double-click the part you want to link). hth.
Great video as always, once again I learned something. However... wouldn't the piston rod be attached in the center most part of the crank shaft, not the side, in a working engine? It would also need to be split with a bracket on the end so you could get it on there and bolt it down, or replace it. This has nothing to do with the FreeCAD process or assembling parts, but it just bugs me a little.
Thanks for the feedback. To be honest, this was based on just free ideas, I didn't use a reference and never really intended to do more than demo FreeCAD features. If I were designing a working engine, I would base it on a known reliable engine and model from there. (The crankshaft is way too small and yes the back of the con rod should have a couple of bolts in it and be sectioned from the top or you couldn't assemble it).
From the looks of things Assembly3 is basically the same way SolidWorks assembly works
Nice
Assembly3 workbench seem problematic when staying with "standard" FreeCad but I do like the lining up part in assembly3. 👍✌🥃
I haven't used it much in the standard FreeCAD. I like assembly4 but I think the big push will be for Assembly3 so it's worth getting used to.
All the way through this series I was hoping you found a way to have the assembly parts moving... That's basically why I watched all of it. :-(
Anyhow, I like your videos nonetheless. Cheers
The moving is in the next video, it will be out next week
@@Adventuresincreation Ok, thank you.
This workbench is also available on FreeCAD 0.20 (dev vesion)
Yeah, I tried it there and it kept blowing up for me so I used Linkstage 3 it is a dev version after all
I recently added Assembly 3 but according to your video at 3:50 when you go back to your assembly file (after opening the other two files) the opened files should also appear in that new file. This does not happen for me so I am wondering if there is something I am missing from all this set up?
I think, when you open the assembly, it depends on how the files are referenced as to what else needs to be open. I didn't do anything special.
@@Adventuresincreation Hmmmm!!! Thanks for the reply. Unfortunately I can't seem to get it to work at all.
@@anguscampbell1533 are you using version 0.20?
@@Adventuresincreation FreeCAD 0.19.3
@@anguscampbell1533 I was also just struggling to get this to work, but figured there must be an option not to switch the active view. And indeed if you go to Preferences > Genreal > Selection there is an option "Auto switch to the 3D view containing the selected item" which is what switches the active document as well. I unchecked it and now it works as in the video.
The next: what happens to a green apple that you throw in to the Red Sea ... ? .... it´s getting wet.
Ba boom!
So I have a joke: What swims on a lake and starts with a t? The answer: Two ants.
Um ok?
So you have to have an assembly to use assembly 3. This makes no sense. You should show how to add individual parts.
None of this works for me
I am not sure I understand?