Beams or Weldment profiles workflow

emagdalenaC2i

I would like to share with you the workflow in which we are working to provide the best tools to our Onshape customers in Spain.

We have translated, improved, modified and created several FeatureScripts to improve the workflow in Onshape:

1- Generador de Perfiles


Improved profile generator based on the FeatureScript Beam generator by Neil Cooke.
Allows to create more easily the profile tables to be used by the Perfiles (Beams) FeatureScript.

It also allow to set several attributes to specific profiles, profile types and/or profile standards. So:
- You could automatically assign a material as an Attribute in the Profiles.
- Or you could automatically assign the name, description or part number to the beams created based on the information contained in the attributes of that profiles.

Also We have developed a library with more than 3.100 profiles for our customers.

2- Perfiles


Improved beam generator based on the FeatureScript Beams by Neil Cooke.
Allows to create more easily the beams using groups. Each group of profiles can be located independently with their manipulators and the resulting beams of each group are trimmed by the beams of the previous groups.

It also allow to set the material, weight, appearance and other properties (name, description, length, part number) based on the information provided by the beam profiles as attributes.

So to create a complete structure like the one in the lower image, you only need to run the FeatureScript once.

3- Recortar Perfiles
This FeatureScript allos to trim several Beams (or other parts) with several planes or planar faces.

4- Perfiles de Aluminio
This FeatureScript allow to:
- Create standard machining types for aluminum profiles
- move faces (mainly to locate the covers for the profiles)
- Create panels inside the structures with all its components
- and create mate connectors to to se  the assemblies easily.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCjkPs2fGp0&t=119s

We also provide a library with standard and comercial componentes


We can not share these FeatureScripts and libraries but We would like to get your feedback about this workflow.
@NeilCookeI hope you like the changes we made from your FeatureScripts. If you want to know better how they work, we make a presentation of Onshape in Spanish every two weeks http://c2i.es/event

MBartlett21

This looks cool!

emagdalenaC2i

Well, I really miss 2 important things in this workflow:

1- 3D sketches
The Part Studio of the complete structure of the image above has 3 planes, 5 sketches and 1 single modeling feature that creates 19 parts.

2- Handle identical parts in Part Studios and BOMs (Group by name or part number)
Once that structure is inserted into an assembly and the corresponding drawing is created, we have a BOM with 19 different parts. Even if we assign the same name or part number to the identical parts.

MBartlett21

@emagdalenaC2i
Please try this feature out: https://cad.onshape.com/documents/9bddf41e8d9f461ea10840f8
It does 3d sketching.

emagdalenaC2i

Yes, I know it
And it is great, but... we need real sketchs with dimensions, etc.

emagdalenaC2i

I can live well without 3D sketches but... It is very hard without group parts in BOM by name or part number ;-)

konstantin_shiriazdanov

Some feature windows seem to be very high, it wold be a problem for users of laptops. You can divide dialogs into pages by using some dummy enum parameter.

emagdalenaC2i

@konstantin_shiriazdanov I used to work with my laptop without any issues.
This is a screenshot of my laptop, as you can see the groups expand and collapse, and users can scroll vertically in the feature window.