Public Standard Parts Library with "Private" Information

dennis_20

We all want a good standard parts library of fasteners, o-rings, retaining rings, etc.  In order to keep this truly industry standard and to keep everyone's storage space small it would make sense for this to be a library of public parts loaded and maintained by OS.  However, my company assigns our own data to the standard parts we use so we would need to be able to do that as well and for that information to not be public in OS.  Once we figured out how to really use Toolbox in SolidWorks we were able to make it sing since we only had the fasteners in our system available to the engineers (with the ability to add as necessary).  This kept the list specific to us and much faster to use.

I'd like to see a similar thing from OS.  I'm suggesting an exhaustive standard parts library accessible to everyone, but with a means for us to easily identify the sizes we use for our company and attach appropriate data such as part number, description, vendor, vendor p/n, cost, material, finish, etc.  This information would be private to our company and our engineers, but not available to anyone else.  I'm thinking this would be like a spreadsheet for our company with appropriate links to the public library.  Therefore, only this spreadsheet would be a company and therefore private document.  When we go to insert a fastener we should be able to pick from our list of company standards and select from any starting point such as type, or size, or length, or part number, etc.  All of this meta-data would need to be available as a property of the part so it shows up in our assemblies by our part number, not the industry standard number.  Also, when drawings become available this information would need to be usable there as well as in assembly BOMs.

In the event of a modified part we should also have the ability to copy the public part to our private set of files and make whatever mods we want.

What do you all think of that?  How would you want to see standard parts implemented?

- - -Dennis

andrew_troup

There would need to be separate master libraries for metric from imperial, for standard libraries to be useful to the rest of the world: it would simply be too unwieldy otherwise.
But I think your proposal of a centralised basis for libraries, able to be indidualised additively and privately, has strong merit.

dennis_20

I just submitted this as an improvement request so please add your votes to it:  https://forum.onshape.com/discussion/1407/public-standard-parts-library#latest

I also got a message from @lougallo stating this would be managed by a third party and not OS directly.  That's fine with me.  I don't care if OS does this directly or indirectly, I'm just looking forward to its implementation so we don't all try to make our own versions.  With all the concerns about file storage this is an even more important way to implement standard parts.

brucebartlett

This sounds great, one library for all for standard fasteners, etc. However I think your still going to have to assign them into your company library (not sure if, when or how this will come into Onshape) and add company description/ part # to match your ERP. By the time you do this you might have been better just to bring in from trace parts or mcmaster.

dennis_20

McMaster-Carr is individual parts and has too much detail (helical threads) and is inconsistent from my experience.  I am looking for something that is vetted (by Onshape or their trusted supplier), and has the appropriate meta-data (thread data, standard, etc.).  I also expect it to be configuration based so that one file has all the many configurations possible in the standard.  By this being "from Onshape" I am looking for consistency and efficiency (so we don't all have to re-invent the wheel).

I am hoping that Onshape can do something clever such that the solid file is public with all its configurations and that we only have a private document (shared within the company) that includes our selection of which of these are used by our company and our associated information of part number, description, material, finish, etc.  This supplementary data file (like a spreadsheet) should be very small compared to the global solid file.

There would likely need to be several of these files separated by metric/imperial, type (SHCS/FHCS/HHCS/BHCS/Set screw/Nuts/Washers/etc.), but once one is done it becomes a template for the rest.  Toolbox in SolidWorks has some legacy issues that keep them from overhauling it like it needs, but on the whole it works very well if a person just takes the time to figure it out.  Onshape has the benefit of hindsight and learning from others (their modus operandi) so I expect them to do something even better.

peter_hall

I would like to see a standards library easily accessable to insert parts. I would imagine this would be a simple tie up for Onshape to do with an existing library out there. However I think if you want your own companies part numbers attached then this is something for you rather than Onshape to devise.

3dcad

dennis_20 said:

..  I'm thinking this would be like a spreadsheet for our company with appropriate links to the public library.  Therefore, only this spreadsheet would be a company and therefore private document.  When we go to insert a fastener we should be able to pick from our list of company standards and select from any starting point such as type, or size, or length, or part number, etc.  All of this meta-data would need to be available as a property of the part so it shows up in our assemblies by our part number, not the industry standard number...

- - -Dennis

If we had such part library in public, each partstudio would also have a web link. All you need to do is create a spreadsheet and add that link to one cell among all the company properties.
Then you could have 'company parts' tab in your document. 

If Onshape would provide possibility to derive / add part from link; you could just pick the right part and copy link --> insert into assy / ps.

I agree that perfect system for public part library is important at some point but not in my top ten at the moment.

brucebartlett

I've started playing with a fasteners doc to create the bolts, nuts and washers I need for my assemblies. I have not full completed this as I have been waiting to see what Onshape come up with. I am really waiting to see cross document referencing, some form of design table/configurations, better meta property control, a standard company part file (share with all uses in my company), ERP integration and BOM implementation. I don't want to go to far down the path of building a library and have to redo bits as more functionality comes on board. 

Some of the issues I have with my current set up are.

•  Copies of tabs inflate the size of the working doc. (Inter document references should fix this)
• Can not do a replace part and retain mates. This would require a "replace part" command in the assy module as well as a way to reference new part to old mates, SW's does with ease if the bolt is created from a common template or with a configurable toolbox bolt.
• Can not easily control the switching on and off of thread detail.
• Slow creation, a design table would speed things up

However when in use my current system does work well in Onshape. When I want to add a bolt I just copy and paste the tab out for the size series and drop the bits in the assy as required, fixing with fasten mate to predefined mate connectors. I can now also use the derived command to drop bolts into the part studio to design around if need be.

andrew_troup

Another thing which used to be laborious in SW was changing the configuration for multiple instances simultaneously.
Imagine a situation where the ruling thickness for bolting flanges was increased, so that all M12x30 SHCS had to become 35mm long
In about 2009 or 2010 they added the ability to make discontinuous selections of part instances and change them all to a specified configuration, which was a major time-saver.

lisa_dohogne

This is a great idea!  It addresses configurations as well as standard hardware as a universal library - with the ability to associate your own company information.  This should go to the top of the development list!

stevehess

Great stuff here.... tagging on.

dennis_20

andrew_troup said:

Another thing which used to be laborious in SW was changing the configuration for multiple instances simultaneously.
Imagine a situation where the ruling thickness for bolting flanges was increased, so that all M12x30 SHCS had to become 35mm long.

In SWX2016 they provided the ability to "Edit Toolbox Component" for multiple components at the same time.  This is a huge time saver vs. the one-at-a-time changes we were restricted to.  I'm expecting similar functionality in Onshape when it is finally delivered.

shashank_aarya

andrew_troup said:

Another thing which used to be laborious in SW was changing the configuration for multiple instances simultaneously.
Imagine a situation where the ruling thickness for bolting flanges was increased, so that all M12x30 SHCS had to become 35mm long
In about 2009 or 2010 they added the ability to make discontinuous selections of part instances and change them all to a specified configuration, which was a major time-saver.

I guess this is exactly similar to family table in Creo. I would like to have this functionality in Onshape where from one instance user can create multiple configurations very quickly by adding rows in table and updating the values.

dennis_20

@shashank_aarya ,
Creo's Family Table and SolidWorks' Design Table are very much the same thing.  Yes, we need a similar functionality as a supplemental way to build and control configurations.

The original thrust of this post is for Onshape to provide a Standard Parts Library (fasteners) so that we don't all create our own, yet provide us with the ability to associate our own company's information with the subset of this master library for the fasteners in our own company's system.  I expect that in the process Onshape will have to flush out the whole functionality of configurations, including the option for Design/Family table spreadsheet-type controls.  You can vote for this Improvement Request here:  https://forum.onshape.com/discussion/1407/public-standard-parts-library#latest

3dcad

dennis_20 said:

@shashank_aarya ,
Creo's Family Table and SolidWorks' Design Table are very much the same thing.  Yes, we need a similar functionality as a supplemental way to build and control configurations.
..

And on our way to configurations, I think we need some automation for creating variables so that we can just call out other dimensions (from same or another sketch, studio or even document) like sketch2_D2=#sketch1_D1 / 2. And use id's instead of names so that names can be changed without braking anything.

dennis_20

@3dcad,
Agreed!  Frankly, I like the way we can rename things in SolidWorks, from sketches to features, constraints to dimensions.  I have all our installations setup to default to automatically prompt for renaming a feature upon its creation (because few ever go back and rename one once its been put even one feature in the past).  I only rename a few dimensions, but they are ones we'd be using in an equation or Design Table or just want it to catch the eye when we want to make it easier to change a fundamental dimension of a basic parametric model (Pitch_Dia, for instance).  This ability has been part of SolidWorks almost from day-one (or at least to the best of my recollection), and I've been using SWX since its initial release in 1995.  Wow! Twenty years of a great product and I am looking forward to Onshape!  That's faith in @jon_hirschtick and the team!

I'm really looking forward to the named dimensions and equations and Design Table equivalency to allow us to exploit the power of a spreadsheet (Google Doc?) not only for configurations, but also for more easily controlling and documenting the values of the different parameters.  I'm still surprised at the number of people that don't know you can have incredible links to other sheets, even outside the spreadsheet of the SWX Design Table, in order to really make a parametric model sing!  That is a lot of how DriveWorks does its magic.  I want expect the same ability in Onshape.

andrew_troup

shashank_aarya said:

andrew_troup said:

Another thing which used to be laborious in SW was changing the configuration for multiple instances simultaneously.
Imagine a situation where the ruling thickness for bolting flanges was increased, so that all M12x30 SHCS had to become 35mm long
In about 2009 or 2010 they added the ability to make discontinuous selections of part instances and change them all to a specified configuration, which was a major time-saver.

I guess this is exactly similar to family table in Creo. I would like to have this functionality in Onshape where from one instance user can create multiple configurations very quickly by adding rows in table and updating the values.

No, Solidworks had design tables long before 2009, at least a decade earlier.
I'm talking about simple one-time-only changes to the configuration of parts in an assembly, in cases where there were multiple instances of that same part.

What they added 2009ish was to eliminate a limitation: previously it was very easy to change the configuration of a single instance.

They eventually expanded that simple process so it worked for multiple instances, simply by making a multiple selection (not necessarily contiguous) from the feature tree, and then choosing the new configuration to apply it to the selected instances.

oleg_shilovitsky

dennis_20 said:

We all want a good standard parts library of fasteners, o-rings, retaining rings, etc.  In order to keep this truly industry standard and to keep everyone's storage space small it would make sense for this to be a library of public parts loaded and maintained by OS.  However, my company assigns our own data to the standard parts we use so we would need to be able to do that as well and for that information to not be public in OS.  Once we figured out how to really use Toolbox in SolidWorks we were able to make it sing since we only had the fasteners in our system available to the engineers (with the ability to add as necessary).  This kept the list specific to us and much faster to use.

I'd like to see a similar thing from OS.  I'm suggesting an exhaustive standard parts library accessible to everyone, but with a means for us to easily identify the sizes we use for our company and attach appropriate data such as part number, description, vendor, vendor p/n, cost, material, finish, etc.  This information would be private to our company and our engineers, but not available to anyone else.  I'm thinking this would be like a spreadsheet for our company with appropriate links to the public library.  Therefore, only this spreadsheet would be a company and therefore private document.  When we go to insert a fastener we should be able to pick from our list of company standards and select from any starting point such as type, or size, or length, or part number, etc.  All of this meta-data would need to be available as a property of the part so it shows up in our assemblies by our part number, not the industry standard number.  Also, when drawings become available this information would need to be usable there as well as in assembly BOMs.

In the event of a modified part we should also have the ability to copy the public part to our private set of files and make whatever mods we want.

What do you all think of that?  How would you want to see standard parts implemented?

- - -Dennis

@dennis_20

Hi Dennis,

The functionality you're talking about here --> "I'm thinking this would be like a spreadsheet for our company with appropriate links to the public library.  Therefore, only this spreadsheet would be a company and therefore private document" is available in openBoM. It called "inventory tables".

I'd be very interested to discuss a practical use case - I'm sure there are things we missed, so we can think what are the gaps and how we can close it in the next versions of openBoM. 

Here is the short video that demo how to create inventory tables in openBoM
https://youtu.be/JoGY6FyxRr4

More information about how to use inventories in openBoM can be found here - http://tutorials.openbom.com/

openBoM integrated app for Onshape is available on App Store. I'd be happy to answer on questions and show a demo. 

The scenario I'm very interested to validate is how to connect Part in Onshape (based on Name or maybe onshape Id) with part Number in BOM. Onshape is a bit aloof when it comes to Part Names. 

Appreciate your thoughts, comments and feedback. 

-Oleg

dennis_20

@oleg_shilovitsky,

Your openBOM tool is interesting, but it is not what I am asking for at all.  What I am asking for is something akin to the Toolbox in SolidWorks.  I would like Onshape to supply a thoroughly vetted library of standard fasteners that comply with a variety of industry standards.  This would be preferred over everyone creating their own fastener files.  If everyone creates their own fastener files there is unnecessary duplication of effort with a huge range of non-compliance to standards, not to mention an incredible proliferation of files - in short it will be a big mess. 

If Onshape were to supply such a fastener library as a public document that can only be edited by Onshape then they will control its accuracy.  I would think that Onshape would be very interested in this for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is customer good will and overall smaller file numbers and sizes on their system.  Of course any part could be copied and modified for non-standard situations.

I am not even interested in the FeatureScript functions that make it easy to create a fastener as this just makes it easy for a lot of people to create their own and proliferate unnecessary duplication.  If we have nothing else then yes, this would be handy, but I really expect Onshape to provide a universal library of such things as fasteners.

Perhaps then your openBOM could provide the company-specific information we would also need, but first we need the standard library of fasteners from Onshape.

viru

@dennis_20, Yes it is available in app store. You can use below apps available in app store for fasteners. kindly visit below link for more detail.
https://appstore.onshape.com/apps/Content

dennis_20

@viru,  This is nice, but it is not what I am asking for.

A big part of what I am after is a set of configured parts.  You have pointed me to several standard part libraries that are very good for what they are, but really are just more convenient forms of what a person can get from McMaster-Carr.

In the SolidWorks Toolbox one of the great benefits is the ease of changing a fastener.  For instance, let's say you have used ten M4X20 SHCS in an assembly and something has changed that you need to now change these to M6X25 SHCS.  Simply selecting the ten fasteners you can change them all with a single command.  That capability does not currently exist with Onshape, regardless of where the fastener comes from.

oleg_shilovitsky

dennis_20 said:

@oleg_shilovitsky,

Your openBOM tool is interesting, but it is not what I am asking for at all.  What I am asking for is something akin to the Toolbox in SolidWorks.  I would like Onshape to supply a thoroughly vetted library of standard fasteners that comply with a variety of industry standards.  This would be preferred over everyone creating their own fastener files.  If everyone creates their own fastener files there is unnecessary duplication of effort with a huge range of non-compliance to standards, not to mention an incredible proliferation of files - in short it will be a big mess. 

If Onshape were to supply such a fastener library as a public document that can only be edited by Onshape then they will control its accuracy.  I would think that Onshape would be very interested in this for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is customer good will and overall smaller file numbers and sizes on their system.  Of course any part could be copied and modified for non-standard situations.

I am not even interested in the FeatureScript functions that make it easy to create a fastener as this just makes it easy for a lot of people to create their own and proliferate unnecessary duplication.  If we have nothing else then yes, this would be handy, but I really expect Onshape to provide a universal library of such things as fasteners.

Perhaps then your openBOM could provide the company-specific information we would also need, but first we need the standard library of fasteners from Onshape.

@dennis_20

Thanks for your comment! Yes, indeed, these are two different problems. In case Onshape will provide standard library of fasteners, openBoM can be a tool to provide an information and get all attributes about fasteners into BOM. 

3dcad

@dennis_20
Are you asking for tool that makes changes to parts when you add/change fastener in assembly mode? So that it makes holes etc. to fit selected fastener.
This would be great though needs some clearance preferences.

I suppose before that we will have 'configurations' and 'edit in context' (ie. edit part in assembly mode) since they are needed core functions to have this type of tool on top.

Good stuff and nice that we have active BOM preparing for future features!

dennis_20

I really like the ease of changing fasteners in SWX' Toolbox.  That is ultimately what I am after, along with the ability to assign our own company information to the fasteners and make a short list of company fasteners to choose from.  The openBOM looks like it would be good for the company information portion, but the third-party libraries of fastener parts are all individual parts.  Being extensive is not a benefit when it opens the sea of choices to an ocean of things to wade through.  I honestly believe the ultimate solution will be when Onshape has the ability to handle configurations.

One of the big advantages of configurations is that surfaces retain their internal identifications from config to config.  This is essential for maintaining mates.  For instance, in SWX the configured features that make up a SHCS are the same from size to size with only their dimensional values changing.  So an M4X20 SHCS is mated with a hole on its bottom face of the head and concentric to the shaft.  These are the same surfaces as another SHCS configuration, say an M8X30, so changing the configured fastener doesn't blow up the existing mates.

If the fasteners are distinctly different parts then their faces carry different identifications from part to part and the mates do not automatically hold when changing sizes.  This is the case with the third-party fastener libraries that have been pointed to in this thread.

Data re-use is valuable and vital.  Onshape has done a lot to foster this with their whole approach to cloud-based solid modeling.  However, the economy and convenience of data re-use for something as ubiquitous as fasteners has been sadly overlooked in my opinion.