Big doubt with the assembly and drawing mode

diego_lópez687

Hello dear, I have a big doubt regarding the assembly mode, I want to make an assembly that has many pieces, but I do not want to have all the pieces in the same document, I would like to have a document for each piece, the problem is that if I make an assembly using parts from other documents, these will not be updated if I make any changes to any of them, and I would also like to be able to use a part in different assemblies. what would be the correct way to do this?

Thanks in advance.

Matt_Shields

Your question is common, when coming from oldschool CAD platforms, but in Onshape it would be unusual and probably counterproductive to have a separate document for each part.

That said, there are instances where you might make an assembly from mostly parts outside of your assembly document, like a robot built from parts in an external parts library.  Just insert them and if they update, make a new version in the source document and you can update your assembly document at your leisure.

diego_lópez687

Hi Matt, I'm trying to understand you, but if I have a project that has 50 pieces, it doesn't seem very aesthetic or manageable to me to have all these pieces spread out in a single document.

However, I really appreciate you responding to me.

matthew_stacy

@diego_lopez324, Onshape will do everything that you described.  You can easily combine parts, and/or sub-assemblies, from multiple documents in an assembly.  And, yes, the assembly will update when the parts are edited.  The caveat is that the assembly does not update until you "version" the part (another great Onshape feature) and then accept that new version in the assembly.  This gives the user a great deal of control over the update process. 

Start with the Onshape LEARNING CENTER.  There are some great interactive tutorials on a broad range of topics, including assembly modeling.

Then if you wish, find others to collaborate with and share your assembly and part documents with one or more users (specifically share document EDITING and COMMENTING privileges).  I'd be more than happy to assist you in working through an example project.  Onshape has outstanding design collaboration capabilities, that we rarely utilize adequately in these forum discussions.

Good luck.

eric_pesty

diego_lópez687 said:

Hi Matt, I'm trying to understand you, but if I have a project that has 50 pieces, it doesn't seem very aesthetic or manageable to me to have all these pieces spread out in a single document.

However, I really appreciate you responding to me.

Having 50 "pieces" in a single document really shouldn't be an issue.
Also, if these parts are working together in an assembly some of these (i.e. the closely related ones) should be designed together in a single part studio. So depending on what you are designing, you would likely have significantly fewer than 50 par studios (like 10 or 20). Using the tab manager and folders should make this very manageable.

You also have the option to start with all the parts in one document so that the assembly updates automatically as you make changes, then as the design is more "settled", you can move some/all of the parts out into their own documents as needed, after which you will need to create a version and update the assembly for the change to propagate. 

Matt_Shields

As an example, this is one Part Studio, with 53 parts.

diego_lópez687

Hello dears, I thank you very much for your interest in clarifying the issue for me, I understand that Onsahpe works like this and I will have to try to adapt to this method.

The assembly that Matt puts together is very interesting, I would like to see a screenshot of the document where all the parts are drawn.

Greetings to all.

eric_pesty

diego_lópez687 said:

Hello dears, I thank you very much for your interest in clarifying the issue for me, I understand that Onsahpe works like this and I will have to try to adapt to this method.

The assembly that Matt puts together is very interesting, I would like to see a screenshot of the document where all the parts are drawn.

Greetings to all.

Here you go (not necessarily all modeled with best practices):
https://cad.onshape.com/documents/567f0f3e9b63141b432d7c29/w/ddf4aaf13737dbe382d04e68/e/07dac5c8204deb0f9d73a0f3

diego_lópez687

Hello Eric, amazing drawing, I see that the pieces are drawn as they are assembled.

Thank you very much for sharing