Best practices for managing large assemblies

jams_allen

Hello everyone! I'm new to Onshape and looking to understand the best practices for managing large assemblies. Any tips on optimizing performance or organizing complex projects effectively? Thanks in advance!

nick_papageorge073

How many parts? Any electronic pcba's?

If you're planning a big project and not a one-off hobby 3d printed part, you'll be well served spending a couple weeks doing the training on parts, assemblies and drawings. Its free and built in.

EvanReese

A few tips I've found:

1. simplify geometry - if using screws, bearings, and so on, create a "simplified" configuration of them and only use that in your assembly. Even things out of sight get computed when you go to rotate the model, so if you have hundreds of screws it'll bog you down. Using Onshape's standard content helps avoid this too. Simplification could also go for parts that have a perforated hole pattern etc. Much of this should be manual, but also look at the Simplify custom feature. If using PCBs the Fix PCB custom feature is helpful.
2. use Groups over mates where you can - When you move something, even Fastened mates have to compute to see if they fail, which can add up when you have tons of them. If you suppress them and use a group instead it's faster to move things. It's not a perfect method, but if something updates, you can suppress the Group, unsuppress the fastened mates to update it, then swap them back.
3. Use multiple documents - Early in a project I like to keep things in one document so they all update live, but later in a project it's best to move subassemblies and their part studios to their own documents. At the very least, link the parts in your assembly to a version instead of the main workspace.