Onshape Design In Production

brucebartlett

Hi All,

Hopefully today I get my factory trolley finished in the real world. I have done this completely Onshape apart from a few imported parts for work around geo but all the major frame bits done in Onshape. Drawings done with screen prints and hand markups. I have shared a cut down version as a public doc including some pic's. I will post more when finished as well as some issues along the way.

https://cad.onshape.com/documents/1d2cf2545ca34eaea89dbaab/w/a3ed1bdec4b74b4c84840d97/e/442c4913e93a46a18224faaa

brucebartlett

I just got my Onshape factory trolley ready to roll.



This has been an ideal project to model in Onshape as I was able to work without formal production drawings. This was build by our R+D / tooling department, I can see an opening here for onshape as these guy are always asking the engineers to model things like this in Solidwork's but can not justify their own seat, tradiational these thing were made without CAD. Onshape could slip here to fill the gap. Can't see this company moving from 15 years of solidworks for the main CAD system in a hurry. 

Biggest drama I had with this design was not using the 1 part studio for the main frame and the A Frame at the front. Therefore could not link dimensions so the A frame adjusted with the layout sketch. lesson learned.

I was under presure to get these parts out and Onshape went down after an update, this was back before Christmas. I had to clear the browser history to get back on-line. I had to make some excuses about the computer not working properly when ask for the drawings and have to stress the need for robustness when working professional and under pressure. This is the only issues I had with access to date and a fix was handed out within hours thanks. The lack of lost documents makes up for this small glitch.

I also had trouble laying out the frame quickly in the assembly, as there is no mirror or pattern. I used the part studio to do the mirrors but this would not work if I had to construct a BOM, as I would have ended up with multiple instance of the same part. I find the mates great for flexible parts but struggle a bit when it comes to rigid assemblies, I think a mirror and pattern would help this and also reference planes.  

Ended up with 3 branch's as design changed during development. Real fan of the branching and merging for design development. I think will also be great for design changes after official release (not relevant for this part, as it just a factory aid). I also love how you can get back to previous version, good idea's and old dimensional geo is not lost. 

traveler_hauptman

Thanks for sharing the experience! Would you be willing to post an example of the screen print + hand-markup you did to get the necessary info to the fabricators? I'm really curious what that looks like...

brucebartlett

You should see a cut down version in the public doc's or see the link above. I had to clean out the production frames, these are what the trolley is used to carry, the branching was lost in the process. Did not think it would be wise to share the ip on the production frames. Not sure how to lock people from coping public doc's.

billy2

Nice job!

I was going to go through your branching but the simple version you posted didn't have any branching.

brucebartlett

When you save a copy of a workspace the branching disappears. This made it easier, otherwise I would have had to go through each branch step and delete the stuff I wanted private. 

brucebartlett

All finished and ready for work. Look forward to Onshape drawings, hard to complete projects like this without a drafting package. Also a .dxf export would really get me flying for laser cut plates, these were all cut by hand but normally would be done on our Laser. I am missing Onshape when back on my standard CAD.

lougallo

This is awesome @Bruce and thank you for sharing!

A_Izaak

Can you please let me know how you designed the frame itself? I think OnS dont have a frame module, similar to "Weldments" in Solidworks?
What is the general approach designing frames in OnS? I have 0 expirience with OnS

matthew_stacy

@A_Izaak, Onshape "Beams" are similar to "Weldments" in SolidWorks.  @NeilCooke made a helpful tutorial on the topic.  I believe he also wrote the Feature Scripts.  Google should be able to find that video for you.

NeilCooke

Find “Beams” and other custom features here: 
https://www.onshape.com/en/features/custom-features