Assembly 3 is a powerfull workbench for FreeCAD enabling for nice, nested compositions with lot's of refactoring comfort. It is very well suited to build a generic parts library from. Please read the Assembly 3 Wiki to learn about the features and principles applied in this library.
All component are nested within minimum one Assembly3-container facilitating Elements to make use of the Assembly-3 workflow. In very rare cases, a Part or Body may be used instead of an Assembly3-container.
A Component with multiple (moving) parts consists of multiple Assembly3-containers! See /Pneumatic/Cylinder/ISO 6432/... Each pneumatic cylinder in here contains two Assembly3-containers: One for the Tube, one for the Rod.
You'll link them seperately into your Project so you can buildup your mechanism with degrees of freedom.
To implement a component in your project, create a Link to this thing. Attach your Assmebly3-constraints to the elements delivered with the component. This way, you can easily switch the Link between Components of similar type without loosing your constraints.
Some components exist in countless variants and a 'collect them all' strategy is not effective. For example RC-Servomotors. Instead reaching for a completion a few representative, very parametric RC-Servo-models should be created.
Implementation happens by copy & paste & knead so it fits this one RC-Servo you have on your table.
- Don't use Spreadsheet cause it's not functional for libraries. Instead, add properties to TreeObjects and add your formulas there.
- Dont use 3rd-party modules. Exceptions: fasteners, gears, sheetmetal,
- Write text for Orientation-convention
For best interchangeability of components, following naming-conventions for Elements should be applied whenever possible.
Expose solid sides of a components according to sides of the FreeCAD navigation Cube in the top right corner of the 3D-View. Prefer faces used for installation rather than the most outer-ones. Prefer circular Edges rather than circular faces cause they can be used for both planar and circular constraints.
- top
- bottom
- left
- right
- front
- rear
Components with circular rotation have an axle. If there's only one axle it must be placed in the files origin facing up.
- axle
Names for connectors are combined of
- Medium flowing through
- Direction of the flow
- Big Letter*
*even when there's only one because is good for interchange.
- current_[IN/OUT/BI]_[A-Z]
- data_[IN/OUT/BI]
- light_[IN/OUT/BI]_[A-Z]
- air_[IN/OUT/BI]_[A-Z]
- air_retract
- air_extend
- oil_[IN/OUT/BI]_[A-Z
- air_retract
- air_extend
Feel free to Pull Request new components. Notice the conventions and study existing compoments for good quality.
If want to adjust current conventions, Edit and Pull Request this Readme.md ! With the time, we'll develop a good style that fits all needs.