A2plus Workbench

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Revision as of 00:13, 12 February 2019 by Uwestoehr (talk | contribs) (→‎Getting started: some refinements)

Introduction

The A2plus workbench is an external workbench to assemble different parts in FreeCAD...

Installing

The A2plus workbench is an addon to FreeCAD. It can easily be installed via the menu Tools → Addon Manager. A2plus is under active development and will get new features frequently. Therefore you should update it regularly using also the menu Tools → Addon Manager. The A2plus code is hosted and developed on GitHub and can also be installed manually by copying it into FreeCAD's MOD directory.

Getting started

At first switch to the A2plus toolbar in FreeCAD. To create an assembly create a new file in FreeCAD. At first this file needs to be saved. It is recommended (but not necessary) to save it in the same folder of the parts you want to assemble.

Now parts can be added to the assembly by using the toolbar button .
Parts that are already in the assembly can be cloned with the toolbar button .
To edit a part from the assembly, select it in the model tree and use the toolbar button . This will open the part into a new tab in FreeCAD unless the part is already opened in FreeCAD.
To import changes in parts into the assembly click on the toolbar button .

Assembling

Assembling parts is done by adding constraints between parts. After a constraint A2plus will move the parts according to the constraint if possible.<br\>For complex constraints between parts A2plus might fail to solve the constraints. Therefore also have a look at section ?? for strategies to resolve such cases.

Constraints between parts are added by keeping the Ctrl key pressed and selecting an edge or face of two parts. The constraint will be added attached in the model tree to the affected parts.

View settings

The more parts you add the more important is to keep the overview. A2plus offers therefore these tools to move and view parts:

  • To move a part around in the assembly, select it in the model tree and use the toolbar button . When you placed the part where you like it, left-click with the mouse.

Point on Point

Select for example each an edge for two parts and

Point on Line

...

Constraint handling

Part lists

Special features