Optionally Display Non-Printable Parts in Assemblies

Onshape's Configuration feature allows you to improve performance by selectively displaying parts in your assembly. To use this feature, click on the text box to show metal or electronic parts. It is important to note that if you add more parts, you must move them into the correct folder.

Furthermore, it is important to test the configuration before finalizing your design, as turning off certain parts may result in mate connector errors. Only the printable parts of the robot will be shown, making it easier to navigate and understand the assembly.

By using the Configuration feature, you can use the printable parts as a skeleton for your assembly and make it more manageable. This allows you to focus on specific aspects of the design.

Purpose:

The purpose of this approach is to improve performance in Onshape by selectively displaying parts in an assembly. This makes it easier to navigate and understand the assembly, and allows you to focus on specific aspects of the design without overwhelming the hardware.

Strategy:

The strategy used to achieve this goal is to use Onshape's Configuration feature:

https://cad.onshape.com/help/Content/assembly_configurations.htm?

Especially the checkbox configuration option. This feature allows you to turn on and off different parts of the assembly, making it easier to work with pib in Onshape.

Practical Implementation:

To use this feature, you simply click on the text box to show metal or electronic parts. It is important to note that if you add more metal parts, you must move them into the correct folder. Additionally, you should test the configuration before finalizing your design, as turning off certain parts may result in mate connector errors. Only the printable parts of the robot will be shown, making it easier to navigate and understand the assembly.

Finger - Example:

Here you can see the finger assembly without active checkboxes:

Open

On the right side of the Onshape window you can open the Configuration setup. There you can verify what each checkbox does. In this case the checkbox controls the suppression of the Folders in the assembly. If an assembly folder is surpressed, every instances in the folder is also surpressed.

Here you can see the same finger assembly, but this time the metal parts are activated:

Open

You can see that one checkbox is able to surpress multiple Folders. In this case, the checkbox “Show metal parts” controls all folders named “Metal parts …”.

Hint: The name of the folder is not important and Onshape does not automatically surpress all folders containing “metal parts”. This has to be setup manually by the user.

Hand - Example:

Here you can see the Hand with “Show metal parts” active:

This assembly also contains several folder with metal parts which are controlled by the checkbox. But it also has the Finger imported as sub-assemblies. The configuration state of the fingers, is also controlled by each checkbox.