Porting the vhelio cargo bike to FreeCAD (open hardware)

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youen
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Porting the vhelio cargo bike to FreeCAD (open hardware)

Post by youen »

Hello,
we are currently working to re-model the "vheliotech" cargo bike on FreeCAD. It was originally modeled using a proprietary software, and even though we already freely distribute the exported file (.step format) as open hardware, we'd like to switch to FreeCAD.

We've already started the new model, here is a comparison of the proprietary / FreeCAD status :
Image Image

We don't have much experience with FreeCAD, so we'd be glad if one or two persons with more experience could join the project, to help with actual modeling, and/or tell us if there are pitfalls to avoid etc. For easy teamwork, we are making one file per part, and one file with the assembly (we're using assembly4). It seems to be working well so far.
The new version is hosted here: https://git.vhelio.org/vhelio/vheliotech-freecad
There is also a wiki where we try to guide newcomers on the project (everything is in french though)

For a bit more background, here is the vheliotech page https://vhelio.org/vheliotech/ (only available in french, but there are some pictures)

Thanks!
Last edited by youen on Wed Oct 05, 2022 7:17 pm, edited 1 time in total.
chrisb
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Re: Looking for volunteers to port the vhelio cargo bike to FreeCAD (open hardware)

Post by chrisb »

I had a look at one of the models L00.FCStd.

I recommend to simplify the sketches and to make them at the same time more self contained. You have here a sketch with 7 dimensions:
SnipScreenshot-796f79.png
SnipScreenshot-796f79.png (12.16 KiB) Viewed 3227 times
but what you actually want to have is something like "25mm quadratic profile, 1.5mm thick". You should rather do it like this:
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youen
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Re: Looking for volunteers to port the vhelio cargo bike to FreeCAD (open hardware)

Post by youen »

Thanks for the tip, it does look cleaner!

I had read here that symmetry constraints weren't that great for performances but for a small sketch it certainly doesn't matter (and I suppose once the sketch is extruded, its performances are irrelevant to further manipulations?)
chrisb
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Re: Looking for volunteers to port the vhelio cargo bike to FreeCAD (open hardware)

Post by chrisb »

youen wrote: Fri Aug 19, 2022 5:04 pm I had read here that symmetry constraints weren't that great for performances but for a small sketch it certainly doesn't matter (and I suppose once the sketch is extruded, its performances are irrelevant to further manipulations?)
From my experience I would say that you will hardly face problems with sketches having less than 100 constraints. And even then, I recommend to start with cleanest design possible, and only if you are facing problems, you should change the sketch.

In some extremely rare cases the solver can fail to find a solution. The cases I have seen so far needed all individual treatment and there aren't enough to really see a pattern yet.
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Vincent B
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Re: Looking for volunteers to port the vhelio cargo bike to FreeCAD (open hardware)

Post by Vincent B »

Ready to help. How many parts have the bike?
MP me in french as to want.
youen
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Re: Looking for volunteers to port the vhelio cargo bike to FreeCAD (open hardware)

Post by youen »

chrisb wrote: Fri Aug 19, 2022 5:45 pm From my experience I would say that you will hardly face problems with sketches having less than 100 constraints. And even then, I recommend to start with cleanest design possible, and only if you are facing problems, you should change the sketch.

In some extremely rare cases the solver can fail to find a solution. The cases I have seen so far needed all individual treatment and there aren't enough to really see a pattern yet.
OK, indeed, seems silly to try to optimize such a little sketch. Thanks for the info.
youen
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Re: Looking for volunteers to port the vhelio cargo bike to FreeCAD (open hardware)

Post by youen »

Vincent B wrote: Fri Aug 19, 2022 7:11 pm Ready to help. How many parts have the bike?
MP me in french as to want.
Cool :) I've sent you a private message.

There are 86 custom parts, plus some more which are bought ready-made so we don't need a parametric/editable model for those.
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Kunda1
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Re: Looking for volunteers to port the vhelio cargo bike to FreeCAD (open hardware)

Post by Kunda1 »

@youen can you keep this thread up to date with progress as efforts to port this to FCStd format are ongoing?
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youen
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Re: Looking for volunteers to port the vhelio cargo bike to FreeCAD (open hardware)

Post by youen »

Kunda1 wrote: Sun Aug 21, 2022 2:45 pm @youen can you keep this thread up to date with progress as efforts to port this to FCStd format are ongoing?
Yes, good idea, I'll try to do that from time to time.
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ThanklessLiving
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Re: Looking for volunteers to port the vhelio cargo bike to FreeCAD (open hardware)

Post by ThanklessLiving »

I have some mild criticism, for one your website + its autoplay video nearly crashed my browser...

As another thing, what is the scope of this "open hardware"? If it's meant to reproducible by anyone then I would say it has failed because of those two R1500 looking front arches because aluminium or not, that's not something anyone can make in their garage. This also makes it a bit useless to freely distribute the files because at least in my hardware store they don't stock hard way rolled circles of any kind, so nobody without similar industry contacts can reproduce this.
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