Before we go and spend time making our own model of a 2-stage Climber-in-a-Box with configurable length in Onshape, does anyone already have a version that they would be willing to share? My ChiefDelphi search failed me.
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I dont know if it is on there but have MkCad app it might have the climber in a box
Unfortunately the MKCad app only has components of the climber, not a full assembly
MKCAD has the thriftybot climber that is configurable. It is essentially the same thing as the Andymark climber.
Thanks for letting me know about that. Unfortunately, the dimensions aren’t quite similar enough for me to feel comfortable.
Side note: though I’ve made the configurable climber we need for right now, I’ve already run into the annoying restriction that in Onshape, assembly-level configuration variables can’t be applied directly to part studio features. This makes for unnecessarily bloated assembly configuration choices where you have to have an independent dropdown item for each value, and duplicate items if dropdown items share the variable but differ in another feature. See the pic below for an example.
Ideally, the configuration for this assembly would have two fields: a variable for tube length and a dropdown for extended or retracted (bonus points if you want to add a % extension variable instead). If anyone knows how to get that functionality, please let me know.
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You can have mate offsets change based on a drop down configuration. In this case you would do the math, and if it’s extended the mate offset is some value, and a different value if it’s retracted. This is how I have done configurable telescoping tubes or elevators in the past.
Extension distance is a function of tube length, and I’m not immediately sure how I would reference the configurated tube length in the mate equation. Any recommendations?
FYI, here is our current document. V2 should have all the tube holes in the right place and extension and retraction limits that match the AndyMark step file. I reversed the direction of the hook for internal design reasons. To create custom lengths in the assembly configuration, duplicate the current configurations and change the length entries to all be the same tube length that you want (see image below). This model is still using the imported step files for all the parts that aren’t the configurable tubes, so it will render slower than a native Onshape document.
Anybody know if I can set the publicly-available version of this document to remain at a particular version? We may want to customize this in ways that other teams won’t care about.
I made a similar file except with less control over the actual tube lengths. You provide the maximum height you want the top of the hook to extend to, making the length from the very top of the hook to the bottom of the winch assembly that height. For instance, 48" gives a total package height of 48 inches rather than the hook extending to 48 inches.
The assembly might have some issues if you try to mess with it but honestly, it got the proof-of-concept part out of the way for our team, so I will probably just leave it as is until I need to use it again.
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Only maximum extension is a function of tube length.
You can have a variable in your assembly drive a configuration value of your parts, which should do the trick. With this, you should be able to create a configuration variable in the assembly for the tube length that you can do some math and also use in a distance mate limit to set the maximum extension.
We do need to have this set up better in MKCAD, it’s just hard to keep up with all the new products.
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Good call, the thing I was missing was that assembly configuration inputs can reference assembly configuration variables, which can then be passed to part studio configuration variable. So all I needed was for one of the configuration inputs to also have columns for every part that needed a tube length reference (See below). Still feels clunky because I have to have two configuration variables (tubeLengthPS and tubeLengthASM) and have to pass the assembly variable to the part studio variable for each part, but the functionality is there. V3 has these changes if anyone want to copy the doc for their own uses.
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Would this work with the Thrifty Climber? I am not sure what the differences are between the AM and the TB versions from looking at them.
THank you for making this, it is very helpful.
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