TLDR: MKCad is restructuring our library, and it may break some of your older models unless you read this.
This post is going to outline extensive changes to the way that MKCad is organized / managed. Onshape has become a widely used design tool in FRC and it’s time for MKCad to evolve to support increasing use and demands. With this post, we’re starting the process of re-organizing the MKCad library to make it more user friendly, maintainer friendly, and sustainable.
Below is a list of ~17 Onshape documents that MKCad will maintain. These documents represent categories, and the part studios within them will allow you to find exactly what you need. There is a process for moving existing documents and part studios, outlined below. This process was designed in an attempt to minimize broken model links in user documents, while also trying to move to a fully re-organized and updated library before the start of the 2023 season.
The Process
Part studios and assemblies that need to move to another document
Documents that will no longer be maintained by MKCad will also be marked with (Deprecated) and will be removed from MKCad before the start of the 2023 season.
New Document Structure
Categories
Each category will be an Onshape document with many part studios / assemblies. There’s no particular order to the below list.
Bearings & Bushings
COTS Mechanisms
Electronics
Extrusion & Shafts
Fasteners and Hardware
Game Elements
Gearboxes
Gears
Gussets & Brackets
Motors
Pneumatics
Pulleys
Spacers and Hubs
Sprockets & Chain
Swerve
Wheels
FTC
Updates to the FTC document will stop, as MKCad is primarily an FRC library.
And it was so convenient feeling for my first foray into onshape with this FTC season. Definitely RIP. Do any of the alternatives have the same/similar workflow?
When do you expect that the reorganization will be complete such that it would be appropriate to review existing models and replace the deprecated instances? If deprecated instances are expected to be deleted around the end of the year, it seems that the window will be short to fix existing content before parts go missing.
Here is a question that might be impossible to answer, but I’ll toss out anyway…what fraction of MKCAD parts do you expect to be impacted by this reorganization? Should users expect a significant amount of work to repair existing content or is it likely to be almost a non-issue? Are there any categories of parts that will be heavily affected and need particular attention?
The deletion of the deprecated documents will not have any immediate impacts on old models - all of the parts that are deleted will still show in the assemblies and can be moved around, mated, and copy/pasted like normal. Onshape retains the geometry of parts that have their documents deleted, which is pretty neat. You are able to “Replace instance” these parts if you want for some reason, such as if we add new configuration options to a part in this update.
Depending on the way we re-organize, some parts that show a “linked document has new version” icon may fail to resolve upon updating. This is where the replace instances feature would be used if you wanted to swap it out and get rid of the icon , or you can just use the “Pin reference” feature to not be notified about that new version.
So, TL:DR, your previous robot models will look the same and shouldn’t require re-work!
this is great. I love MKCad, even for non-FRC things. I was designing a robotic arm that sorted laundry for my engineering class (FRC level build) and I used MKCad mini-CIMs and the Limelight 2.0 model (i was then told off for using Onshape and not Inventor like we’re supposed to).
This leads me to believe it’s related to some API endpoint that the MKCad App is hitting. When using enterprise instances, you don’t navigate to cad.onshape.com, right? Maybe the App needs to know what instance you’re using it from and hit a different API endpoint?
Yep, we are at ncssm.onshape.com and I think it’s got to be some kind of API related bug. I might open a ticket and get them to take a look that way as well.
Clearing the cached items from onshape in my browser worked. I did also remove the app subscription prior to clearing the cache and added it back after clearing the cache but I don’t think that is what did it.
icon may fail to resolve upon updating. This is where the replace instances feature would be used if you wanted to swap it out and get rid of the 
