pic: Introducing MKCad, the Onshape FRC Parts Library

#1

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On behalf of FRC Team 1836: The Milkenknights, I’m proud to officially release MKCad!

MKCad is a FRC COTS parts library native to Onshape! No longer will teams that use Onshape for FRC have to download parts, deal with wonky imports, set their own colors and materials, and go through a lot of hoops just to put a few COTS parts into their assemblies

How do I use MKCad?
In any Onshape assembly, hit Insert (like you would for any other part) then go to Other Documents and Public. In the search bar, type in "MKCad - " and then the thing you want to import or scroll to the type of part you want.

What is included in MKCad?
MKCad is divided up into different documents for ease of import. Across all of these documents, MKCad includes bearings, electronics components (simplified and real), Fasteners, COTS Gearboxes, Gears, Hubs, Motors, Pulleys, Sensors, Snap Rings, Shaft Collars, Standard Vex Spacers, Sprockets, TONS of Versa products, and Wheels. MKCad includes every Vexpro, WCP, Andymark, and Mcmaster part I think my team (and others I work closely with) would ever use on a competing robot.

Why should I use MKCad over other options?
MKCad is native to Onshape, meaning that part weights, names, colors, and everything else is conveniently set up for use in Onshape assemblies. Motors, electronics, and other critical/heavy parts have weights set from the supplier. Almost every part in MKCad also includes the part number for easy ordering if you use OpenBom or have very patient mentors. From those that have tested it within and outside of my team, I’ve heard that MKCad helps speed up the Onshape assembly process up to two or three times as fast! My teammates and I have been working hard to make this parts library as convenient as possible, and I hope you find it as quick and easy as we do!

Is Marcus Bernstein really posting on CD without a new featurescript to release?!
Nope! MKCad also includes featurescripts! For now, I have Chain Path Generator, Shaft Generator, Hole Patterned Tube Generator, and Versaplanetary Generator. I will likely be adding more before season, but these are all up and working so feel free to use them as much as you’d like!

There is a COTS part I want MKCad to add, what should I do?
Now that I’m in college and on break from school, I have plenty of free time! Feel free to reach out to me or reply to this thread and I will make sure my CAD team gets it in.

If you find any bugs, have parts you want me to add, plan on using MKCad on your team, or anything else, don’t hesitate to post on this thread. As always, your questions and feedback are appreciated!

The Milkenknights hope you like MKCad!

6 Likes
FRC 319 - Public CAD 2019
Electronic CADing
Disadvantages of Onshape
#2

This looks absolutely fantastic! I’m definitely checking this out.

#3

We’re well established with Solidworks, however Milkenknight’s efforts to advance OnShape in FRC is unparalleled.

Seeing this stuff is legitimately awesome, and it gives teams another very compelling mechanical design suite to use.

#TSIMFD

#4

As a team that uses OnShape for cad this is an invaluable resource for FRC designers. My team has been very thankful for testing the early versions, and am sure they will be very happy to here about this complete library. This will speed up our workflow a lot, thanks Marcus and 1836!

#5

Our team is switching over from Inventor to OnShape this season and this will make that transition so much easier.

Thank you so much!

#6

cool stuff in one place :smiley: I like it!

#7

As another team that uses Onshape, this is a great resource for us!

#8

As someone who has been beta testing this, it is an amazing resource! My team will be using it for the foreseeable future.

Props to Marcus and 1836 for putting this together and sharing it! He has been super helpful and responsive, definitely the right person to be managing this project. I hope this CAD Library convinces many teams to switch to Onshape.

#9

Thanks for adding these resources. And the bigger thing for me was learning how to add parts from public documents into an assembly because the KoP documents Onshape provided (onshape.com/edu/frc) are way easier to use. Search for “2017 Kickoff” to bring these up and skip the documents that say “copy”.

I’m encouraged to get back into learning to CAD the robot, so we’ll see how that goes, I still am not very good. I like the videos from Onshape for general learning but there definitely is room for more FRC-specific tutorials in OnShape (if anyone needs a winter break project).

#10

Love this feature. Thanks for doing this!

Is there a way to add the AM Evo Shifter to the gearboxes options?

#11

Well done! I quit lurking and created an account just to say THANKS!

Happy New Year, indeed!

Sincerely,
Casey

#12

Thank you!

FRC 2090 (Honolulu, HI) is in its third season of using Onshape so new-to-Onshape teams, please reach out if you have any questions.

#13

As we are doing our electronics layout we are finding frustrations with some models. Specifically, the RoboRIO model has only the connectors (no case or anything). In addition, some models like the PDP are broken into over a hundred different part studios instead of one assembly. I tried to import a STP of a similar PDP model and it caused the same issue. Anyway to make these single bodies? Or at the very least make all of it into simplified models like the PCM?

Other than this issue, it’s been working great for our team.

#14

1836 - Thanks so much! We (58) have been using your library extensively saving us a bunch of time. Kudos

#15

I am playing around with onshape, and when I dragged a cim in from one of your libraries, I couldn’t see a mass to try and see a total weight of my assembly. Any tips to add the weight back in.

#16

Are you sure you’re using the official MKCad Library and not one of the many copies out there? I’m showing the most recent version as having the correct weight applied.

#17

I’ve been trying out this library and it works pretty good! But is there a way to “favorite” certain public libraries so that they don’t have to be searched for every time?

Also, mass is missing on a few items in the Wheels library, like the 4" Vexpro omni and mecanum wheels. I’m pretty sure it’s the correct library, since other wheels in it have masses applied.

#18

Yes. What you want to do is create a “Label” that you add to the correct documents. Then this label will show up in the “Other Documents” tab when you’re inserting them.

#19

Anybody else not seeing mass for the versa planataries? My students swear they are pulling them in from the real MK library…

#20

You are correct. The MKCad VP library does not have masses. Before I got involved with MKCad directly, I made a copy of that file and added masses for myself. I just updated the name of the document to belong to the MKCad library and just made it public.

You can find it by searching in the Insert search bar with either the name or the url (preferred).

‘MKCad - Configurable Versaplanetary (with masses)’

https://cad.onshape.com/documents/4e417451d738c0919f3cf36e/w/bc7d06f42213cb86a07f450e/e/aaaf9ed4f174ec3eab1489e6

Alternatively, I created a different VP library; however this is not a configurable assembly builder like the one above. It will allow you to insert most of the different types of stages (ring gears and all), but you will need to do the work of mating it all together. I have provided mate connectors for this purpose for easy fastening. Probably harder than the option above, but might be more satisfying if you are super detail-oriented.

‘Versaplanetary Assemblies - FRC 1745’

https://cad.onshape.com/documents/7dfd196a3cb76ebab056e75c/w/0a66233e1c2dcd8308ef38e4/e/36b6e27bb30df3d47865d7f5

I haven’t used either anytime recently, so I don’t remember if there are any issues with them. Let me know if you have any issues. I’ll hopefully have some time between this FRC season and the next to work on integrating some more of my personal stuff into MKCad. Enjoy!