I haven’t used OnShape, and when I was a student on 271 we basically just pushed stuff up and down from a drive or used flash drives (that system has changed since I graduated).
This year for both Senior Design and ND Rocketry (NASA Student Launch Competition) we used GrabCAD Workbench and it was great! We use Creo, and it worked just fine, though I never used the online viewer. Also, GrabCAD is great because you can have other non-CAD files in your folders and it will store those too. Think NC files, screengrabs, drawings, renders, etc. It all syncs with your folders.
One challenge is with using Creo is that it is very picky about what files are stored in what directory, so careful attention to directory organization is important when building assemblies, but that is more of a problem with Creo than with GrabCAD.
I would super recommend GrabCAD Workbench to any FRC Team. It’s stupidly easy to use and does its job. Plus it has a plug-in for even easier use if your team uses Solidworks.
Given a reliable internet connection and an okay computer, I haven’t noticed any slowdowns. The computer lab adjacent to our shop at the high school is pretty bad. It takes like 10 minutes just to log in to the computer. No software runs well on them. So we do see slowdowns there, but nothing different compared to when we were using SolidWorks last year. At the end of the day, an FRC robot isn’t all that complex compared to products engineers are making professionally.
I do want to reiterate that Onshape doesn’t crash. I’ve had webgl crash though on occasion. Worst case you have to refresh your browser, but you shouldn’t lose any changes.
Just to clarify my position a bit. I do not think Onshape is a better CAD software than any of the others mentioned. If I were working on a project alone on a single computer, I would choose SolidWorks, but that is not how our team operates. And every month Onshape closes the functionality gap a little bit, so there will be fewer and fewer ‘but I can do X much easier in Y software’ complaints as time goes on.
My team didn’t do much CAD before 2016 when I joined as a mentor. They did one-off parts if they were machining something on the mill. When I joined, myself and one other student used SolidWorks with GrabCAD for a couple of years (Stronghold and Steamworks). There was one other student who exported STEP files of parts and brought them into Fusion 360 to make toolpaths for our X-Carve CNC router.
After playing around with Onshape for awhile, I made the decision to switch the team over to Onshape going into the FTC season for many of the reasons I’ve discussed. The difference was INSANE. We spent 0 time setting up the latest version of the software. The only thing we had to do was ask students to sign up online so I could add them to the team, which we’re already doing with Google Drive, Basecamp, and STIMS. We’ve had a majority of our students touching the CAD (up from 1 or 2!). To date, mostly this is just students opening up the document to look at it or get measurements for a specific part they are making, but there is no barrier to them interacting with the CAD. Nothing to upload or download. Nothing they can mess up too much. And now many of the returning students are clamoring to learn Onshape this summer, where before there was almost zero interest.
In addition, our robotics teacher is switching from Inventor to Onshape for the next school year. Nothing but positives from my perspective, and it’s only getting better!
What do y’all use for Libraries for common COTS parts?
A year or two ago I began making a folder with pretty much every COTS part we’ve used (Vex, AM, WCP, McMaster, etc.). This works well but it means that the giant folder has to be added to every project that you do.
GrabCAD allows you to have a common parts library. It allows you to create a separate project just for COTS parts and use them in any GrabCAD project/assembly without needing it in your project folder.
We use GrabCAD’s “Common Parts Library” option in a project to create our library. This includes all COTs components, some trainings, reference documents, info on other teams, etc; we use it as a library. Then we set this folder from our desktop as the default directory for searching for referenced files. Basically, if you open an assembly that contains a 217-2000 (CIM) you will not find that file in the in project you are working from. It pulls it from the Common Parts Library. Then we just update the library as needed. We are looking at converting this over to the Solid works Toolbox to make finding things easier; another thing to add to the summer list.
We have a COTS library setup as a Common Parts Library in GrabCAD and as a Library in our Inventor project files. We’ve assigned mass for all of the parts in our parts library, and libraries in Inventor are read-only, so we can ensure that the COTS files don’t get modified.
GrabCAD is pretty slow with updating to support online viewing of the latest versions of Inventor parts or assemblies, and when it does work GrabCAD doesn’t really understand how to show parts from our parts library, so a lot of our assemblies look weird on the web viewer.
Ontop of that in Solidworks you can import said library and use it as if it one of the builtin ones, which is absolutely amazing, its so fast to import parts that way.
What is the advantage to this over just having an additional project that is your library? I saw the library feature in GrabCAD but it didn’t seem to offer anything useful.
We have used OnShape for the past year or so and have liked it a lot. Some of the best functions, as mentioned before, are the amazing version controls, OnShape teams, and MKCAD.
I couple times I have messed up my main assembly that it sorta ruins everything; I can easily open up the edit history, go before the bad edit, and click “revert” and it is all back to normal. It is so easy. OnShape teams allows me to easily share our robots with the entire team, who is then able to access them whenever they want. I often use OnShape mobile when in the pit at comp or just assembling the robot to quickly double check my work and to make sure everything is where it is supposed to be. MKCAD is one of the best features for a FRC environment. I am able to import pretty much any COTS part or fastener from McMaster from any computer without having to download the library or anything like that. It is all cloud based and so easy.
While Anand, Asid61 might gripe about the lack of a path length tool like in Solidworks, it has been a great solution for us. If you have any questions about our workflow and use of the software feel free to PM me…
It essentially is just another project in GrabCAD. We create a separate project for each robot and other things. By using the common parts option it’s one less project I have to add people to, since everyone on the account is automatically assigned as a collaborator. Other than that, it’s one less project I have to add users to; I don’t see a difference to a normal project.
Your workplace IT Department has chosen to set things up so Onshape is inaccessible. At my current workplace, they have chosen to make various social media and streaming services inaccessible. I was told that if I needed some of them for work purposes, they could be made available to me. Our corporate IT policy would not allow me to install standalone CAD software on my work computer unless it is provided by my workplace. I am also prohibited from bringing a computer from home to my workplace. For me, I am able to do something using Onshape on my lunch time but not with any of the standalone CAD packages.
None of these packages is perfect. It does seem that the shorter learning curve may make Onshape more accessible to more people overall.
W’ere a Fusion 360 team ourselves, as it has good CAD with cloud sharing and collaboration compatibility built in and its free for students and makers. One of the biggest reasons we use it though is its built in CAM, so we can easily generate g-code for our shapeoko 3.
I have test driven Onshape for some time now, and will say that I was pleasantly surprised. It has come a long way since the first time I saw it a few years back.
I do like the ability to collaborate and teach/train/help students (and mentors) as they go with the follow feature. Onshape also has the advantage on the cloud side of the house (seems obvious), but their mobile apps work well. I tested them on an iPhone 6, Google Pixel 2 and an old iPad 2(?).
The ability to work conceptual thoughts to a detailed design is probably the most powerful advantage Onshape offers. Making everything in the Parts Studio (yes SolidWorks has the Multi-Body parts & Split) and the ability to quickly make changes on the fly by anyone (This is where SolidWorks gets in trouble). We all need to tweak designs, we aren’t perfect…
I’m still a little torn on the whole I need to be on the internet to use it kind of thing, especially if I’m trying to do things on the go or at work; but this may not be a problem for most. Does anyone know what type of data usage Onshape requires if I were to hotspot?
I was far more critical of Onshape as I should have been. Lesson learned: first impressions are not always the best impressions. I think we are still a bit out from using Onshape on the team as our main CAD tool, but it has uses.
Nothing but positives from my perspective, and it’s only getting better!