Assembly2 Workbench

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The Assembly2 workbench is obsolete. Its author no longer maintains it, so it may not work with FreeCAD versions 0.17 and above. The information in this page is not maintained; it is just kept for historical purposes.

For an alternative, see A2plus. This workbench is a fork of Assembly2, but it is not compatible with it. If you have older models that you need to open, you should stay with FreeCAD 0.16 and Assembly2. Newer models should be created entirely and opened with A2plus.
For other options see Assembly3 or Assembly4. These workbenches are also inspired by Assembly2, but are not compatible with it either.

Introduction

Assembly2 is an assembly workbench for FreeCAD v0.15 with support for importing parts from external files.

As stated by its author on the forum, it is no longer maintained since 2016, therefore it may have issues with FreeCAD 0.17 and above. The newer and actively maintained A2plus Workbench is a good alternative.

Usage

Intended work-flow:

each part in the assembly is designed in its own FreeCAD file
a separate assembly FreeCAD file is created
parts are imported to this assembly file using the Assembly 2 workbench
spacial constraints are then added to assemble the imported parts

Features

circular edge constraint
axial constraint
plane constraint
part importing
updating of parts already imported

Limitations

Poor constraint solver which may fail or take excessively long for complicated assemblies
undo and other similar features not supported

References

Author: hamish
Home page: Assembly2
Source code on github: Assembly2

Tools

Toolbar

Drop down menu

Import a part from another FreeCAD document
Update parts imported into the assembly
Move
Add circular edge constraint
Add plane constraint
Add axial constraint
Create an angular constraint between two planes
Add Spherical surface constraint
Animate degrees of freedom
Solve Assembly2 constraint
Combine assembly into a single object (use to create a drawing of the assembly, and so on...)
Create a parts list from the objects imported using the assembly2 workbench
Ceck assembly for part overlap/interferance

Other

Bolt multiple circular edges
Flip constraint
Lock rotation
Preferences
Assembly2 WB icon

Installation

Automatic installation

This workbench can be installed from the Addon Manager.

From GitHub

To use this workbench clone this git repository under your FreeCAD Mod directory, and install the pyside and numpy Python libraries. On a Linux Debian based system such as Ubuntu, installation can be done through BASH as follows

sudo apt-get install git python-numpy python-pyside
mkdir ~/.FreeCAD/Mod
cd ~/.FreeCAD/Mod
git clone https://github.com/hamish2014/FreeCAD_assembly2.git

In FreeCAD you will now have a new workbench-entry called "Assembly 2". Once installed, use git to upgrade to the latest version through BASH as follows

cd ~/.FreeCAD/Mod/FreeCAD_assembly2
git pull
rm *.pyc

Alternatilvely, on an Ubuntu system the freecad-community PPA can be used:

Add ppa:freecad-community/ppa to your software sources
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install freecad-extras-assembly2

In Windows

download the git repository as ZIP
assuming FreeCAD is installed in "C:\PortableApps\FreeCAD 0_15", go to "C:\PortableApps\FreeCAD 0_15\Mod" within Windows Explorer
create new directory named "assembly2"
unzip downloaded repository in "C:\PortableApps\FreeCAD 0_15\Mod\assembly2"

FreeCAD will now have a new workbench-entry called "Assembly 2".

Pyside and Numpy are integrated in the FreeCAD 0.15 dev-Snapshots, so these Python packages do not need to be installed individually

To update to the latest version, delete the assembly2 folder and redownload the git repository.

Links

Workbench Wiki:
FreeCAD Wiki:
FreeCAD Forum: http://forum.freecadweb.org/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=8577
Tutorials:
Videos: video 1, video 2,
Files:
Report bugs: Please report bugs at https://github.com/hamish2014/FreeCAD_assembly2/issues