Pad 02 - Parametric enclosure Workflow

Goal

What do you want to achieve and why?

• Automatic workflow that lets you select devices (router, NUC, etc) from a database, and then generates the STL and STEP files for 3d printing, creates a BOM and an assembly manual, specific to your selection of devices

Used technology:

• cadquery
• gitbuilding
• AutoDoc

Goal for the hackathon: Generate a documentation and assembly guide based on pre-defined device configration.

Action items

What needs to be done? List the Tasks!

• Parameteric CAD design (cadquery)
• Database of routers etc and their dimensions and needed 3d printed tray type
• Integation with gitbuilding/AutoDoc to create BOM and assembly manual
• Document how to create whole case with trays only from dimensions of devices like router etc.
• Critically analyse if it is possible to create a case fully automatically or it is still necessary to do some manual customization for diferent devices.

People and their roles

Who contributes to this unit? What’s his/her role?

Other pads

Documentation of results

• Our goal was to tie together the CAD models, BOM and documentation so that they would update automatically together.
• We tested osh-autodoc and gitbuilding for doucmentation.
• We ran out of time
• Source code of this project https://github.com/hoijui/nimble/tree/master/src/mech/cadquery_workflow
• Current state of the Gitbuilding generated docs are hosted on Github pages at: https://hoijui.github.io/nimble/
• The idea of tying all of these tools and needs together was proven. The question now is how to move it to the next level for a broader user base.

Related links

• https://solar.coolab.org/
• https://gitlab.com/coletivo-coolab/solar-calculator/-/blob/master/src/assets/data/routers.js

Tools

• cadquery. Adreas suggest tos install the cq-editor https://github.com/CadQuery/CQ-editor
• gitbuilding - https://gitbuilding.io/
• osh-autodoc - https://codeberg.org/osh-autodoc/osh-autodoc-pdf

Summary

Results

• We have a working pre-processor Python script that ties together the dynamic information given by configuration files and CAD models into a set of human-readable documentation.
• The models are not a direct representation of the parts of the Nimble rack, but are representative of the existing parts.
• A live preview: https://hoijui.github.io/nimble/

Next steps

• After talking with Eric, it seems like a good next step to write a blog post detailing how to reproduce our work

Open questions

• What Software Licence should we use? The < https://github.com/hoijui/nimble/tree/master/LICENSES> mentions only Hardware and Documentation licenses.
• What needs to be done to make this pipeline of tools ready for a wider user base?

Links

Issue tickets etc.