Once upon a time, I would have given my eye teeth for a tool like this: FramePro
I’ve more time than I care to admit in recreating 80-20 bits and bobs.
Misumi has something similar with Rapid Design.
Does anyone have any experience with the 8020 plugin for Solidworks? (AutoQuoterSW.)
I do not.
It’s been a long time since I was 80-20-ing. Looking at the site they finally wised up and did a online commerce thing.
When I was using 80-20, sales were all done by distributors. For most of them, 80-20 was just something they signed up for and not particularly well supported. Corporate tried to squeeze you into using a local entity. My local entity was a hydraulic equipment sales company, and they could barely spell 80-20.
I bitched so much to corporate, that they relented and referred me to a distributor in the Chicago area, and 80-20 was a sizeable part of the business. After tht it was much smoother.
I created my own library of 80-20 parts, especially the extrusions. The downloaded ones have lots of ridges in them which act as flow lines to help the aluminum extrude better and have a slight slope to the surfaces to help clamping forces. If you don’t need that level of detail it’s better to have flat surfaces to mate easier and help speed up regens in large assemblies. The weight difference was minimal even on large parts.