**Is there a better collection of library items for Bike CAD?
I can never find the fork, tire, seatpost, or dropouts I might actually want to use. I know you can create your own, and save them, but some items are hard to find or input into the program.
I’m pretty new, and I am just trying to figure some things out to save some time.
I’m not sure if libraries can be shared between users.
Handlebars are one of the hardest things for me to understand inputing dimensions with. I almost feel like that could be its own breakout and file view. for designing or just inputing an existing bar.
Sliding dropouts are another.
At the moment, not to my knowledge. A while back I was planning to start a thread here where people can share their custom parts, but I never got around to it. Maybe I’ll dust off the idea. It would have to have some guidelines so we know the parts can be trusted to be accurate.
I’d recommend spending some time getting familiar with as much as possible in BikeCAD before starting to work out shortcuts. You’ll get a much better understanding of the capabilities of the program that way.
The official way to share a custom component is to create it in your model and share the .bcad file. When someone else opens the file, BikeCAD will give them the option to save the component to their library. This method is explained HERE.
The unofficial way would be to navigate to the BikeCAD configuration directory and find the part inside the relevant subfolder, share that file and instruct the person receiving it to place the file in the correct folder. The official method is far more straightforward.
You may have seen that there are a fair few handlebar models already included as standard models in BikeCAD. For example, the Enve and Curve bars in there are all modeled by Brent based on official specs from those brands.
Again, I’d suggest playing around a bit to make yourself familiar with the interface and what the various dimensions do.
Which sliding dropout are you planning to use?
There are a number of styles already in there as presets, with options to display different inserts too. Such as:
Not as elegant of name. I am note 100% sure if I am going to stick with this dropout, I kindof just needed something in hand to help.
PS, i thought I looked thru all the dropout, and I guess I went in reverse order, I must have missed the C25, if I am not mistaken that is the Metal Guru offering, or at least pretty dam close.
This is what I come here for is to learn and see what I am missing.
Happy to help when I can.
BikeCAD may look like a ‘simple’ application to start with, but it has so much functionality that’s easily overlooked, or difficult to find.
I use BikeCAD a lot, and I still sometimes find things I didn’t know, or forget where to find things I used to know.
The C25 dropout with the C59 insert does look like it’s the same as the Metal Guru offering. The one thing that throws me off is the note on the Metal Guru site saying that the spacing is different by 5mm. I’m assuming that the 5mm needs to be added to the drive side only, so if you’re planning to model up chainstays and seatstays in the auxiliary view, you will need to take that into consideration.
Unfortunately, it looks like there’s no way to make an asymmetric adjustment for the “Sz” and “Cz” parameters in the Rear Dropouts panel when the dropout is defined by a static drawing.
Maybe @BikeCAD can let us know if there’s a preferred workaround, or if the UDH insert for the Allotec C25 dropout will be included in the next update. The next update may be some way away since Version 22.0 was released just over a month ago.
Thanks for pointing out that 22.0 is out. I was still running 21.0. I just updated and realized my libraries don’t transfer, but luckily I had prefix my created files with “est.” so I was able to jump in there and add those into the configuration files.
Already learning so much. 22 also from what I saw added some more tires and stems, probably some other things. but those are what I easily saw.
Thanks for the kind words about BikeCAD. You actually can set different values for Cz and C2z. You just need to check the asymmetric checkbox in the chainstay dialog box. Choosing the asymmetric option in the seatstay dialog box will allow you to adjust S2z.