Nimble hardware models are generated using Python. For CAD we used CadQuery. CadQuery scripts can be found in the mechanical directory, with individual components in the mechanical/components/cadquery directory. Our CadQuery scripts also use the nimble-builder module of helper functions.
Our preferred way to generate the models needed for a nimble configuration is via our orchestration module nimble-orchestration. This uses an orchestration tool called CadOrchestrator This can be used to generate trays for networking components, nimble-rack components, and a final CAD assembly. The orchestration system uses cq-cli to execute CadQuery scripts, and ExSource Tools to manage the process of turning scripts into useable models. The orchestration script will eventually use GitBuilding to generate assembly manuals.
You must have Python 3.10 or higher installed on your system and also have pip installed. We recommend that you use a Python virtual environment for interacting with nimble.
Clone or download this repository to your computer
Open a terminal (for example PowerShell in Windows) and navigate to this repository
Run:
pip install -e .
Note, if pip doesn't work depending on your system is configured you man need to replace pip with pipx, pip3, or python -m pip.
Starting in the root directory of this project. First you will need to generate the configuration options. To do this run:
gen_nimble_conf_options
Next run:
cadorchestrator serve
The server should now be available at http://127.0.0.1:8000/
The script cadorchestrator generate can be used generating a complete set of information for a nimble configuration from the command line.
Currently the configuration is just a list of the networking components which are hard coded. At a future date it should be possible to pass a configuration and other parameters to this script.
To generate run the following:
cadorchestrator generate '["NUC10i5FNH", "Raspberry_Pi_4B", "Raspberry_Pi_4B"]'
This should create the build directory. Inside this the printed_components directory should contain a number of stl files that can be 3D printed. It will also contain step files for each of these components.
The script also creates an stl and a gltf of the final assembled rack. Don't print this, it is not going to print properly as a single piece!
It also creates a number of files that are used by the orchestration script.
At a later date this script will be improved to create a directory (and associated zip-file of each configuration).
The script generate-static.py is used to create a number of example components for a Nimble rack. The script is not trying to support any specific configuration, but is instead being developed to provide a static library interface for which a large number of Nimble components can be downloaded.
To run this script, run the following command:
python generate_static.py
This should create the build directory. Inside this the printed_components directory should contain a number of stl files that can be 3D printed.
The script also creates a simple web-page with an index of all of the files. The final link to the "Partially complete automatically generated documentation" will be broken unless you also run generate.py (see below).
It also creates a number of files that are used by the orchestration script.
If you don't want to run this locally you can see a hosted version of the output.