FreeCAD Assistance

RedViking said:
Is fusion 360 still free for hobbyists? Works also great for Cookie cutters and if you keep the history in tact of the time line you can make adjustments and everything else will update as well.
Click to expand...
Yeah, but its slow and I much prefer an opensource tool. Freecad is much improved since the 1.0 release and great for a hobby person in my opinion.
 
Also, it has a lot more eyes on it now all of a sudden, I imagine it is only going to improve even more now, going forward.
 
It was always seen as the "kinda works" CAD software which is fair as it was a beta but the version 1.0.0 release really brought it up to a new level.

I've been using it for probably 6+ years and could always find an alternative way to do what I wanted when it wasn't cooperating but I mostly do small designs for 3d printing.

Biggest design is a vase mode lightweight PLA RC plane but that has a few problems that the slicer luckily fixes. Would be interesting to see if v1.0.0 let's me do a better job of it but that's not a small time investment.

Dogmatix-600-1664048147.png
 
Tinuva said:
So I think the first important thing to know is, you doing this in "part" workbench or the "part design" workbench.

They are doing the same thing, but different.
Part design = work with solids
Part = work with surfaces
Click to expand...
Never seen it put that way but I will try that.

I have alot of experience with Autodesk Inventor and abit with Solidworks and NX.
I decided to learn FreeCAD when I got my 3D printer since I realised I lost access to all the commercial CAD sofware when I left a job. So learning an Opensource CAD software well would be beneficial.

It was a happy accident that the FreeCAD 1.0 released coincided with this as it seems much more intuitive.

So far I have just done some basic designs and not touch anything assembly related.
 
is it possible to modify an STL on freecad?
 
ronz91 said:
is it possible to modify an STL on freecad?
Click to expand...
Yes, yes it is.

This is my list of hints for myself to remember each time:

1. New project
2. Import stl
3. go to part workbench
4. select body -> part -> create shape from mesh -> select sew shape -> ok
5. hide initial body
6. select body -> part -> create copy -> refine shape
7. hide previous body
8. part -> convert to solid
9. go to part design, create new body icon on toolbar
10. click basefeature
11. select the face
12. create sketch
13. then pad and extrude and sketch etc

I do recommend this below video, because it shows you it is quite different way of working with STLs vs building something from scratch.

Full video:
 
Tinuva said:
Yes, yes it is.

This is my list of hints for myself to remember each time:

1. New project
2. Import stl
3. go to part workbench
4. select body -> part -> create shape from mesh -> select sew shape -> ok
5. hide initial body
6. select body -> part -> create copy -> refine shape
7. hide previous body
8. part -> convert to solid
9. go to part design, create new body icon on toolbar
10. click basefeature
11. select the face
12. create sketch
13. then pad and extrude and sketch etc

I do recommend this below video, because it shows you it is quite different way of working with STLs vs building something from scratch.

Full video:
Click to expand...
you're a legend!
 
I've also just purchased a 3D printer and have been messing around with Onshape as I have some simple models that I want to make.

I assume that CAD is like programming - writing code is the easy part - so changing languages or in CAD’s case, software, is relatively straightforward, and the main skill is in understanding how a design might come together 🤷‍♂️
 
_kabal_ said:
I've also just purchased a 3D printer and have been messing around with Onshape as I have some simple models that I want to make.

I assume that CAD is like programming - writing code is the easy part - so changing languages or in CAD’s case, software, is relatively straightforward, and the main skill is in understanding how a design might come together 🤷‍♂️
Click to expand...
yeah if you learn 1 of the mainstream programs, switching to others is usually simple enough
 
does freecad have good thread generation features, particularly for 3d prints?
 
Tinuva said:
Yes, yes it is.

This is my list of hints for myself to remember each time:

1. New project
2. Import stl
3. go to part workbench
4. select body -> part -> create shape from mesh -> select sew shape -> ok
5. hide initial body
6. select body -> part -> create copy -> refine shape
7. hide previous body
8. part -> convert to solid
9. go to part design, create new body icon on toolbar
10. click basefeature
11. select the face
12. create sketch
13. then pad and extrude and sketch etc

I do recommend this below video, because it shows you it is quite different way of working with STLs vs building something from scratch.

Full video:
Click to expand...
I am trying to do this on Siemens NX and getting nowhere fast yoh

might need to use Freecad as a middle man
 
_kabal_ said:
I've also just purchased a 3D printer and have been messing around with Onshape as I have some simple models that I want to make.

I assume that CAD is like programming - writing code is the easy part - so changing languages or in CAD’s case, software, is relatively straightforward, and the main skill is in understanding how a design might come together 🤷‍♂️
Click to expand...
Yeah, you have to learn how to think simultaneously like a 3D printer manufacturing the part and whatever is using the part.

There are some paradigms in CAD software though. You get the parametric CAD like Onshape where your model is built out of a series of steps, and there are others that just edit the mesh.
 
Coincidentally, was checking out Freecad 1.0 this weekend. Downloaded and installed but still need to try it out.
Was interested in comparing it to what I use daily for my work. CATIA and Siemens NX.
Particularly the surfacing and CAM tools.

Someone mentioned something that confused me, coming from CATIA and Siemens NX.
Part and Part design.

NX and CATIA, solid body modeling (parametric modeling) is not separated by surface and non-surface-based tools.
It stays a parametric model, you do have separate tools for making surfaces, but solid modeling is not separated by surface and non-surface modeling.

Don't expect it to be as good as the big boys but would be nice if was good enough for people to learn how to work in CAD.
Best way to learn CAD, is to do CAD every day. Can't exactly do that if you have to pay for access.
Even student licenses are crazy expensive.
 
ronz91 said:
does freecad have good thread generation features, particularly for 3d prints?
Click to expand...
a bit late but the new ver1.0 has a "fastener" add on workbench that does all types of screws / nuts / bolts / clips etc. with threads. I can't vouch for the 3d print side of it as I don't have a 3d printer yet,


Capture.JPG
 
Sworaxe said:
Coincidentally, was checking out Freecad 1.0 this weekend. Downloaded and installed but still need to try it out.
Was interested in comparing it to what I use daily for my work. CATIA and Siemens NX.
Particularly the surfacing and CAM tools.

Someone mentioned something that confused me, coming from CATIA and Siemens NX.
Part and Part design.

NX and CATIA, solid body modeling (parametric modeling) is not separated by surface and non-surface-based tools.
It stays a parametric model, you do have separate tools for making surfaces, but solid modeling is not separated by surface and non-surface modeling.

Don't expect it to be as good as the big boys but would be nice if was good enough for people to learn how to work in CAD.
Best way to learn CAD, is to do CAD every day. Can't exactly do that if you have to pay for access.
Even student licenses are crazy expensive.
Click to expand...
I'm busy with the new version of freecad. there are nice features in freecad that I now miss in catia. like constaints - freecad you can use the keyboard letters, but not in catia - atleast not in my catia v5.
 
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Sworaxe said:
Coincidentally, was checking out Freecad 1.0 this weekend. Downloaded and installed but still need to try it out.
Was interested in comparing it to what I use daily for my work. CATIA and Siemens NX.
Particularly the surfacing and CAM tools.

Someone mentioned something that confused me, coming from CATIA and Siemens NX.
Part and Part design.

NX and CATIA, solid body modeling (parametric modeling) is not separated by surface and non-surface-based tools.
It stays a parametric model, you do have separate tools for making surfaces, but solid modeling is not separated by surface and non-surface modeling.

Don't expect it to be as good as the big boys but would be nice if was good enough for people to learn how to work in CAD.
Best way to learn CAD, is to do CAD every day. Can't exactly do that if you have to pay for access.
Even student licenses are crazy expensive.
Click to expand...

FreeCad has a workbench concept and certain tools exist on certain workbenches. The part and part design are two parametric workbenches one is for simple shape based cad and the other is a sketch + constraint based one.
You would often jump around between them depending on what you are doing.

There are also lots of add on workbenches since you mentioned surfaces the curves workbench is an example of an add on woknench that has more functionality than the default surface workbench.

Its one of the concepts that take a while to figure out and causes quite a bit of fragmentation and makes the ui more complex.
 
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