I vibecoded a suitcase handle months ago with its Python interface. A pleasant experience.
FreeCAD v1.1
71–80 of 111 posts
Re: FreeCAD v1.1
#72Slightly unrelated to this story, but I’m curious if anyone has good resources for learning FreeCAD. I have quite a lot of experience with SolidWorks, AutoCAD, OnShape, and similar software, but FreeCAD has always been hard for me to pick up.
This is for after you've done a tutorial or two: There was a PDF I had a while back (can't remember the name) which has a bunch of shapes you had to design in a 3D CAD program, with some guiding measurements. The shapes got harder to create as you progressed through the book. That was a good, fun way to sharpen my skills after I learned the basics.
Probably this one: https://ko-fi.com/offsetcad/shop
I have it, it's great. There's a free one, I paid a few bucks for the full set. Guy has a Youtube channel too where he shows how he does a few of the designs. Good guy, I had some troubles with the payment getting through to him and then the download didn't work for some reason (some weird combination of issues, don't remember details), and he just send me the whole pack without even knowing if I was going to actually put in the effort to make the payment work.
Re: FreeCAD v1.1
#73Is it any closer to functioning like Solidworks, NX, Creo, and all the other professional CAD software packages? Edit: After opening it up it seems better than before but still not a replacement. I can use the draw tool to create a rectangle but than immediately cannot apply symmetry or equal length constraints until I delete others which shouldn't overlap. Clicking to create a cut or hole opens up a window that does…
My impression of FreeCAD as a project is that for much if its life it has suffered from a certain amount of developer churn and lack of focus. It's like somebody builds a workbench and gets it working just good enough using a workflow that makes sense to them, but then nobody ever really bothers to flesh out the rest of it, so if you try to do things in a different way that may be perfectly sensible to you the result…
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Re: FreeCAD v1.1
#74I post this in every FreeCAD thread: If you're going to start designing something with it, use the spreadsheet tool to make everything parametric. You'll save yourself a ton of time as your designs get more complicated. Maybe this isn't anything new to experience CAD users. I don't know if other CAD tools do this as I started using FreeCAD after playing with 3D printing.
This seems like good advice. To this day I haven't explored spreadsheets or variable sets, which makes resizing stuff a giant pain in the ass.
This is an area where FreeCAD really needs work: scaling stuff.
Re: FreeCAD v1.1
#75Slightly unrelated to this story, but I’m curious if anyone has good resources for learning FreeCAD. I have quite a lot of experience with SolidWorks, AutoCAD, OnShape, and similar software, but FreeCAD has always been hard for me to pick up.
Just a pre-heads-up: depending on what you're trying to do, the exact tool and thus tutorial you need maybe slightly different. For example, I made a gasket for my mini PC awhile ago using FreeCAD. Designing it was a hell until I discovered the Sheet Metal Workbench in the plugin manager, and just like that, I got it designed & manufactured within ~4 days. During my experience, most of my time was spent on learning h…
plug-in
built-in
Hyphens FTW!
Re: FreeCAD v1.1
#76Is it any closer to functioning like Solidworks, NX, Creo, and all the other professional CAD software packages? Edit: After opening it up it seems better than before but still not a replacement. I can use the draw tool to create a rectangle but than immediately cannot apply symmetry or equal length constraints until I delete others which shouldn't overlap. Clicking to create a cut or hole opens up a window that does…
It's inherently limited by its geometry kernel. Most "real" CAD suites use something like parasolid, usually with a bunch of extras slapped on top. Making a new one from scratch is a massive undertaking, but I'll remain forever hopeful that we get a new, modern, open-source kernel one of these days...
What's wrong with OCCT?
Re: FreeCAD v1.1
#77Earlier quoted context omitted.
The only issue I have with the Spreadsheet is that I need to add an alias for every value I want to use in the Sketch or Part Design workbench. In practice, this usually looks like A B width 2mm length 3mm and for every cell in B I add an alias with the same value as in column A. Is there a way around that?
https://wiki.freecad.org/Macro_EasyAlias EasyAlias macro maybe?
not "maybe" this is an absolute must if using parameters in a spreadsheet :)
Re: FreeCAD v1.1
#78I like FreeCAD but I use it so rarely that I forget how to use it by the time I need it again.
So I returned to Fusion 360 (for the time being).
Maybe this new FreeCAD version is easier to use?
Re: FreeCAD v1.1
#79I vibecoded a suitcase handle months ago with its Python interface. A pleasant experience.
Would like to hear more about how you did it. Did you connect it up to Claude Code?
Re: FreeCAD v1.1
#80I post this in every FreeCAD thread: If you're going to start designing something with it, use the spreadsheet tool to make everything parametric. You'll save yourself a ton of time as your designs get more complicated. Maybe this isn't anything new to experience CAD users. I don't know if other CAD tools do this as I started using FreeCAD after playing with 3D printing.
This is an outdated advice. Spreadsheet is hard to use in comparison to VarSets [0]. Recent changes in 1.1 make them even easier and more intuitive to use.