Looking forward to this update. There are so many hidden gotchas in FreeCAD once you get past the basics. Load of bugs and head scratching issues. However its free and local so can’t complain to much.
FreeCAD v1.1
41–50 of 111 posts
Re: FreeCAD v1.1
#42Slightly 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.
MangoJelly on YouTube was my primary learning source, and a few other channels - but his "gelled" with me the best.
My goal this year is to finish his 40ish hour course. Excellent quality course at a good pace.
Re: FreeCAD v1.1
#43Recently one of the magnet holders for my window shutters broke, and I thought I'd take a crack at designing a replacement to 3D Print. I'd never designed anything in CAD software before, so I had no real reference. I found FreeCAD extremely easy to use and intuitive. I watched a couple videos and followed-along with the tutorials, then started on my own item. It's a relatively simple 3-part component. I took measure…
for incredibly simple parts that i can describe using measurements, i've had a lot of fun pointing a high-power ai at openscad and letting it iterate through making the design for me it's still tough to turn it into something i can then keep fiddling with in freecad though put on "tron: ares" in the background to fully appreciate the model designing something that will be 3d-printed :)
For a lot of stuff, you might have better luck getting it to generate something like cadquery
Re: FreeCAD v1.1
#44Slightly 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.
I am hopeful of:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/245787716-freecad-beginn...
and will be adding it to my next Amazon order.
Re: FreeCAD v1.1
#45Is 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 not make it easy to create a new sketch from within or place something from within (but you can just make a sketch were you want something and then open them up and that they lock onto).
I've generally been a pretty harsh critic of FreeCAD because it represents the only entry in the market of linux CAD and it has frustrated me that it does not just do what is known to work. This seems usable. Still annoying, still not a replacement, but usable. So progress.
Re: FreeCAD v1.1
#46Earlier quoted context omitted.
MangoJelly on YouTube was my primary learning source, and a few other channels - but his "gelled" with me the best.
Oh wow - over on Reddit, someone mentioned that the Deltahedra YouTuber has started using his own voice, rather than a generated one - and - well, his content is now far more watchable than it was previously!
Deltahedra is awesome. “Like a caveman” is hilarious when uttered by the extremely serious ai-generated voice. At least he writes his own material
Re: FreeCAD v1.1
#47Slightly 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.
Re: FreeCAD v1.1
#48In coming time you can see freecad massively improving. This space lacks good opensource solution. I have tried creating my parts, tried tinkercad (which is simple but limited) Tried fusion. And pretty much other things don't support mac. I've a hunch lots of vibe coders are going to come and launch stuff like freecad and Gimp (which I never liked, can't even get simple tasks done in gimp) Future is bright for openso…
Freecad is limited by Open Cascade which is the modeling kernel at the heart of the program. I started with Open Cascade then moved on to Granite from PTC (not open source) and the latter is just so much easier, faster, and stable. I’ve heard Parasolid and whatever it is that Autodesk uses these days are both excellent as well.
It would be nice for there to be a more modern open source modeling library.
Re: FreeCAD v1.1
#49I 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.
Or don't and adjust it in the sketcher? If you name your constrains you can just reference them directly elsewhere. I think that's much easier as you don't have to go back and forth with a spreadsheet.
Tracking down individual values in the sketcher can get annoying too. Just depends on the complexity of your part
Re: FreeCAD v1.1
#50Slightly 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.
Commenting here in case you or someone else remembers what this is. I'm always on the lookout for practice resources I can recommend to CAD beginners.