Sorry, right off the start I had to stop because you talk about a datum assuming that we all know what a datum is. I was sent here because I searched the web for "FreeCAD: What the hell is a datum?" And since you did not start by defining what it is...
I love FreeCad. It's a love-hate relationship, though. However, thanks to you, I've found RealThunder's mod and I have to say it's much easier to work with, and more intuitive, than the parent program. Thanks for your great content. Please keep it coming! Best wishes from our little heart-shaped island of Tasmania.
Unlike one contributor I have no problems with Andrew’s command of the English language, or the articulation per se other than the fact it ‘s all carried out at a pace. A pace that I, as a member of the aged population, find challenging. Very reminiscent of my three 15 year-old granddaughters’ patois: a kind of vocalised ‘shorthand’ which half the time is indecipherable. Andrew clearly knows his stuff, but the verbal pace means frequently having to wind the video back in order to establish what or how the process is or being carried out. Am new to FreeCAD, but before I retired, CAD was my everyday tool. This datum plane exercise is actually very important, but confess am not fully grasping the use of “formulae” to change position of the plane: even simple algorithms are something of a mystery to me…….
I only wish I had found this lesson earlier. I have navigated from AutoCad into FreeCad, and it has been somewhat frustrating. I've really found this lesson helpful and easy to digest. I'm looking forward to more. Thanks!
After watching hours of tutorial videos which were done with noble intentions but just done really badly, I can watch your videos almost for entertainment ;D. Good focus on the current topic without explaining unnecessary steps. No annoying music, intros, rambling. Information obviously comes from a lot of experience. Really valuable stuff
Thanks again Andrew. In my book you're still at the top in content, quality and educational value! Kudos my friend and please keep up the fantastic tutorials! They are more than worth every penny. Lol
Thank you Andrew from the Slovak Republic in Central Europe! Your English is so hard for me, but youtube has added subtitles with automatic translation (I assume youtube). It helps me a lot to understand you, to understand the topic, even if I sometimes have fun on a distorted translation ... Please continue and do not be discouraged. This is important for us and many silent viewers! Thank you again!
Hi, Andrew! Your tutorials are very useful for me. You asked how to make your channel better. My advice is: please speak slowly. For me as a no native speaker sometimes is very hard to recognize your speech, and I forced to rewind some pieces of the video several times. Listen, for example, to professor Dennis Meadows, which IMHO speaks good enough.
To support slow internet connections they use lossy compression. It will try to guess what resolution will allow continuous play. Often it's wrong so you can force more resolution with Settings->Quality. 720 will usually show the fine print on a screen. 1080 is better. If you guess wrong it will stall occasionally.
In the example you gave with the three rectangles, most FREECAD experts will say NOT to use datum planes. All you need to do is create a new sketch on the origin and offset the placement by the same method using the formulae you used. Datum planes should really be used for angled sketches.
I don't know what I did wrong.... If you are trying to create a datum plane between top and bottom faces, you can do that easily by selecting first top, then bottom faces to. This feature doesn't work for vertical plan (z-y plane, for instance)
Hello I'm completely new to FreeCAD, but this Topological Name Problem it seems is just a better word for a serious bug in the software! ...Are any more of such "problems"?
Demonstration could be very interesting but Andrew is talking so fast that it becomes painful to reach the end of the tutorial for people having another mother tong ! Sory to be so direct !
A video on the basics of solving Sketch constraints would be helpful. I'm having a lot of problems fully constraining sketches, over-constraining sketches, wierd behaviour. Identifying and fixing constraint issues seems a bit of a dark art. Often freecad won't let me do what I think should fully constrain a sketch, or it tips over into over-constrained. Fusion360 doesn't seem to suffer the issues nearly as much.
Hey there Duncan! I know what you mean, sometimes it can be a little confusing, so I'll look into creating a video 😀 As for toolpaths I did a video a few months back on 'path module'. It might be a little outdated now as I've learnt alot more, but perhaps start there and see how you get on? 😀
We wouldn't have to basically reimplement a pad using a datum plane + the pad length if FreeCad allowed the user to simply name the extruded face of a pad, if it applies, maybe create symbolic datum plane automatically, that could be referred to as "PadX.datum.something" and it would not be subject to the topological naming problem. Note that it only works for objects which faces are nicely aligned with the construction planes. Otherwise you basically have to reimplement your objects in a parallel track if you want to get rid of the topological naming problem.
Hello! I watched this video, which I found very useful, then I went to your channel and found movies with things I'm interested in that other movie creators haven't addressed. That's why I subscribed to your channel and in the next few days I will see all the movies that interest me. But I'm interested in something I didn't find anywhere, that is: I design bags, purses and backpacks, which I will make of leather, at a hobby level, with less common shapes. I would be interested in decomposing (exploding) the bodies I make in freecad into 2D drawings. In other words, for example, after drawing a cube, I would like to break it down into the six squares that make it up, and then print them out. Do you think this is possible in freecad? Nowadays, I work differently, that is, I sculpt in foam the body I am interested in making in leather, I totally cover it with adhesive tape, which I then cut into component faces, which I peel off and then glue on cardboard. This process takes time and money. In computer, in freecad, it would be simpler. Of course, there are computer programs dedicated to bag design, but they are extremely expensive, programs that do not do what I want them to do, and I work at a hobby level. I would be delighted if you would make such a film, of course with slightly more complicated bodies (but which could start with a cube) from which I would learn how to freecad my bags and backpacks with special shapes. Thank you! Nicolae Prepelita
Hi Im looking in to down loading freecad and have just looked and the latest version is 0.19.2 ( todays date 30.11.2021 )does this have the same fixes that you are describing because I've been watching loads of videos on how to use and am getting a bit confused as into which one I should get because i will be totally new , sorry if this is a stupid question but I'm no Tec person in the sense of programs, I use a cad cam system at work for edm wire cutting but that's just a 2d program and have been using it for 20 years, its a point based drawing lines arcs.
Great tutorial, but Datum example 2 doesn't prove anything about topology. Only box dimensions changes but not topology. Ordering of the vertices are the same, but their coordinates are different. If you create more complicated object with features that can mess up internal ordering of points, edges or faces, then errors for datum plane will shows in FC Link as well.
perfect, temporary solution,. Thanks. But sadly on complicated models it take double time to prepare such setup. We need Blender funders to push development of FreeCad
Brilliant! Question: if I place the datum in the middle of an object, may I still reference the edges of the generated section? (e.g: I want to place a circle on the datum plane 10 mm far away from one edge.)
this is a great video and so well explained. I hope you do a lot more across all aspects. I would really love to know how we easily create BSP male and female threads
I just love your guides. Your voice can be heard clearly, and you always describe each action that you do. I don't suppose that you know how to do text that follows a Arc. For example a curved nameplate like you get above a wheel on a Steam loco? All the best - Fletch -
Thank you for the support Fletch! 😀 I've had a quick look into manipulating text around an arc, but at this moment in time it seems slightly complicated! However I'll keep looking to find an easier solution 😀
For creating two cylinders that cross each other, you can create a datum between the two flat faces, then rotate it around the X/Y axis 90 degrees (depending on the direction you'd like your second cylinder) and then extrude (pad) in two dimensions to your required length? 😊 Theres a few different ways of creating two cylinders that cross each other
I tried using the technique you showed to place a datum plane midway between two faces, but it does not work when the object is a simple model of a 6" long piece of structural angle. In the Part Design workbench, I sketched in the x-z plane using the polyline tool the outline of a simplified model of equal leg structural angle with 2 inch legs and 3/16 inch thick. I then padded the sketch to be 6 inches long in the positive y direction. I selected both faces of this object and clicked on the datum plane icon, which created a datum plane that was perpendicular to the two selected faces and tilted at 45 degrees to the x axis and says that the attachment mode is inertia 2-3. Thus, the datum plane is parallel to the y-axis rather than perpendicular to it. Have I found a bug or am I doing something wrong? I am using Freecad 0.19, OS: Windows 10 Version 2004 Word size of OS: 64-bit Word size of FreeCAD: 64-bit Version: 0.19.24276 (Git) Build type: Release Branch: releases/FreeCAD-0-19 Hash: a88db11e0a908f6e38f92bfc5187b13ebe470438 Python version: 3.8.6+ Qt version: 5.15.1 Coin version: 4.0.1 OCC version: 7.5.0 Locale: English/United States (en_US)
