FreeCAD v0.21.2 tutorial for creating a somewhat complicated model using the Part Design Workbench. FreeCAD Download Link: www.freecad.or... Reference Image Download Link: grabcad.com/li...
Don't use faces as references for other sketches ... FC is not good at this ... (ie Topological Naming Problem) ... changes to the model are likely to break it. Use a separate datum that is aligned to the face ... learn this up front and you will save a lot of grief using FC.
Thanks for the tip! I'll have to get in the habit of doing that. I've run into the topological naming problem on another project and it can be a major headache.
Topo does drive you tropo. I like the simplistic into to help beginners, but these break too easily with the topo problem. Datum plains and sketches set off regular axis do make FC complicated to work with but do help with the topo.
Is the a reason this has not been solved in freecad? If there is a manual work around, then freecad could be made to do that automatically when a face is selected.
Your clear explanations, step-by-step guidance, and insightful tips have truly made a significant difference in my learning journey with FreeCAD. Your dedication to providing high-quality content is evident, and it's greatly appreciated by learners like myself.
I had to stop in the middle of your Tutorial to thank you. Other tutorials were either hard to hear, convoluted, dated or even just poor quality. I've scheduled time since your first tutorial to just sit each day and your present the work cleanly. Thank you. Well done.
Perfect tutorial with all of the details I needed to create multiple solids in multiple angles with various introduced shapes. Well done! 👌👌 One question: if I wanted to create the last curved item in the center of the top face, what is the ideal way to model it, sketch it on the top face or still on the back face?
Thank you! I'm glad you found it helpful! In my opinion, the ideal way to do it is whichever way feels the most intuitive to you. I'd personally start my sketch on the top face if I was going to design it the way you've described. That approach makes sense to me. Others more knowledgeable than me may go a different route. But that's just my take on it.
Hi, thanks for your effort to share your knowledge on FreeCAD, it's always an addon to the community. In the Sketcher "Solver section" you can tick the option "Auto-remove redundant constraints" in order to simplify your life. Also at the end of the object in the "View" tab, next to the "Data" tab, you can switch to True the property "Refine". I always use it in automatic refine ON, achieved within Edit Menu / Preferences / Part Design / General / ticking those three boxes. Cheers
Many thanks for the useful tips, though I personally leave the "Auto-remove redundant constraints". Simply because I'm still learning and rather have F.C. create the "erroneous constraints" so that I can "investigate and understand" what is happening and what I've done wrong rather than just trying to do something and having it "automagically negated" ;) For the very same reasons I also choose to often model with the "Auto constraints" turned off as well.. :) Best regards.
Amazing tutorial! May I ask something? The last part, where you fillet the 2d rectangle ended up with a "squared face". Your original doesnt have it. Is it ok? I ran into the same problem into another design!
Thank you. Very clear tutorial, so please continue with another examples like this one. Very usefull. Greetings from Chile, South America. This is Juan.
Try as I have and I have followed your demo exactly (obviously not!) I cannot get the second coincident to work to fix the last part of the rectangle, I just get error message and it all turns red. What am I doing or not doing?
Again this 73 year old brain thanks you. I am gaining confidence and often jump ahead of the video. Screw up and figure out how to fix it. Starting to be fun instead of frustrating.
Hi Jeff. I'm onto your second tutorial! I'm having a difficulty with FreeCad and I'm hoping someone can help me. I'm using an iMac running MacOS 10.13.6 (High Sierra) and FreeCad version 0.21.2. It's the latest version that I can run on this OS. I am not able to arbitrarily rotate a part I'm working as you do in the videos. It seems that I'm forced to use the image rotation tools at the top right hand corner of the screen. To say the least these tools are less than perfect and a bit frustrating. Am I missing something? Assistance with this issue would be greatly appreciated!! Thanks in advance!
On the last sketch instead of the rectangle use poly line to make the bottom and side then 10 mm of the top line then M 3 times to radius and complete the sketch. Then constrain the arc to 20mm and the other constraints. Then no issues like with the fillet to 20mm.
Another very helpful tutorial. One question... I am working on a Mac with a very high-resolution monitor and so everything is very tiny. I did figure out how to increase the font size, but the line weights are still very thin. I went into pref's but nothing I changed seems to make a difference. Any thoughts? Thx!!!
Hi Brad, Thanks for commenting! I've been doing some searching trying to find a solution to this issue. I came across a setting to modify the width of lines shown in the standard viewing window (i.e. after you've closed your sketch and are back in the Part Design workbench). To do that you can navigate to "Tools > Edit Parameters > BaseApp > Preferences > View > DefaultShapeLineWidth" Unfortunately, I'm not finding any setting to increase the line width within the sketch view. For that I think you may be required to adjust your system wide display resolution. There is some information on this topic on the FreeCAD Wiki article: wiki.freecad.org/HiDPI_support Hopefully this is something that's added in a future version of FreeCAD. If someone else knows of a way to do this, please let us know!
Another setting that might be helpful: Select your sketch from the Model view > Select the 'View' tab on the left hand side of the screen, at the bottom of the combo view > Under "Object Style" change the "Line Width" value. Again, that doesn't affect the line width within the Sketcher workbench, but will affect the sketch lines when being viewed in the Part Design workbench.
Hello, Im stuck on this step ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-VZ16lty5ADg.html when Im trying to add that 40mm. Nothing changes. File "", line 1, in : Datum 40,00 mm for the constraint with index 23 is invalid App.getDocument('Unnamed').getObject('Sketch001').setDatum(23,App.Units.Quantity('40.000000 mm'))
Thank you again for another great video! There must be a difference between my version 0.21.2 running on Linux (POP OS) and your version: The last part for making the rectangle with the 20 mm fillet was over-constrained when I did what you did, and I never figured out why. As you said, there are other ways to do the same thing, which I did by making the rectangle with the fillet floating away from the part, and as a last step made the corner of the rectangle concurrent with a point on the solid. I don't see why that is really any different from what you did, but I did not get any over-constraint issues. Anyway, I succeeded in duplicating the Lesson 2 part. Thank you.
I had the same issue, I think it was because there was a line that had a horizontal or vertical constaint, while having both end points also constrained to a referenced line
@JeffCAD, thanks for another great tutorial. As always very clear and succinct while You still manage to show alternate methods as well as possible "snags" by including intentional errors". AAA+ Best regards.
I am an electrical engineer. Used many schematic, pwb, digital simulation tools, but never used mechanical tools. I am day two on FreeCAD. Great video, gave you a like. I like how you show things that "pop up" and get in the way and you tell us to resolve them. I am picking up on the various features but what is slowing me down is what I call revising and editing techniques. Say I draw something with 3 sketches to get it done, but then I want to add a fillet (or something). I find that I have to delete things I have drawn (in other sketches) to "back out" and then redraw them again. In the project viewer tree, is there some kind of hierarchy there? Is there a way to separate "sub" pieces to keep them aside or move them within the tree? I think that changing what you already have and showing the pitfalls would be a great video. I subscribed to your channel. What I loved about this tool is once I finished my first design, I clicked export and it created a file (no options to select). I uploaded it to Xometry and it took it with no warnings or errors... no sweat, no strain. But on day two I am ready to start "changing" what I have already done without having to delete and redraw some things... sometimes all the way back to the first sketch of the body?
Best tutorila of free cad so far I have seen. The way and speed how you explain to mee is excellent. Mosto of another tutorilas go too fast for me. The "mistakes" are good way to learn I love this. Please keep doing
Great tutorial. I don't have a 3D printer yet but want to learn how to use 3D software before I get one. I like that your voice comes out clear and is easy to understand. I look forward to watching more beginner tutorials from you.
Keep up the good work I am now getting it thanks to you. Just had a thought would it not be easier to do the base and U section in one go then angle it?
Very good turorial for a total noob! No bs. No “this butteh also do bla bla bla” and this changes the background color and so on. Jost cut to need to know. Thank you!
Soooo many do now. It's one of those fillers like "Like" in the 80's. Make my head explode as well. My absolute favorite youtubers don't use the go ahead constantly.
