Is it Worth Learning FreeCAD? Can It Be Used Commercially? |JOKO ENGINEERING| 

What most needs FreeCAD is some serious sponsorship and a few full time paid developers to make this program a good competitor to the dedicated CAD "standards". Blender did-it, Godot did-it, now is the FreeCAD time to prove that can do it!

I think a lot more people will be finding their way to this channel after the email I received today from Fusion 360 on the restrictions they are putting on their personal use license.

And considering that it hasn't even reached version 1.0 yet. There's greatness to come

FreeCAD has become a thousand times more fun to use because of your videos. Thank you!

Nice timing! Autodesk just started squeezing the hobby users of fusion-360 once again. Lots of people will change to being owners of their own files again.

Considering what autodesk is doing to hobbyists license, for sure, freecad is the best alternative out there.

I love freecad because It's the only one running on Linux without any headache

As an amateur woodworker/maker I had started going down the Fusion 360 route from Sketchup, but after recent changes I was getting worried that my learning time had been wasted. This video has convinced me that Freecad is easily good enough and is the way to go. Fusion being deleted from my laptop today and Freecad installed.

This is an important video. Promoting and comparing FreeCad with other cad-software. It has the weight of your experience behind it. Thank you for your efforts and interesting point of view.

The content in the YT community, especially this channel, have made FreeCad my goto 3D parametric software. FreeCad just so easy to use.

"Superbly, fantastic job." That's quite the compliment. I have a lot of respect for the developers that made FreeCAD.

As an Autodesk refugee, I'm in! A snatch like Fusion 360 was my last one, which I fell for.

I'm an engineering student, and I learned CAD with draft at 1st semester with autocad. Then on the 2nd semester we migrated to Solidworks because we started working with mechanical drawing and assemblies. We haven't touched CAD software since then, but I started using LInux (I use arch btw) and then I started searching for alternatives, and the one who pulled my attention the most was FreeCAD, but I was enstranged at first. Then I found your video about modelling an airplane, and since then FCAD started growing in me. Thanks for your attention on my rant. I'm a lurker arround here but I love your content.

I have big hope on open source softwares, particularly Free Cad. It has been developing significantly since I learn about this software. I do hope it will be like Blender with lots of Patrons to fund the project!

I'm loving FreeCAD thanks to JOKO Engineering! I can get overwhelmed trying to figure out how to do something in FreeCAD, but there's usually a tutorial of yours that walks me through the process. Thanks!

Thanks for your video. This gives me good confidence about sticking with freecad. Man you (and freecad) saved me from bankruptcy!

Thank you for this review! It re-confirmed that sticking to FreeCAD is a right thing to do.

This is nice to hear from a professional.

Thanks for making the switch from 'real' programs to Fcad so much less daunting with your tutorial videos and this overview - inspires confidence that it's worth the time investment I'm making 👍🏻

I'm glad you did this video. I have been learning and using Freecad at work since 0.17 and it has gotten worlds better in terms of usability. It's a great starting point for a company with no 3d cad capability and nobody with an attachment to a more expensive platform.

This vid was the push I needed a commit to learning FreeCAD basics. I don't dream of getting as good enough to make these types of models shown here , but so far it's been way beyond capable for 3d modeling hobby. Thanks for sharing with us!

Love from bottom of my heart❤. You made FreeCAD so easy to use for anyone.

I use it for my job, I’m getting better and better with it. Will continue to use it and implement it more and more into my workflow.

Great video, I'm building out a Linux based workstation. I've only tinkered around a little bit with FreeCAD, but I'm coming from solidworks knowledge as well. Your video encourages me greatly to dig in deeper!

Good video. I recently started with freeCAD for home use. At work I use NX, and the transition was dead easy. I haven't tried any complex surface modelling, but for stuff to make on a 3d printer, a lathe and a manual mill, it does anything I need

I love freeCAD soo much too.

You've persuaded me to stick with and learn FreeCAD. Also your instructional videos are great.

Thanks bro really appreciate the breakdown. I'm going to download it now!

Thanks for this! It may help with one of my first steps in the post-covid economy.

Thanks for this video. Coming from 20+ years of experience with Solidworks/Maya/Alias, I see the combination of FreeCAD for engineering, Blender for mesh modeling & animation, and Rhino for freeform NURBS modeling as a feature-packed, respectable package for indy designers and small companies for sure, and has a decently high ceiling for growth even for larger companies.

When I got my 3D printer I wanted make my own useful things to print. The earlier versions had a lot of issues with crashing, so you really had to save your work a lot, but it worked, was easy to learn and I was able to make everything I wanted with it.

just subscribed, been a long time autodesk fan but got me convinced

Good explanation, thank you!

Thanks a lot! I have been getting the grasp and concepts of FreeCAD. I use CATIA v6 and SmartTeam at work and this is actually my first attempt to use a CAD program to make physical objects. So far I am learning a lot and can say now I am at the point of getting the concept of organization of parts and bodies are just as important when using FreeCAD!

A truly great brief analysis and comparison from a clearly experienced design engineer who has been exposed to a significant cross section of the several applicable engineering and draughting, design and display software tools about which he speaks. This is a big deal to me, as it should be to many other designers. I am a relative late-comer to CAD tools, as I began with Longmann's logarithms and a selection of slide rules. I recall paying dearly (several hundered dollars) for a Sanyo Calculator WITHOUT a square root function!! what a luxury and productivity multiplier!!. So, I do speak from experience. Well done to Joko Engineering for providing a cross-sectional guide. With Gratitude, pk.

I didn't realize it had FEM. Now I have to learn it.

Thank you for answering that question.

I learned how to walk in FreeCAD and I agree with all your statements. By now I have grown accustomed to the convenience of Fusion 360, but I don't think that I couldn't do the same work in FreeCAD. It would take me some time to relearn the functions, but I could get the work done and the result would be pretty much the same 3D model.

thanks! FreeCad only 3 people developing. Wow. I just did not know that part. Fantastic job and so are your vids on this.

I think I'm going to enjoy this program having worked with inventor then solidworks and then fusion 360.It's probably going to take me a week to adjust to the workflow I hope.

In my other OpenSource software community (KiCAD) there is a FreeCAD WorkBench developed for assisting with integrating PCBs into MCAD. Modelling 3D components for KiCAD is my main motivation for learning FreeCAD, and have also been using FreeCAD for modelling for my 3D printer. Over in the KiCAD community, the attitude currently (2020-09-25) is to use FreeCAD 0.19 prerelease since it is basically at feature freeze. YMMV of course.

It really help me during my daily work

Thank you for the good overview. FreeCAD rules! :)

Sir Thanks for the Amazing video and this might be a game changer in life. Thanks for the whole developers for providing this software. It is a great service. This helps lot of small people like who cannot afford to high end softwares. Thanks Thanks Thanks.

your video is rellly good, thanks for sharing...

Amazing software. For FEA engineers who battle to learn more when commercial software are so expensive, I took Freecad and in about 20 min a FE model was solving and I never had used Freecad before. Really good job. Congratulations to the developers to provide this for free even for commercial use

I forgot why I didn't liked your great content videos so much in the past... It was the (not so good) microphone sound of your voice! :-) What a great improvement meanwhile! But as I said, the content about FreeCAD (and not only) is one of the best to find here! Thank you!

Moved from both Eagle and Fusion the second cloud storage was enforced. It was a blessing in disguise. KiCAD and FreeCAD are awesome applications and definitely worth the time investment. We don't look back. We're now using them both commercially. We pay donations now instead of licensing and fully support these projects. They're very good. I think this video made an excellent point. Don't underestimate these apps. In some ways they're not the under dog. They're leading.

Great video. I have used freecad for basic models, but I think after this I will advance in my complexity😎

Good timing with the implosion of F360

Thank you very much for making this video. I couldn't agree more with nearly everything you said, but my background is a bit out of date (back when you had to have a Unix workstation and the cost per seat was 5 digits). :) One of the best parts about FreeCAD is that its multiplatform and runs on Linux! Icing on the cake is that I can use the ancient SpaceBall 2003 I have from back in the old days (but have switched to a smaller SpaceBall 5000). It's the best physical interface I've found for any 3D CAD or modeling software. That said, I've been wondering what I'm missing by not using a modern commercial CAD software. From your assessment, it seems not much. :) About the only complaints I can think of that I have with FreeCAD are the fillets (as you mentioned) in Part Design (the fillets in Part are enormously better by comparison), and the constantly changing Assembly workbenches. I finally got pretty good at Assembly2 when it was abandoned, so I switched to A2Plus. I'm not sure if that's the right direction to go as Assembly4 seems to be getting a lot of praise. Assembly3 seems to be an incredible project with some beautiful advancements, but requires running a forked version of FreeCAD, so I'm not sure that's for me. Probably the most difficult workbench to get my head around is Lattice2. It's awesome, but for the stuff I wanted it for, it gets pretty hairy. :) -About the only other thing I'd like to see is list of all the hotkeys! I stumble across gems on occasion, but I've not seen them all in one place before.- Scratch that, someone created it since I last looked! wiki.freecadweb.org/Sandbox:Keyboard_Shortcuts Thank you again for taking the time to make these videos.

As retired "professional" user of commercial CAD software who has followed FreeCad for years, I find it to be an incredible tool. But does have limitations - as do all such tools. I look forward to seeing the future of FreeCad unfold. Is it ready for primetime? I don't think so. It has a miniscule uptake by industry. Much like MicroSoft Office is the defacto standard for office suites, despite how competent LibreOffice is, FreeCad will always be an also-ran. At least until widely accepted universal file format uniformly adopted. And I'm pretty sure that ain't happening soon. Can you use it to learn about 3D modeling? Most certainly! It will teach you how to think about designing and creating on your computer. The rest is simply learning where to find what the little icons to click to do something.

Interesting view about FreeCAD compared to other 3D modelers!

Fully agree! FreeCAD is awesome! Been using it for ~ 7 years to design dome homes. FreeCAD does everything I need, with ease.

I am a retired mechanical engineer including being a CAD sysem administrator for a number of years. I used, initially, HP ME30/ME10 and then SolidDesigner, which was passed along a number of companies and is now know as Creo Elements/Direct by Parametric Technology. I've also tried a number of "parametric" CAD software, e.g., SolidWorks. I downloaded FreeCAD and played around with it briefly. I didn't like it. Firstly, for 95% of mechanical design the parametric approach is not only unnecessary but makes CAD design slower and more difficult. The learning curve for parametric software is MUCH steeper than software such as Elements/Direct (I still maintain a license for my personal use) which doesn't require making upfront choices that can unexpectedly have negative ramifications for the modeling at a later stage of development. With non-parametric CAD you are free to slice, dice, cut and paste freely. Any designer can jump into a model created by another without needing to understand just how the current state was arrived at. Those advantages are the reason that Parametric Technology (the developer of Pro Engineer, which was parametric) purchased SolidDesigner. Parametric looks great on paper but in practical use it just unnecessarily complicates design work. Still waiting for fully featured free non-parametric CAD software so I can drop my $1700/yr Creo Elements/Direct license. I most recently used Elements/Direct to model a system of aftermarket accessories for Jeeps, etc and derived patent drawings from the model. I received the patent (10604194) earlier this year.

Cool video!!

The Great Migration from Fusion360 to FreeCAD begins !!! Thank You SUBSCRIBED

I'm trying to get to grips with 3D CAD and your videos are truly inspiring and keep me motivated. FreeCAD is incredible and to be free is even more so. One minor niggle - and I know I'll get slammed for this - is the UI is very heavy and reminiscent of the 90's. It kind of looks like, well, free software. Having said that, I'll be happy if the developers keep on focusing on functionality. They have my utmost respect!

Oh boy, I guess I gotta try FreeCAD again !! Thanks for the encouraging video See, Ive tried it once years ago but I just couldnt even create the simplest of shapes, just doesnt jive with me (even with tutorials that take you by the hand) I can learn Blender and AutoCAD no problem but FreeCAD was just so different so I hope this time Ill go somewhere

Gee.. this is wonderful.. one thing i have noticed over the years with cad systems and that is many people are using only about 60-70% of the capability of their cad system. The for what ever reason jump in to another cad system in hopes of some new cad majic. for me it has been the up-hill learning curve to get the ultimate design results... thanks and great freecad video...:)

When I first started to learn to draw at the beginning of this year I started using freecad and gave up on it I thought it was a piece of crap I had Zero experience so everything was new. I tried Fusion 360 it is good but slow loading for me and now the fact it has been updated with new limitations I stopped trying to learn it. I also bought Qcad and tried Siemens solid edge "Only 2 d" very good but also limited. Went back to freecad and now I believe because I've gained a little more experience it is much easier to learn than when I first tried using it. It really is a great program and the price is unbeatable. I am using it to draw and make parts to cut on my CNC plasma table. Thanks for the great tutorials.

Just donated some to FreecAD. I hope they keep improving it. Good job.

All depends on your needs. I do use for all my projects!

thanks for your video.

Of course it is!

Awesome video my friend. I used to use freecad, but not for long before switching to designspark, but I want to go fully into FreeCAD again..

lol now I'm really motivated to create something with FreeCAD. Unfortuanetely, I had a hard time creating some advanced curvatures with FreeCAD. Even PTC Creo had some struggle with it, but its solver was stronger at the very end than FreeCADs, so I sticked with that. But besides some hard to compute stuff FreeCAD is a really great way to go for every hobbyist engineer or industrial designer.

Thank you for the review . I am version 19 ..I have fusion 360 but my students have trouble getting through the maze of marketing requirements to get free access as a student

This in part answers my question on your comparison video. As a user of both systems you are happy with FreeCAD. From the comments below comes the reality of proprietary products. The man with the program makes the rules and, like Microsoft and Adobe, change the look and feel or the file format just to drive more revenue through upgrades. When your material is stored on other systems ( eg cloud computing) issues of privacy arise apart from permanence of the system. Thirty odd years ago Geocities ( I think so called) suddenly shut shop and took everyones material with them. FreeCAD for me, and a donation.

Getting back to pen and paper after moving to Africa I'm so happy that sombody have used their time Makin this and especialy that it's for FREE I'm back in business 😄😄😄 this will hopefully make it posibel Makin a big donation later they defently deserve it. Becorse it brakes the big monopoly Autocad and the few others have I'm happy 😊

Thank you very much for a nice informative video. I started using it for Architectural 3D modelling. It was not that good, still I like it because FreeCAD's 3d rendering is very fast. Much Faster than SweetHome3D

Great to get a qualified opinion on FreeCAD. I had invested heavily in Fusion 360 and was quite disappointed when they abandoned their amateur base - it was great while it lasted. I tried one or two other free design packages and was very impressed with FreeCAD when I finally tried it. I guess my designs aren't too complicated because when I get in trouble, I delete all the actions and get back to just the sketches, then retrace my steps, usually more efficiently the second (or third, fourth, etc) time around.

It's gone forwards a lot it seems from when I saw it last time... but standard support and standard libraries would be nice to have. I hope it'll get more people providing content for it moving onward... these projects live and die by the amount of developers and content creators.

excellent video

Thanks! Maybe wee all start too think about too big solutions! Its important to now walking, before running 800 meters. This could bee the right tool.

Thanks, subscribed! I am working backwards from being a SW user and now involved in some small scale consulting where IP is critical - for now I can assure my team that the existing and future data won't become public property. I started looking at OnShape and while that's very good, like Fusion360, the moment you put that stl (or whatever) in the workspace the data is out of your control. I've been designing and building products for half my life and I understand commercial pressures (so please use that to contextualise what follows) but I don't like the perverse definition of "sharing" that is becoming a de facto norm. Cheers guys, we only need to leave the world in a better place than we found it, so respect to your passion and hard work.

OK - i'll try it...personally i use another free to use software which isn't history based i.e a dynamic modeller. Unfortunately their drawing and limited exchange bundle is around $1000 US. But i really like to be unconstrained in part and assembly modelling - and my first decisions are never the last conclusions - so i change my mind a lot! I like to go very light with a design, maybe even running two designs almost simultaneously to see what transpires ( best outcome / most promising design). I to commend what has been done with FreeCAD.

Awesome sir

Thank you sir

Thank You

Yes!

Awesome review. I'm a SolidWorks/Revit/ArchiCAD user myself. It's really impressive how FreeCAD is implementing all this stuff. Combined with Blender, GIMP and Inkscape possibilities are pretty much endless. Would that other Platform you're going to cover be OnShape?

FreeCad will likely get a big boost because yesterday, Fusion360 neutered its free version. Probably the biggest loss is the removal of the export file types most used by automated fabrication machines (CNC, 3D printers, etc).

Great video! I'm in the AEC industry so unfortunately I don't have much reason to use FreeCAD. It's interesting to see 'free' software catching up to the big giants in the industry. I'm noticing that the big developers are adding more and more flashy features that nobody will ever use while neglecting to refine the key features of their programs. My hobby as of late is exploring 2D CAD alternatives. I don't see why a simple CAD program has to cost thousands (per year!!!) when we have a program like FreeCAD... for FREE!

My grievens with freecad is that some of the UX is abhorent at times. For example selecting faces/lines one by one to add them to a feature ( like bevel/chamfer ) And there are no widgets you can drag on which makes editing more time consuming by having to move your mouse to the edit box and input a number. I wish they would fix this and I'd definitely be using freecad more.

Wow just 3 people develop this, that's amazing.

I have experience in Inventor, Fusion 360 and now starting to work with CATIA (I'm a high school student) and I gotta say I'm pretty interested in learning FreeCAD after watching this video! Too bad schools won't most likely use this good software, though

I like the user interface of freecad, I found it really simple to use. But the assembly workbench is not official, there is no interference detection and the 2d capability is really limited. I found it really limiting for other use than recreational

One of the only real problems I have with it is the topological naming problem, but that can be fixed by using a fork that fixes it. Other than that it's good

I got into freecad recently for the cam path stuff for making gcode for milling machines. 0.18 made some weird results, version 0.19 worked perfect.

Betcha the downloads will be much higher now that Autodesk Fusion 360 has made such drastic changes (limits) for Personal Use license holders.

I'm using it for work for designing plastic parts with one big exception. The shelling, aka called thickening in FreeCAD, is - to be kind - lacking. So, I have to take my models into Fusion 360 or SolidWorks to quickly shell them as even simple models fail in FreeCAD. For me that's the biggest drawback. Otherwise, I love FreeCAD

I started to use FreeCAD over F360 because of how easy it was to make a gcode for just cutting a rectangle. All I had to was sketch the rectangle, then choose the type of operation I wanted it to do on the face of the rectangle. I can also run FreeCAD on the same machine my CNC runs off of.

I love and use FreeCAD myself. There may be some rough spots to be sure but it rarely lets me down. The big issue I have is that I need to learn better modelling practices, or no clever software can save me.

FreeCAD is like manna from heaven for engineering students and graduates. Doesn't matter which way you cut it: Professional programs like Solidworks are prohibitively expensive. Even the student licenses costs a decent chunk of money that would be wisely spent elsewhere. If you're casually modelling a few parts for a side project or just brushing up on your skills, FreeCAD is the only viable way to do it. There are alternative programs but they usually feel like a cheap joke.

I try the freecad before but quite hard to me ..cos I have not "cad draw" experience . just some on 3dsmax and blender. anyway, thank you for great share !!

I would improve the assembly workbench aswell because nowadays messing with multi body projects its a great pain in the ass :(

New subscriber, and you have a nice voice on your videos very easy to listen to and I guess nicely configured sound properties, some videos I have to use the equalizer to turn down certain aspects to here them speak so thank you for that. My training in cad is all my fault, I have done some in a program called DesignSpark Mechanical, mainly to create items for 3D printing. Does Free CAD have the ability to save to .stl files for printing?

More work on the FEM analysis tool would push further FreeCAD...for me it already has the 3D model tools to work with it very well...

I moved over from fusion 360. For home use modelling 3d stuff and even CAMing/CNC a couple of cabinets seems to be fine. Two things that really stood out for me is the constraint system and fea. The constraint based system makes assemblies really come together well. And fea for 3d printing helps make stronger plastic models (& maybe wood/metal if you have that facility) Performance is much better than fusion 360. Took about a week to learn