Anyone had any luck with FreeCAD tutorials?

[LoveLaika]

So, KiCAD uses 3D models, and I thought it would be cool to build my own parts and import them. That way, I can build better footprints (especially when 3D models are not available for my parts). Thus, I was turned on to FreeCAD....., and the tool just makes me want to bash my head against a wall, twice for good measure. 

Honestly, the tutorials don't seem all that helpful. I try to follow the steps to perform an action, but the results don't match up with what the tutorial says should happen. (In this case, it's with constraints; they say to give it a value, but I can't edit constraints; it's all blocked out) It's quite a tedious and frustrating conundrum. As someone who's lost and just trying to properly learn FreeCAD from the ground up, what kind of tutorials do you follow for FreeCAD?

[nali]

Here are some of the YT channels I bookmarked when getting to grips with FreeCAD

Learn FreeCAD (one of the founders, now sadly desceased)
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_9HwDkwxllq5lFGkYBIH9g

Martham Engineering
https://www.youtube.com/user/MarthamEngineering

Joko Engineering
https://www.youtube.com/c/JokoEngineeringhelp
Introductoin to Sketcher:


Hint: One of the things kept catching me out was Navigation Styles, which determines which mouse actions do what e.g. click / shift-click etc. I think the default is "OpenInventor" which needs a key+click to do something whereas "CAD" seemed the more natural to me allowing just click / double click. I've no idea which is more common in the mech CAD world as I'm a complete newbie in that arena.

[Bassman59]

So, KiCAD uses 3D models, and I thought it would be cool to build my own parts and import them. That way, I can build better footprints (especially when 3D models are not available for my parts). Thus, I was turned on to FreeCAD....., and the tool just makes me want to bash my head against a wall, twice for good measure. 

Honestly, the tutorials don't seem all that helpful. I try to follow the steps to perform an action, but the results don't match up with what the tutorial says should happen. (In this case, it's with constraints; they say to give it a value, but I can't edit constraints; it's all blocked out) It's quite a tedious and frustrating conundrum. As someone who's lost and just trying to properly learn FreeCAD from the ground up, what kind of tutorials do you follow for FreeCAD?

FreeCAD is remarkably user hostile.

I use it only with the KicadStepUp thing to ensure that 3D models are mated with Kicad footprints properly. This feature is fully integrated with FreeCAD though you might have to download it through the program's plug-in feature. All I do is with the StepUp import the footprint and then the 3D model, and with the controls in the little StepUp panel I rotate and move the model until it lines up with the footprint. Remember to make sure that the STEP model is actually selected in the list of items in the design before doing so. Then when you're done, export the 3D model to wherever you keep your parts models, and then back in Kicad edit the footprint to point to the model.

FreeCAD is pretty terrible on an iMac 5k display. The square to rotate the display is so small that you can never get the mouse to hit it, and there's no way to adjust its size.

Honestly, skip FreeCAD and use Fusion360.

[nali]

Yeah it's not great - Like you I mainly use it for StepUp but I've started to do a bit of mech work with it. The hardest part for me was getting to grips with the Sketcher and learning the terminology after that it's well, OK.

Doesn't Fusion store files online rather than locally? Not sure I'd like that. Also free-for-hobby-use licensing is OK - that is until Autodesk decide to change their licensing model and decide it's not worth their while. I got bitten by that many years ago with Eagle PCB (long before they bought it)... Cadsoft had a student/hobby version which I bought in good faith - proper package with disks manuals etc. They then issued an online update of the software and the updated version suddenly no longer supported my licence. It's at that point I thought fuck 'em and switched to KiCAD.

[JohanH]

DO NOT watch OLD FreeCAD tutorials on youtube. You will get some concepts totally wrong. FreeCAD has changed a lot in the latest versions and got rid of some of the stupidity, but it is still possible to do it in the old way.

I did it the wrong way and watched some older tutorial. Now I can't create stable models. 

Instead, read the documentation and watch the tutorials linked from FreeCAD's own web page and pay attention to which version you are using. I highly recommend using latest version available. FreeCAD is not horrible and there is a chance it will get a lot better in upcoming versions. But they have a challenge with documentation.

[Bassman59]

Doesn't Fusion store files online rather than locally? Not sure I'd like that. Also free-for-hobby-use licensing is OK - that is until Autodesk decide to change their licensing model and decide it's not worth their while.

To work on designs they must be in their cloud. Designs can be downloaded to local storage.

As for changing the licensing model, sure, there are no guarantees, but for my use it does what I need, and if they change then I'll work out what to do when the time comes. Keyword: FREE. In this case, you get a lot more than you pay for, but sure, it could change.

I got bitten by that many years ago with Eagle PCB (long before they bought it)... Cadsoft had a student/hobby version which I bought in good faith - proper package with disks manuals etc. They then issued an online update of the software and the updated version suddenly no longer supported my licence. It's at that point I thought fuck 'em and switched to KiCAD.

Cadsoft had larger issues, which is why they sold to AutoDesk. They likely realized that they couldn't sustain their business when so few people actually paid for their product.

[Doctorandus_P]

FreeCAD is remarkably user hostile.

Aye.

Honestly, skip FreeCAD and use Fusion360.

Never!
I simply refuse to be taken hostage by a company like that.
It's one of the main reasons I'm among those 3% of desktop users running Linux daily.

Every workbench in FreeCAD is a struggle on it's own, and combining stuff has it's own quirks.
On top of that, it has some nasty bugs you have to work around, and those workarounds are hard to find without reading the proper documentation.
Documentation and tutorials are scattered around, and partially outdated or simply wrong.
Because of those bugs, I'm also apprehensive to use "fancy" functions in FreeCAD. They tend to break your drawings, sometimes only after FreeCAD updates.
One of the bugs that has annoyed me for a long time is that faces of objects get renamed all the time, which breaks objects (sketches) depending on such a face.
A workaround that works for me is:
1). Create a body.
2). Make it's origin visible.
3.) Create a Datum plane in the Body, and use the objects origin to align it.
4). Create a sketch on the datum plane.

But overall, it is a quite powerful and usable program for 3D drawing, and you can already do a lot with just making sketches, making pads of them and combining those into more complicated objects.

[tszaboo]

FreeCAD is remarkably user hostile.

I have to agree with this. The only thing I want to use it for is to open STEP files, and maybe change the color of them, so I don't have bright purple connectors on my PCB design. No success. I have no idea how to do anything in this. What I could figure out is how to seperate STEP files into single pieces, like for an enclosure.

Honestly, skip FreeCAD and use Fusion360.

Fusion model is even more hostile. The constant "log into your account with phone verification" is super annoying. And I don't think you can import export STEP easily. Which might be outdated information, because features come and go.

[PlainName]

The constant "log into your account with phone verification"

What?!?! You have to be kidding or at least exaggerating.

[JohanH]

I have to agree with this. The only thing I want to use it for is to open STEP files, and maybe change the color of them, so I don't have bright purple connectors on my PCB design. No success. I have no idea how to do anything in this. What I could figure out is how to seperate STEP files into single pieces, like for an enclosure.

That is more of a problem with the STEP format itself. STEP is an interchangeable format that retains only the basic information of the different objects. Of course they don't behave like a work file, sketch etc. in FreeCAD (or any CAD software). So you still have to work on them and add alignment, joints whatever in order to do any useful work on them. This is at least my basic understanding, having imported only a few STEP files.

[nctnico]

FreeCAD is remarkably user hostile.

I have to agree with this. The only thing I want to use it for is to open STEP files, and maybe change the color of them, so I don't have bright purple connectors on my PCB design. No success. I have no idea how to do anything in this. What I could figure out is how to seperate STEP files into single pieces, like for an enclosure.

Select the object and change the color property. It is not that difficult!

[rob77]

don't know what's your problem with freecad... i switched from openscad and it's pretty easy and straightforward especially after watching some videos by a youtuber "Adventures in creation" https://www.youtube.com/c/Adventuresincreation/videos

[Bassman59]

Honestly, skip FreeCAD and use Fusion360.

Fusion model is even more hostile. The constant "log into your account with phone verification" is super annoying. And I don't think you can import export STEP easily. Which might be outdated information, because features come and go.

The phone verification occurs for me about once a month? I notice that if you don't use the program frequently it will ask for verification. But it's free.

As for STEP import, it works well and is trivially simple. Just ... upload the STEP file to Fusion.

I do this with electronics designs -- I imported the STEP models of a handful of Hammond enclosures and they're in a folder.  I create a project, add one of those models (which are converted to Fusion's format on import), then I import the STEP file of the board design exported from the layout tool. It takes a bit of fiddling to fit the board into the enclosure, but it works without too much trouble.

[nctnico]

Honestly, skip FreeCAD and use Fusion360.

Fusion model is even more hostile. The constant "log into your account with phone verification" is super annoying. And I don't think you can import export STEP easily. Which might be outdated information, because features come and go.

The phone verification occurs for me about once a month? I notice that if you don't use the program frequently it will ask for verification. But it's free.

As for STEP import, it works well and is trivially simple. Just ... upload the STEP file to Fusion.

I do this with electronics designs -- I imported the STEP models of a handful of Hammond enclosures and they're in a folder.  I create a project, add one of those models (which are converted to Fusion's format on import), then I import the STEP file of the board design exported from the layout tool. It takes a bit of fiddling to fit the board into the enclosure, but it works without too much trouble.

The same goes for Freecad. Been there, done that.

[nali]

If you use KiCAD and StepUp, you can just open the kicad_pcb file directly into FreeCAD, no need to export first (assuming of course the component 3D models are in the PCB design).

[CatalinaWOW]

User interfaces are a very personal and experience based problem.  Starting as a newbie on solid modelling I had access to four different CAD products and prior experience with an architectural focussed program.  The architectural program was ok for houses and small buildings and actually could be coerced into doing just about anything.  I found all four CAD projects opaque.  Finally climbed the learning curve and find it quite usable but with quirks and flaws.  Still find Fusion 360 and SOLIDWORKS opaque, but realize that they would be more powerful once the learning curve was climbed.  If you prefer FOSS software stick with it and follow the above advice about following up to date tutorials.

A quick note on parameterizing models.  There are multiple modeling approaches and where the data is and how it is modified depends on the approach.  The most common is starting in 2D with Sketcher.  Parameters are edited in Sketcher mode, and doing it is dramatically simplified if you name them.

[PlainName]

I notice that if you don't use the program frequently it will ask for verification. But it's free.

That makes it worse! It's free, but they don't trust you anyway even though you're not giving them anything (that you know about). You have to think either what's in it for them, or why you need to be verified as you and specifically allowed to use something when anyone in the world can use it for nowt.

[Bassman59]

I notice that if you don't use the program frequently it will ask for verification. But it's free.

That makes it worse! It's free, but they don't trust you anyway even though you're not giving them anything (that you know about). You have to think either what's in it for them, or why you need to be verified as you and specifically allowed to use something when anyone in the world can use it for nowt.

Perhaps the verification is less monstrous than you suspect?

Maybe it's because user designs and data are stored on AutoDesk's servers, and surely the customers who pay for the application want their work to be secure?

[tszaboo]

Honestly, skip FreeCAD and use Fusion360.

Fusion model is even more hostile. The constant "log into your account with phone verification" is super annoying. And I don't think you can import export STEP easily. Which might be outdated information, because features come and go.

The phone verification occurs for me about once a month? I notice that if you don't use the program frequently it will ask for verification. But it's free.

As for STEP import, it works well and is trivially simple. Just ... upload the STEP file to Fusion.

I do this with electronics designs -- I imported the STEP models of a handful of Hammond enclosures and they're in a folder.  I create a project, add one of those models (which are converted to Fusion's format on import), then I import the STEP file of the board design exported from the layout tool. It takes a bit of fiddling to fit the board into the enclosure, but it works without too much trouble.

But I want to have my PCB and my enclosure in Altium, not in some CAD software. Altium checks for collisions and such, and it does it reliably. So STEP export is necessary.

I notice that if you don't use the program frequently it will ask for verification. But it's free.

That makes it worse! It's free, but they don't trust you anyway even though you're not giving them anything (that you know about). You have to think either what's in it for them, or why you need to be verified as you and specifically allowed to use something when anyone in the world can use it for nowt.

Yes, which happens every time, if you are not using the software frequently.  At work, we even had subscription for Fusion 360, and it was pain in the butt to do this. Like, I don't have ANY professional sofware, where I had to put in my personal phone into it, otherwise I cannot use it. And first, of course when I told the IT guy to buy me the software, they gave us the company landline as phone number. Which of course is not ideal when you want to read SMS.
Like seriously, who was this idiot who thought that getting an SMS to verify that I'm the one using a professional software installed on my workstation is a good idea?

[asmi]

I moved to FreeCAD few months ago, and after initial pains of getting used to the software, now use it to design parts for 3D printing as well as for making STEP models for some oddball parts like DC-DC converters which nowadays seem to hold a competition on who designs the weirdest package.

[PartialDischarge]

I noticed FreeCAD 0.20 was released on June 2022, any comments about its stability and general use?

[AndyC_772]

Ooh, I'll take a look at that, thanks.

I don't suppose they've fixed the topological naming problem yet? (That's the reason why going back to an earlier step in a model and making a small change ends up with the whole thing twisted into a shape even Escher would have nightmares about).

[hubi]

I have not had any crashes with any of the 0.20 versions I have used. The only minor issue I have with it is that for larger parametric models, the spreadsheet editor can be come somewhat slow to respond. It seems like the entire model is updated for every character entered, even if no parameter is changed.

[benst]

I don't suppose they've fixed the topological naming problem yet?

Have a look at Realthunder's fork here: https://github.com/realthunder/FreeCAD
It solves the topological naming problem, and has many other goodies. I have been using his fork in lieu of the main releases for quite a while now.

Ben

[Warhawk]

I see this thread is bit older but the new FreeCAD version refreshed it. I just wanted to add that Solid Edge has bullshit-free community edition that is free of charge. Lifetime and with no cloud. I know we talk about FreeCAD but not everyone knows that there is a reasonable alternative.
It is not as good (straight forward) as Autodesk products but it is also miles ahead of FreeCAD. Altough I love opensource, I could not stand FC. It is hostile.