FreeCAD

oliof

For beginners, this short series of intro tutorials by DrVax could be useful

zapta

I tried was 0.16, 2 or 3 years ago, and couldn’t get on with it.

The recent Fusion license changes gave FreeCad a lot of visibility (I see in other forums as well), which will most likely be translated to a critical mass and increased development velocity.

JoergS5

@zapta I tried Freecad 2 years ago and abandoned due to instability. It would be great news if Freecad is better now and gets momentum.

arhi

@JoergS5 just the difference 6 months ago and today is huge and compared to last year release it's huuuuge improvement... IMHO it moved from "I cannot use this no matter how much I want to" to "I can use this, it's not ideal, polished, perfect... but it is very usable"

JoergS5

@arhi I saw it's implemented with C++, so it should be possible to change code if necessary by some of us. I'll give FreeCAD a try again.

droftarts

Off topic, but relevant and not sure where else to post it: AutoDesk announces that STEP export will remain in Fusion 360 personal licence: https://www.autodesk.com/products/fusion-360/blog/changes-to-fusion-360-for-personal-use/

However, now I’ve started using FreeCAD I’m going to persist; I like having my documents on my machine, and I realise the cloud part of F360 always bothered me. And AutoDesk could always change their mind again!

Ian

zapta

@droftarts, thanks for the update.

Yesterday I spent a hour or two downloading STEP and STL files of my Fusion 360, as I saw it the main problem with the new license model.

However, it clicked with me that I need to move to something more stable than a free Autodesk and FreeCad seems to be a good choice, especially now that it's gaining momentum.

They also have a donation page https://liberapay.com/FreeCAD/income/

jens55

I decided to give FreeCad another shot as well but was stopped in my tracks when I tried to work on an object from thingiverse and edit it.
I used this method:

You can convert a mesh to a solid model that FreeCAD can work with with a few easy steps:

Note: an object needs to be selected before starting the command. Starting from step 2 you need to select the last object in the tree.

menu Part --> Create shape from mesh
menu Part --> Convert to solid
Optional: menu Part --> Refine shape

The STL from your link has many, many facets and the created solid is massive. Step 3 takes a long time to complete and does not work fully. You may be able to work with it, but things might be slow.

Step one worked ok but step two threw an error saying the shape is not a shell.
I have not been able to get past that error.
Has anyone managed to do that conversion - a fairly important feature!

JoergS5

@jens55 said in FreeCAD:

shape is not a shell.

there are some wikis handling this error:
https://forum.freecadweb.org/viewtopic.php?t=6643
https://wiki.freecadweb.org/FreeCAD_and_Mesh_Import
Seems to be a problem with the object itself (holes, self intersecting surfaces).

matt3o

gosh I'd love to use freecad on a regular basis, I find it to be usable and at the end you can design basically anything, the only problem is that it takes three times the time than with onshape (my weapon of choice). As a maker I don't care if my designs end up to the public domain, actually I like that, but I understand that onshape might close or limit functionalities at any time, so it's good to keep an eye on really open alternatives.

Still as a hobbyist I have very limited time and knowing I have to spend half a hour on something it may take 5 minutes it's really painful.

I'll see if I can help freecad development (being with code, docs or money) in the hope it will get a better workflow with time.

Anything thanks @arhi for the shout out

arhi

@jens55 said in FreeCAD:

tried to work on an object from thingiverse and edit it.

FreeCAD is not very useful for editing mesh files (I never managed to do useful edit of a mesh in f360 neither) but in a pinch, you can do it (slow and painful but ..) ... For me, it is faster to redo the whole part from scratch as a solid based on stl than to edit stl. For small STL edits I suggest using a mesh editing tool (I use Art of Illusion .. there are, other, better ones like blender..)

PCR

https://w3-mediapool.hm.edu/mediapool/media/fk03/fk03_lokal/verbundlabore/kca/rpmlab/fk03_rp_stl_to_solid_r1.pdf

its a good guide But in german

arhi

@matt3o said in FreeCAD:

gosh I'd love to use freecad on a regular basis, I find it to be usable and at the end you can design basically anything, the only problem is that it takes three times the time than with onshape (my weapon of choice). As a maker I don't care if my designs end up to the public domain, actually I like that, but I understand that onshape might close or limit functionalities at any time, so it's good to keep an eye on really open alternatives.

Still as a hobbyist I have very limited time and knowing I have to spend half a hour on something it may take 5 minutes it's really painful.

I'll see if I can freecad development (being with code, docs or money) in the hope it will get a better workflow with time.

Interesting. I used onShape for a long while (for me the best "free" tool out there, especially as I come from solidworks background) and stopped when they changed policy, not 'cause I have issue with publicity - I give source to all my 3d work anyhow so that's not a problem (like the f360 changes attm are not too big of a deal for me) but 'cause this is a move in wrong direction for me and they can change that at any time locking me out of my stuff and I don't want that.

Now wrt freeCAD being slower to work with, when was the last time you tried? What release you tried. Release they have out there is imho unusable, it is too slow and too unstable, but the pre-release .19 is very very usable. Takes a bit time to figure out how to do stuff but then it becomes fast and productive. The sketching is a bit sketchy and finiky but one gets around that after few days of using it

arhi

@PCR that url does not work for me ?

JoergS5

@arhi for me the link works. It's a guide to convert stl to step with Catia or FreeCAD.

arhi

@JoergS5 interesting, it works now, was 404 when I tested first time

arhi

I was trying to make installer for freecad .19 for days now and finally decided to see what they are doing for .19 prerelease and I see they are shooting .z for a portable "install" ... looks like they have the same issue .. the NSIS tool they used originally has a 2G limit and when the size of the app goes over 2G the darn thing won't work. Anyhow unpacking the archive anywhere works and looks like it's using home dir to store all the running data, config, workbenches etc etc .. so no install required

matt3o

@arhi said in FreeCAD:

Now wrt freeCAD being slower to work with, when was the last time you tried?

I'm on .19-pre, I update the appimage every now and then. Very usable overall, but still way slower to design anything especially if you have complex composites.

When I have simple things to do I try to use it so to lower my dependency to onshape and to slowly get used to it. Also being able to work completely off-line is a huge plus. If onshape starts to do shitty things like fusion is doing I'll very quickly switch though

arhi

@matt3o dunno, for me it's similar speed as onshape to make stuff ... I'm probbly doing simpler stuff than you. I do some stuff faster on onshape when I don't know (yet) how to do it in freecad, but the operations I know how to do in freecad I think speed is same. So yes, I am designing bit slower in freecad (for now) but that's fault of mine not of freecads

onshape made only one change that I know off that made me move, not 'cause the change affected me (didn't really I had everything open before that change anyhow) but 'cause the whole "we can change the rules any time and you can't do anything about it" is not the way I wanna play that game

matt3o

@arhi said in FreeCAD:

So yes, I am designing bit slower in freecad (for now) but that's fault of mine not of freecads

I see that you are implying my inadequacy at parametric cad which is... totally true but time to learn the software is still time. But I switched to inkscape (that now I actually prefer to illustrator... in certain aspects), to librecad (which is totally fine for what I need) and gimp (well, that still hurts)... freecad and blender are the last missing pieces...