Recently one of the magnet holders for my window shutters broke, and I thought I'd take a crack at designing a replacement to 3D Print. I'd never designed anything in CAD software before, so I had no real reference.
I found FreeCAD extremely easy to use and intuitive. I watched a couple videos and followed-along with the tutorials, then started on my own item. It's a relatively simple 3-part component. I took measurements with digital calipers, and in a few hours was printing the first prototype.
A couple prototypes later (small measurement adjustments to account for plastic shrinkage, etc), I had the final model. Replaced all of the magnet holders since they were sure to go soon, too.
I had fun, and finally used my 3D printer for something "real". Pretty cool.
for incredibly simple parts that i can describe using measurements, i've had a lot of fun pointing a high-power ai at openscad and letting it iterate through making the design for me
it's still tough to turn it into something i can then keep fiddling with in freecad though
put on "tron: ares" in the background to fully appreciate the model designing something that will be 3d-printed :)
Previously I'd get my calipers first and try to model using the direct measurements. The key point imo of the video was to take photos and model based on the photos, and then correct the measurements with your recorded measurements second.
That is the spirit! A friend recommended me to buy a Bambu P2S: there are parts I want to print and I don't want to model then send them to have them printed, nor to bother my friend all the time. Funnily enough I've got magnets falling too: for an alarm system on the doors/windows and they don't hold well anymore after the years. Then my car's radar detection device (fully legal) doesn't fit nicely in the phone holder I use to that effect: I want it a specific angle (I want it both inclined and facing towards me a bit). So I'll model those and just print them. There are a few things like that where I keep thinking: "If I had a 3D printer, I'd just print a part".
Most importantly: I've got a 11 y/o and I think it's cool for the kid to see how it works.
Already watch a few vids. Doesn't look too hard for simple things.
I post this in every FreeCAD thread: If you're going to start designing something with it, use the spreadsheet tool to make everything parametric. You'll save yourself a ton of time as your designs get more complicated.
Maybe this isn't anything new to experience CAD users. I don't know if other CAD tools do this as I started using FreeCAD after playing with 3D printing.
It's very common (Fusion calls it User Parameters, etc.) and indeed nice practice. FreeCAD has a few ways to do it, Spreadsheets but also free-form properties on objects. It's very flexible in this regard.
The only issue I have with the Spreadsheet is that I need to add an alias for every value I want to use in the Sketch or Part Design workbench. In practice, this usually looks like
A B
width 2mm
length 3mm
and for every cell in B I add an alias with the same value as in column A. Is there a way around that?
The Fusion implementation is awful - you can adjust one variable, one time, then you have to reopen the dialog to do another. At least for me it's always become non-responsive after a single edit, for years now. I've always assumed I'm just holding it wrong, but I don't know. I've moved on.
Is it any closer to functioning like Solidworks, NX, Creo, and all the other professional CAD software packages?
Edit: After opening it up it seems better than before but still not a replacement. I can use the draw tool to create a rectangle but than immediately cannot apply symmetry or equal length constraints until I delete others which shouldn't overlap. Clicking to create a cut or hole opens up a window that does not make it easy to create a new sketch from within or place something from within (but you can just make a sketch were you want something and then open them up and that they lock onto).
I've generally been a pretty harsh critic of FreeCAD because it represents the only entry in the market of linux CAD and it has frustrated me that it does not just do what is known to work. This seems usable. Still annoying, still not a replacement, but usable. So progress.
It's inherently limited by its geometry kernel. Most "real" CAD suites use something like parasolid, usually with a bunch of extras slapped on top. Making a new one from scratch is a massive undertaking, but I'll remain forever hopeful that we get a new, modern, open-source kernel one of these days...
Slightly unrelated to this story, but I’m curious if anyone has good resources for learning FreeCAD. I have quite a lot of experience with SolidWorks, AutoCAD, OnShape, and similar software, but FreeCAD has always been hard for me to pick up.
Oh wow - over on Reddit, someone mentioned that the Deltahedra YouTuber has started using his own voice, rather than a generated one - and - well, his content is now far more watchable than it was previously!
There was a PDF I had a while back (can't remember the name) which has a bunch of shapes you had to design in a 3D CAD program, with some guiding measurements.
The shapes got harder to create as you progressed through the book. That was a good, fun way to sharpen my skills after I learned the basics.
YouTube was very effective for me to learn FreeCAD. I just searched for some FreeCAD tutorials and followed-along. I had zero prior CAD experience though, so I was a "blank slate" in a way.
FreeCAD is really the only serious contender for CAD on Linux. I love how everything is hackable via Python APIs. Every release seems to fix more and more UX issues. I have very high hopes for it to eventually start attracting more commercial usage, much like KiCad and Blender did in their spaces. We need more open software like that.
>I love how everything is hackable via Python APIs.
It is hackable with languages other than Python too. The Python interpreter has no restrictions to access and execute everything it likes. Contrast this with Gimp, which it's Scheme interpreter cannot access anything except objects inside Gimp.
This opens some security hole risks in Freecad, given that plugins can execute arbitrary code in the user's machine, but that means one can write C, C++, Rust and automate the gui.
Freecad btw, very unfortunately, it loads each .so external library only once, and it will load the library only with different name or version number. I lost 5 hours messing up with Python versions and .venv installations till I figured that out.
In coming time you can see freecad massively improving.
This space lacks good opensource solution.
I have tried creating my parts, tried tinkercad (which is simple but limited)
Tried fusion. And pretty much other things don't support mac.
I've a hunch lots of vibe coders are going to come and launch stuff like freecad and Gimp (which I never liked, can't even get simple tasks done in gimp)
Future is bright for opensource powered by LLM coding on steroids.
Freecad is limited by Open Cascade which is the modeling kernel at the heart of the program. I started with Open Cascade then moved on to Granite from PTC (not open source) and the latter is just so much easier, faster, and stable. I’ve heard Parasolid and whatever it is that Autodesk uses these days are both excellent as well.
It would be nice for there to be a more modern open source modeling library.
DeltaHedra, another great YouTube channel, also released a good video that shows the previous and this version next to each other: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bYdobpjTypg
Thumbs up for both of them, but I must say that DeltaHedra has become my new favourite FreeCAD content creator. Especially after he started using his own voice. His old content was good, but his current his magnifique! The quality of the content he pushes is above and beyond.
Looking forward to this update. There are so many hidden gotchas in FreeCAD once you get past the basics. Load of bugs and head scratching issues. However its free and local so can’t complain to much.
I was not expecting so many improvements in this version alone, I'm impressed. I was already using it for 3d printing but now it seems it's getting actually good, makes me wonder how I was able to use the previous version.
I am also impressed by how much they are improving things. It just sucks that they are stuck with the OpenCasacade kernel so making stability improvements are hard to make in areas like fillets and others.
I don't follow Open CASCADE very closely, but it looks like they're on the verge of a new major release (v8.0) themselves that looks like a lot of refactoring and cleanup.
I don't know hat version FreeCAD is actually bundling, but from GitHub it looks like a fork of 7.8.1?
TL;DR: I wish they'd just align with Blender on UX, TBH.
I wish they settled on a nicer UX with less visual clutter. I use Blender and it is a _massively_ more complex application in every regard, yet its right-aligned panel and progressive exposure of toolbars feels infinitely more polished than FreeCad's clunky panel (which is often rendered with huge, oversized fields and buttons) and their legendary five-stacked toolbars.
Feels like that satirical Gillette ad, and is much harder to use and navigate, especially since quite a few UX options need to be turned on in Preferences to be usable...
I found FreeCAD extremely easy to use and intuitive. I watched a couple videos and followed-along with the tutorials, then started on my own item. It's a relatively simple 3-part component. I took measurements with digital calipers, and in a few hours was printing the first prototype.
A couple prototypes later (small measurement adjustments to account for plastic shrinkage, etc), I had the final model. Replaced all of the magnet holders since they were sure to go soon, too.
I had fun, and finally used my 3D printer for something "real". Pretty cool.
it's still tough to turn it into something i can then keep fiddling with in freecad though
put on "tron: ares" in the background to fully appreciate the model designing something that will be 3d-printed :)
But once I saw their “philosophy” as it were, everything became so much easier.
Wasn't just printing other people's designs.
Great feeling to measure and design something then have it fit perfectly.
Previously I'd get my calipers first and try to model using the direct measurements. The key point imo of the video was to take photos and model based on the photos, and then correct the measurements with your recorded measurements second.
Most importantly: I've got a 11 y/o and I think it's cool for the kid to see how it works.
Already watch a few vids. Doesn't look too hard for simple things.
Maybe this isn't anything new to experience CAD users. I don't know if other CAD tools do this as I started using FreeCAD after playing with 3D printing.
[0]: https://wiki.freecad.org/Std_VarSet
[0]: https://wiki.freecad.org/Std_VarSet
EasyAlias macro maybe?
I think that's much easier as you don't have to go back and forth with a spreadsheet.
Edit: After opening it up it seems better than before but still not a replacement. I can use the draw tool to create a rectangle but than immediately cannot apply symmetry or equal length constraints until I delete others which shouldn't overlap. Clicking to create a cut or hole opens up a window that does not make it easy to create a new sketch from within or place something from within (but you can just make a sketch were you want something and then open them up and that they lock onto).
I've generally been a pretty harsh critic of FreeCAD because it represents the only entry in the market of linux CAD and it has frustrated me that it does not just do what is known to work. This seems usable. Still annoying, still not a replacement, but usable. So progress.
There was a PDF I had a while back (can't remember the name) which has a bunch of shapes you had to design in a 3D CAD program, with some guiding measurements.
The shapes got harder to create as you progressed through the book. That was a good, fun way to sharpen my skills after I learned the basics.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/245787716-freecad-beginn...
and will be adding it to my next Amazon order.
It is hackable with languages other than Python too. The Python interpreter has no restrictions to access and execute everything it likes. Contrast this with Gimp, which it's Scheme interpreter cannot access anything except objects inside Gimp.
This opens some security hole risks in Freecad, given that plugins can execute arbitrary code in the user's machine, but that means one can write C, C++, Rust and automate the gui.
Freecad btw, very unfortunately, it loads each .so external library only once, and it will load the library only with different name or version number. I lost 5 hours messing up with Python versions and .venv installations till I figured that out.
This space lacks good opensource solution.
I have tried creating my parts, tried tinkercad (which is simple but limited)
Tried fusion. And pretty much other things don't support mac.
I've a hunch lots of vibe coders are going to come and launch stuff like freecad and Gimp (which I never liked, can't even get simple tasks done in gimp)
Future is bright for opensource powered by LLM coding on steroids.
It would be nice for there to be a more modern open source modeling library.
Release Notes: https://wiki.freecad.org/Release_notes_1.1
DeltaHedra, another great YouTube channel, also released a good video that shows the previous and this version next to each other: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bYdobpjTypg
I don't know hat version FreeCAD is actually bundling, but from GitHub it looks like a fork of 7.8.1?
This is single want to give it another chance
I wish they settled on a nicer UX with less visual clutter. I use Blender and it is a _massively_ more complex application in every regard, yet its right-aligned panel and progressive exposure of toolbars feels infinitely more polished than FreeCad's clunky panel (which is often rendered with huge, oversized fields and buttons) and their legendary five-stacked toolbars.
Feels like that satirical Gillette ad, and is much harder to use and navigate, especially since quite a few UX options need to be turned on in Preferences to be usable...