Understanding FreeCAD Lesson 1.1 Building a basic part in Part Design Workbench. Beginners Tutorial
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 1 พ.ค. 2024
- First lesson of this new series, we will be building a simplified CNC part in the Part Design workbench in two different ways so we can understand the workflow of the part design workbench in FreeCAD and how to use it along with the sketcher to create the part. This lesson is split over two videos. In lesson 1.1 (video part 1 of 2) We will be working with the sketcher learning how to build and fully constrain the part using such constraints as tangent and symmetry constraints. We will learn how to fully constrain a sketch with geometry constraints and try to keep our constraints to minimum datum constraints. We will learn how some constraints can become conflicting such as the tangent and the alignment constraint, the reasons why and how to resolve. We will then pad the model and start sketching on the newly created faces. This course will help you to get to grips with CAD (computer aided design) in this open source alternative.
In the follow up video lesson 1.2 (video part 2 of 2)
• Understanding FreeCAD ...
we will take what we have built and learn how we can modify the part to build it in a different way. We will learn why our sketch has broken and how to easily resolve the issue, learning about the actions that have been applied to the part and how going back through the actions cause additional faces that we have to be mindful of when we start attaching sketches. Before we used just the pad, we will now learn how to use the pocket command.
We will then compare both parts to see the differences between them but how they still are the same functionally. We will then use a process called 'refinement' where connecting faces of the models will be merged and we will then see both parts are exactly the same.
Look out for up coming lessons in this course
#freecad #tutorial #course #basics
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Thank you for providing great instructions to the FreeCAD community. These are an important factor in increasing the awareness for FreeCAD and enabling decision makers to comfortably select FreeCAD as their CAD package. Keep up the great work!
You're very welcome! It's an honor to support such a great program and help the community to adopt it.
This would have been so very nice to have when I was getting started in FreeCad. Thank you for all you do.
Thank you for the comment, I enjoy doing these so will keep them coming. I am trying to balance my channel with fundamentals on weekends and then the shiny / Leftfield / experimental during the week. Next year I hope to get some equipment so I can 3D print and road test some of the projects I got in mind and include those in as extras.
Brilliant. Thank you!
Great tutorial, like always! Thank you again for your time, effort, and consistency! 🙏
Thanks for the kind comments 👍
Thank you so much. I've already started today and i've never done so much at one go in any software I've used. The credit is all due to you.
You're welcome! Glad you enjoying the series and it's making your learning easier. Lots more to come 😊
Excellent. Very clear.
Thanks for posting tutorials. I open up FreeCAD and try to follow along. I watch the videos multiple times because it helps the learning process.
Great to hear, glad you found the videos useful.
Absolutely fantastic content. Your workflow and explanations are easy to follow. Thank you so much!
Thank you, glad you enjoyed them 😊
Your video is very informative and well done. The 35 minute video only took me seven hours, but I am 73 and have a learning disability. I'm just glad I was able to go back and see again how it is done. I am using version 0.20 so I think there are a few differences. Still haven't figured out the rotate Left and Right yet, but I'm not going to let that deter me from learning this program.
Great to hear your progress. It doesn't matter how long it takes its that you got there and never gave up 😁👍. I know what it's like to have a learning disability, for years I was put in the "lower" class and then I found out I was dyslexic when I was in my 20's. By that time it was to late. The thing that got me through is that I learnt to never give up (in the end 😂)
You are a great teacher. Thank you so much for sharing your knowledge this way :)
Thank you for such a kind comment, great to get feedback from the Freecad community, thank you. 👍
Nice tutorial to get people started on FreeCad and complements your more technical ones on the features and quirks of FreeCad
Thank you for that, I am trying to strike a balance now with fundamentals as well as the cool shiny stuff. Have had a few requests for beginner tutorials and I want to see more people using freecad so decided to start a kind of beginners course. I am thinking of the videos I release at the weekend are more aimed towards understanding and beginning with Freecad, where the ones during the week are for the people who want to get a bit more deep and dirty with the software. Then again lesson 3 which I am working on is starting to look like a 5 video release as its a full project, not sure how that fits into this course so may be a separate release as I don't want it to scare anyone off.
Thank you for a great video. I tried various YT lessons, but yours are the best for me. No irritating music, nice pace, very well explained.
Thank you for the feedback, great to hear they are to your liking.
I have to say - stellar tutorials. I'm working through both yours and Adventures In Creation's and you compliment each other really well.
I like that you are going into in-depth on some of the little details (like the green arrow indicating last move)
Thank you so much for the feedback, glad you are enjoying. Your username seems familiar, I think I bought a cosplay mask off someone with a similar name some years back. Think it came from Canada
@@MangoJellySolutions OMG yes that could be me! I am in Ottawa Canada and I sell masks and cosplay supplies!
In fact I'm trying to learn FreeCad so I can create and 3D print supports and bucks for making masks.
Really nicely done! While I understand the basics, I enjoy watching well-produced basic FreeCAD videos as I always learn new things
Thank you for your comments. Nice to get feedback on the videos I do, always appreciated.
eu fiz no freecad e deu certo, valeu!
Thanks for the class!! I was gonna give up Freecad and I stumbled into this video . Hope is back!!! Very well explained . Thank you so much.
Great to hear your giving it another go. Thanks for the comment and feedback.
Very clear explanation! Great video! I have been learning alot from you.
Thank you, great to hear 👍
This is my third attempt at getting to grips with FreeCAD and although it's not perfect this is by far the best tutorial I've seen. The bits you've skipped appear to be easy to figure out but best of all you've given me enough of a base to have a play and discover a few things without getting stuck. Thank you!
Thank you great to hear you are progressing. Please could you let me know of what you found was missing. I always take note of the comments on the channel and my viewers so I can understand what I need to improve on and include in future videos.. Thanks once again.
Thank you, MangoJelly -- nice video, very step-by-step and very clear. Appreciate your teaching style.
Thank you for the feedback, great to hear your enjoying them
Verynice and clearly thank u sir
Thank you soooo much. this is helping me a lot with free cad to get me started!
Your welcome and great to hear. Enjoy your journey.
Top Man
Great lesson, there are so ways to achieve the same result but usually there is only one efficient one. Always learning from your videos...
Thank you for your comments and support, great to hear you like the video. There are so many ways with Freecad, sometimes too many.
Thank you very much. I enjoyed that. I used AutoCAD for my computing degree in the 90's and haven't used it since. I'm wanting to get back into it, and FreeCAD looks like a great app. I have loved this first tutorial. You explain things very well.
Thanks for the comments and kind words. Like yourself I had the same journey. Coming from mainly a rhino 3D and studio max background I had a long period out of 3D. I then returned and rekindled my love using Freecad and started this channel after a couple of years being back in the space. I always look back to remember what I struggled with and try to use that as inspiration. Welcome to the journey.
I just got a pc everything about it is alien to me I run CNC machines at work and decided to dive into learning the programming in my own time, your videos are great
Great to hear these are helping you out, thank you for the comment.
Currently following your video here if made a few hiccups and started from scratch again as couldn't find the issue but I'll get there.
Your videos are very helpful and much appreciated
Thank you!
You're welcome!
Thank you. At last things are getting clearer for me
Great to hear 😊
Great lesson!
Thank you
Free software and free tutorials , double win.
Suggestion architectural tuts in freecad^^
Awesome lesson and great material, thanks!. Subbed
Great to hear, glad you are enjoying, any requests let me know
absolutely fantastic tutorial !! loved it, thank you so much, i recreated it and can do it again without the tutorial.
Thanks for the comments, really glad you enjoyed. Look out for the rest of the series
Thanks you😃😃😃
Thanks!
Your welcome
This is very informative I learning quickly
Thank you. Great to hear 😁
At 27:22 you have to dbl-click on the sketch to reactivate it in order to add the 50mm circle.
Hej en rigtig god tutorial med klare billeder og klar tale i en god hastighed , godt for en nybegynder .
Din kommentar er dansk, men du forstår det engelske sprog. Fantastiske.
(I speak American English.)
I am one of the 10% with colour [color] blindness, never noticed the colours changed until you mentioned two colours of green
Great tutorial - thanks! It would be much more useful if I had ALL the menus and workbench icons you have. Do you have a tutorial on how to get your identical FreeCAD setup?
Sorry I only just seen this, it's got buried in all the comments. The setup I use is out of the box. What I have done is expanded a number of the toolbars by clicking and dragging them out to expose the icons. I have now started to use the menus more as everyone's setup is different and the icons will be in different places. The menus tend to stay the same.
Did it! Took me 3 attempts. I think the issue is I do not understand ther difference between tangencies when you select a point and an arc and when you select a edge and an arc. That is the subtlety I have not worked out yet.
Free cad and blender 👍👍👍👍nice video Sir
Thank you
Can we use symmetry constraint using linear dimension...
Also, is there any bounding constrain when we create SketchUp over existing part.
as said below, you know how to get it across, all the others do not go into the nitty gritty so I was left well behind
Very helpful ive been using your videos to help me for a couple days now. But like some others here my sketch also won't pad tells me it unable to validate broken face.
Thanks for the comment. You can check for a broken sketch by going to sketcher, drop down from the top and validate sketch. There is a option to check for missing coincidence constraints which means the sketch is not closed. You can change the tolerance on this to something like 0.1. It will highlight the constraints that leave the sketch open. From there you can hit fix or jump into the sketch and constrain. It's a common problem especially when first starting out. It's very easy to miss a constraint.
In making the large through hole at 27:10, what was clicked to let FreeCAD know that you wanted a through hole? You created the hole, exited the sketch and the hole was through the part. Thank you for this series.
Because its one single sketch that's been padded any circles you place inside the boundary will be converted to holes the same as the holes on the left and right of the large circle I added. Glad you're enjoying the start of the series.
@@MangoJellySolutions Thank you. "that's the way it works" is good for me. If one plans ahead, that feature/functionality would be a great time saver.
Not sure if this is a version issue, or what, I'm using 0.20.2 on Linux. For the first few attempts, every time I created a new sketch on top of the face, it would display a dialog with a few map mode options, and the sketch icon in the model view was directly below the expand/collapse arrow of the pad action, instead of below its icon. Then after creating the sketch and attempting to pad, a dialog along the lines of "Pad cannot use selected object. Selected object must belong to the active body. Consider using a shape binder etc. etc."
I'm not sure what I did wrong, eventually it worked, and now I can't reproduce the issue.
Any insight on what might have happened? I have no idea how it eventually worked.
thanks for the videos. lots of help. problem though, my sketch won't pad when I try, tried everything.
Same here. I had a fully constrained sketch, but when I tried to pad it, I got a pop-up window with "Failed to validate broken face".
I am starting to like this a hole lot better than Fusion 360. Heads up to the developers of freeCAD I love this program. The way you teach helps me put the two together, great job! was trying to name for instance to outer circles radios so to put them in a spread sheet to change sizes from spreadsheet but that is another video. You get a Amazon 5 star ratting!!
Great to get feedback on how I'm doing, it really helps. Freecad can be frustrating but with a little patients as you have found it really can be used as a replacement. Worth the number of additional workbenches the possibilities are endless. Thank you for sharing your experience.
Hello Do you have plans to make videos about FEA workbench? Maybe not free access even.
It is in my list of things to do yes. I have a project that's coming up which I am looking to use the workbench in.
Thank you for these videos! I'm super new to cad. I am having a continual issue with "Open Vertexes" when I try to pad. not sure what I'm doing wrong or how to fix.
Thanks for the comments and welcome to the journey. With your issue you probably find that you haven't closed your sketch. This is when a constraint hasnt been applied. If you use the check geometry tool it will show you the constraint that has the issue.
@@MangoJellySolutions I found that if I zoomed much closer to the sketch I had areas that were not connected. will the check geometry tool fix that? or just find it?
@@upnorthFPVandEUC the check geometry will locate and highlight these for you. You would then need to constrain these yourself in the sketch. The tool makes it easy to locate these rather than trying to find them yourself which probably as you found you have sometimes to zoom in quite close.
@@MangoJellySolutions ok.. I used the "validate sketch" option which I believe did the same thing?
@@upnorthFPVandEUCoh sorry, my mistake, that's the tool. I found when your very first starting out it's worth using obs to record what your doing. If you hit a problem you can always review what you was doing to see where you went wrong and if anything was changed by the program
Always save the file to a filename/location prior to starting it. FreeCAD has so many quirks that new users aren't familiar with, that it's important to save, save, save at *every* little step along the way. The software winds up having to be restarted numerous times because of those quirks and newb unfamiliarity with them.
Also, using the vertical constraint at all was what caused the errors when creating the 2nd tangents on the left side of this object. Skip that step and there won't be any problems with it later.
Nice spot 👌👍
@@MangoJellySolutions Thanks! I updated my comment with another tip as well. I hope you don't mind - I'm new to FreeCAD, but have been doing troubleshooting for decades, so when I spot something, I usually say something. If you do mind, let me know. It's your tutorial!
@@justrosy5it is all good because it helps work the community learning freecad 👍👍👍👍
@@MangoJellySolutions Awesome! Thanks! I'll keep posting about whatever I do find then!
well I was doing well upto just before you do the padding when I accidently hit something on my keyboard (no idea what) and the view changed and I can not get the 'cross hairs' back in sketcher view - so I guess it close down freecad and reopen, hope this gets me back to that view so I can start again
OK restarted FC and re did it all over and I got the part.
Nice. Sub’d 👍
need help to retrieve main screen
I love the video but I am having problem transcribing it because of some in-between comments[it's my problem, not yours:)]. How about making a detailed step-by-step written tutorial and post it as your comment. Thank you! [ sorry, I am asking too much]
Sorry for probably placing this question at the wrong place, but I was thinking, is there a way to create sketches from parts, so in a sort of reversed order, although I am not sure if that would be useful.
Yes there is, funny enough I have just create a video to release soon regarding this. Its good for unwrapping objects for lazer cutting. You want the draft workbench, and I believe its under the utilities, make 2D view. This will take a face and project it as 2D. You can then export this as SVG / dfx so import into other software. You can also convert this back to a sketch in the same workbench.
@@MangoJellySolutions aha that's remarkable indeed :) it sounds a bit like a long way round though. I would expect, since part objects are restrained by default(?) projecting sketch(es) to any plane(s) involved would be a breeze (says me having ZERO programming skills =D )
Hi there! Really love your videos. I am trying to make a body in PartDesign and I would need to measure an arc. How in the world are arcs measured in FreeCAD? I can't seem to find that option anywhere. Can you help?
Thanks for that glad you are liking them. Freecad doesn't offer that but you could write a macro to do it via the python console. Something like
print "Length: ",Gui.Selection.getSelectionEx()[0].SubObjects[0].Length
Should give you back the selected arc length.
@@MangoJellySolutions So I basicly click the arc I want to measure and then write : print "Length: ",Gui.Selection.getSelectionEx()[0].SubObjects[0].Length , in the python console and hit enter and I should get the result? It doesn't seem to work. Am I doing something wrong?
Ahh I have forgotten to ask, are you doing this in the sketcher as a constraint or just straight measurement in part design. I know your in part design but are you just using this to measure or constrain? On way back home so going to fire up free cad in a mo. There is also geoinfo in the curves workbench and I am sure it measures arcs but installing a workbench just for this is a bit over kill. Bear with me.
@@MangoJellySolutions I am just using it to measure. But can I also use it to constrain? Hope I am not to much for you. Thank you!
@@juperrr Just had a look, Don't bother with the print part. Select the arc in the partdesign and type Gui.Selection.getSelectionEx()[0].SubObjects[0].Length. You can save this as a macro and attached to a button. This will display the length when clicked. Also in the curves workbench there is the geominfo tool which can be clicked on and it will show the length of the arc. I just tried the geoinfo and macro inside sketcher but it gives a different result to one edge. Outside the sketcher it's fine.
What criteria do you use to choose a certain plane.. ? Thx in advance
All depends on what I am modelling. I actually have a video series that goes into this and how to decide which planes to pick as your modeling. Each piece is modeled and explained why the plane is selected and what happens if you pick a different plane th-cam.com/video/hMPvsptggIM/w-d-xo.html
@@MangoJellySolutions thank you...
To move dialogs install 'gnome-tweaks'. Start tweaks, select Windows (left plane), turn off "Attach Modal Dialogs." Then you'll be able to move them. Not sure why this anti-feature is implemented at all.
Thank you so much for sharing this :)
Help. I want to follow your cource. But the task / menu bar and icons do not match yours even closely. How do you customize the organization?
The ones I use are straight from the default installation of freecad. The only difference is that I have updated the icon size size in the display preferences so people can see it better. Also I am running on 0.21
I had the same problem. I found autoconstraints in Model panel bottom
Im stuck, when i use the symmetry button on th e 2 circles i get redundant constraint errors and can no longer proceed. My circles turn orange and if i close the task i lose everything
Look to the left it will say in blue 'click to select' click that and it will select the redundant constraint. Then you can hit delete on the keyboard.
Aren't you supposed to create new geometries on datum planes and not on 3d parts?
Sorry missed your comment. Ahh this is to do with TNP. After a lot of consideration I have taken to take a certain stance with this subject area. If you are creating sketches upon faces then you must be aware that when you make an underlying change to the action that created the target face then you may have to re-attach your last action to the new face that has been or the original face that has been renamed. If your continuously making datum planes or attaching the sketches to the base planes and moving the sketch into position to get around this issue then your going to have a frustrating time with freeCAD. Understanding how to fix these issues is key, in that way you can use traditional CAD practices to create your work. At some point in the near future these issues are going to vanish. LinkStage3 has already made some amazing progress in eliminating this issue. With my tutorials in the past I have gone down both routes and have decided to take the route that will stay current for longer (when these fixes finally get merged into freeCAD latest release) and also can be used by viewers in alternative CAD packages. It's a subject area that I have wrestled with and found that this is the best route to take, understanding how to manage your model rather than slowing yourself (and your PC as datum planes are memory intensive) and moving sketches into exact positions will mean you will more likely adopt freeCAD rather than leave it by the curb.
I've done the sketch and can't get it padded. Tried numerous times following move by move and what I got is 'failed to validate broken face' message. Any idea anyone?
The sketch validation tool (available in the sketch menu) will show any missing coincidence constraints. This normally causes this issue.
@@MangoJellySolutions @tad2ik I am having the same issue. I have broken points but when I make them coincident FreeCad throws a fit and says I have "Partially Redundant Constraints". Yet if I take away the constraints in question the sketch is no longer constrained. If it is constrained (all green lines) and I push ahead despite the partially redundant constraints then I get the same error as @tad2ik when I try and make a pad.
@tad2ik I did get it to work but I had to basically make the part over again. It's still telling me there are Partially Redundant Constraints but this time it let me make the pad *shrug*
This is frustrating. I saved a part, lost the combo view and now I cannot find it
If you look on the view, panels drop down menu you will see the option to enable the panel.
The part of FreeCAD that is boggling is the Part Design vs Part workbenches. It's like screws vs set-screws.
When I first started they both confused me, why have two workbenches that allow you to create the same thing from a sketch? Then I realised how much I use the part workbench with other workbenches such as the curves workbench. Everything in freecad is one of a certain type of object even down to helper objects such as iso curves (which is a collection of curves or edges so it is a compound). The part workbench allows you to manipulate these parts into more simplistic parts, splitting, combining etc with the option to do boolean based CAD workflow. The part design is more traditional CAD with feature based workflow. It's almost like freecad is being a jack of all trades offering workflow that are present in many cad /3d programs in one package. I have noticed workflow similar to rhino 3d, truespace and autocad. Maybe they are trying to attract more people this way. But yes,makes it a bit confusing
Nothing about the topological naming problem?
There's no need to mention it as we haven't encountered it yet. It's covered in future videos.
@@MangoJellySolutions Dang.....I was hoping it had been fixed and I just hadn't heard about it.
@@timinwsac not yet, but I know they are working on it.. Can't wait to see the back of that one.
Absolutely fantastic content. Your workflow and explanations are easy to follow. Thank you so much!
You're very welcome! Glad your enjoying and thank you for the feedback