Two weeks ago I decided to develop a new hobby - 3D printing and CNC. So I went out and bought a Snapmaker 2.0 and then started searching for software. Went from Wings 3D to Sketchup, to Fusion 360 only to finally land on FreeCad. Spent a few hours looking at several different tutorials to 'teach myself' modelling. After watching about 3 hours of video and just being super frustrated - found this video. THANK YOU GOD! Concise, clear, lays out a reasonably simple sketch with necessary concepts - and well narrated. Excellent work - thumbs up, new subscriber + notifications and am headed to your patreon channel next.
I hope this helped. If you look at the beginner series playlist you will find it quite easy to create models in FreeCAD that you can either 3D print or CNC machine.
Terimakasih banyak bro. Setelah muter muter nyari video tutorial freecad. Akhirnya nemu yang penjelasan nya mudah dimengerti, tidak terburu buru dengan hasil gambar, tapi lebih menjelaskan bagaimana gambar tersebut terbentuk. Pokoknya mantap 👍👍👍👍 Terimakasih 🙏🙏🙏
Well, I asked a question about why you calculated the datum plane location rather than choosing the face, and all I had to do was watch your next video and it was answered. Awesome. Thank you for your videos I am learning a huge amount.
Excellent tutorial. I had no clue what the datum plane was used for. I learned a lot from watching this. FreeCAD is slowly starting to make more sense to me.
Thank you, I love your channel. Your videos have help me learn and develop parts for making my business run smother. I love doing cad work now and 3d printing.
Hello dear teacher, I would say that the video should be called : "Simple model in a complex way", jajajaja, just kidding, the calculation part using the formula is very interesting, but I am sure that many people do not understand where the formula comes from. I had to take pencil and paper and remember that the tangent of an angle is the opposite leg divided by the adjacent leg. I did the exercise creating the Datum Plane using three points of the inclined plane at the top... with exactly the same result. I congratulate you and hope you to continue uploading such excellent videos. Best Regards from Venezuela...
It is true that some people may not know trigonometry however as engineers we should endeavor to learn such mathematical formulae as they are frequently used in the calculation of triangles. I am glad you were able to recreate the same with paper and pencil. It makes me happy to know you enjoyed it.
very much enjoyed this video, thank you for your efforts. Now that I'm retired (65) I have time to dig into CAD as I'm now the owner of a 3d printer and soon a desktop cnc mill. I'm very familiar with isometric drawings as a machinist and electrical engineer. . I've been bumping around CAD software ie Fusion 360 and a few others sort of picking stuff up but really need to find an instructional series that shows best practices for CAD drawings. I need to start at the beginning of your series now more for the learning where all the various keystrokes come from on the user interface. It is good to see how the process develops on a more complex model. I will revisit this video after plowing through the earlier ones from beginner on upwards to get familiar with the software.
IMHO you sir are an excellent instructor. I have followed all your videos and feel confident working with FreeCAD, you have taken me from the point of installing the software through learning a lot of the fundamentals to being able to model a complex part as you illustrated here. I must admit that I did pick up a couple of really good points today, tagging a point on a part of the geometry and asking for a horizontal or vertical measurement without specifying the center, I will use that! I have tried to understand the mirror and polar functions without much success before today! I still see way too many "broken face errors" when trying a complex shape or odd angles. Thank you again for all your hard work in preparing and executing these videos, please continue with my education even though I am a spry 74 years old...
What a good teacher you are , thank you. Just downloaded today and watched 1/2 of the video and I succeeded in drawing all that i have seen . I will continue to-morrow. I am only 67 yrs old and I am enjoying it as a hobby. May Jesus bless you.
Being a person who does not necessarily remember formulas, I ended up experimenting with the datum plane for the angled piece by attaching it directly to the surface produced by the angled cut of the upright, and used the upright's external geometry as reference for measurements and constraints of the angled face while in sketch mode. It's a bit easier IMHO than remembering somewhat obscure and complex formulas. Just my 2 pennies. Thanks again for the excellent tutorial!
I am glad you are experimenting for yourself, that's what I hope will happen. Just one word of caution, if you attach a plane to a face you may run into the topological naming issue. If you do that, you might as well just create the sketch on the face that you were going to attach the plane to. You can create a datum plane on a base plane them move/rotate it from there.
@@Adventuresincreation Thanks for the reply. I thought using a datum plane on that surface instead of the surface itself would sort out the issue, since the plane is (I think) used in lieu of the surface itself. Isn't that how datum planes work? Well, I suppose that's how they should work in my head, haha... Guess I'll have to do some more experimenting to try and figure it out. Thank you.
Nice tutorial going over some useful basic tools. Out of curiosity, why did you create a datum plane for the angle top bracket, versus just selecting the angled top face of the post for your drawing plane of reference?
Thanks for the tut, dude, very helpful in getting familiar with the tools! FC is kinda counterintuitive as it comes to moving and joining objects compared to in tinkercad (which is why I have been struggling), but obviously the power is on another level. I am not much of a RTFM guy but after spending the last night trying and failing, trying this was really worth it.
I appreciate your work so much, this is great stuff. I appreciate showing us how to modify a datum plane to sit on a custom axis, but I wanted to mention that it's also possible to do this by simply clicking on the face in question and choosing "Create a datum plane" from the Tasks tab.
Just be aware that attaching the datum plane to the face makes it vulnerable to the topo naming problem. I'm not sure there's really much use for attaching a datum plane to a face either. If you're doing that, why wouldn't you just sketch on the face directly? Hopefully in a few months, the topo naming problem will largely be fixed.
Just to reiterate what @haysoos123 said. If you watch the video I will publish this week FreeCAD Beginner #11 you will see a demonstration of the topological naming issue where I show how creating a sketch on a face is problematic. - It works but only if you don't modify the sketch afterward. That is why I don't use that technique. Hopefully, it will be fixed in release 0.20.
EDIT: I lie (sort of). After adjusting the hole diameters that are part of the multi-transforms, that triggered the topological naming problem when the datum plane was attached to a face. @@Adventuresincreation I actually did it this way as I was recreating this part, i normally try it before watching your method. It worked fine, even if you go back and alter the length or width of the pillar etc. I understand the topological naming problem, but it didn't cause an issue in this context having just attached the datum plan to the face. I liked your approach for positioning the plane independently though, was good to see that.
@@TheMadMagician87 usually it works. It's when you adjust the model later that it all goes bad. I am glad you are trying it first before watching my solution. There are many ways to achieve similar ends.
Thank you sooo much for your videos. I started with 3D Design last week. By watching your videos, I was able to build this model based off the paper sketch before watching the rest of the video. (I used the polyline method for the pillar, but otherwise, I followed all the same steps!!!) Thanks!!!!!!
This might be dumb question, but I'm relatively new to CAD, so... instead of positioning datum plane, wouldn't it be faster and simpler to select the angle face on the body and then hitting sketch?
Yes it would but then your model may break because of the topological naming issue. Basically the reference to faces can change when the model is modified. Datums are a way to prevent your model from breaking this way.
My second draw (this one was advanced in my point of view :) )! I reproduced it perfectly with some mistakes in the middle but I've corrected the alignment. Thanks a lot !
If you now make a part list you will be disappointed with the 90 mm, if in reality it should be 80 mm. but once I got to the Datum plane section, I knew this was the solution! thanks for this tutorial in getting familiar with the tools!
Thanks for the video, it was nice to see it. I would suggest to do part of the process in an alternative way, using more planes, and cross references and giving names to the constraints so editting the model in the future will not turn into a problem, and the model itself will be less prone to errors.
I am learning freecad because I want to do some simple lab fixtures and don't want spend money on SW or F360, but man TNP makes for a hell of a roundabout way of doing things.
23:12 The quick and dirty way to do this is view the model from the side and zoom in on the gap until you are looking at micrometers ,then adjust the offset until the gap is gone or overlaps by a few μm
My toolbox has more metric tools than SAE, and I use them on US vehicle too. It just makes sense. Some things refuse to die for no good reason. Excellent video. As a CAD beginner, your videos have been very helpful. You explain every little click which matters a lot when objects can seem to disappear into thin air.
The top of the pillar is a right-angled triangle, with a base of 15 and an angle of 35° The trigonometric function tan (tangent) is the ratio of the opposite side (call it h) to the base. So tan(35) = h ÷ 15. Rearrange to get h = 15 x tan(35). 90-h is the offset you need for the datum plane. I remember sitting in trigonometry lessons at school, thinking "I'm /never/ going to need this stuff..."
Do you have advice on when to make a new part vs when to make another body in the same part? I use FreeCAD for woodworking and struggled with this choice, but I've landed on making every board its own part, and putting them together in the assembly workbench. Tedious and fragile to change, but it's the only way I've been able to plan for allowances like shelf grooves and make tech drawings for each board to be cut. I too came to FreeCAD recently from TinkerCAD, which was fine for 3D printing, but couldn't help me plan joinery.
I think your approach is sound. If the item is a discreet thing with its own features it should be a part. If the item is a piece of a whole then it can be a body. As you know, you can't assemble bodies only parts.
Many thanks. As I understand it, you could have established the datum plane directly on the cut face (highlight the cut face, then make a datum plane) without having to do any computations.
Funny, I made parts on my router for a long time using inch and most of the drawings I got where in mm, and I converted them for the longest time before trying it in mm. I haven't gone back to in yet, I now convert in to mm!
At various places in your videos, you seem to have trouble with orbiting the model (about 28:30 in this one). I found by swapping the mouse for an inexpensive trackball a couple of years ago that CAD software became a lot easier to navigate. I was using F360 then. M570 trackballs were regularly available for about $15 back then. They are about $35 now. It took about a week to get the feel of it, but I wouldn't want to go back to an ordinary mouse now. FreeCAD works great with a trackball.
Thanks for the tip, I have used a trackball in the past but to be honest, it's not really a lot of trouble it's more a case of not having much space where my mouse is located. - If I was doing more FreeCAD than I do, I might consider the trackball. It's good tip for those that are doing a lot of CAD.
About the datum plane, is there no way to attach it directly to the surface ? I'm thinking solidworks, where I would draw directly on the surface. Because as I see it, if me modify the height of the models, we have to calculate everything again, it is not dynamic
In your videos, you create a part first, then put the body in the part. Bodies can be created without being in a part; what advantage do we gain from starting with a part?
Lowe's has a good variety of metric fasteners.....screws, bolts, nut, etc. I find it difficult to understand why so many Europeans have problems using the imperial system....I work in both and have no issue. BTW, we don't normally use "fractions" for precision work, we use decimals...
I was brought up using inches, I worked as a tool maker where we manufactured to within thousands of an inch (thou) but our drawings were all in metric so we had to convert everything from mm to inch. I am very familiar with the imperial and metric systems. The metric system just makes more sense to me as does the Celsius scale (based on the freezing and boiling points of water). It's personal preference.
@@Adventuresincreation Yes... I see what you mean. I made a couple of models and tested it... Hopefully the developers will find a solution soon! Thanks!
May I ask how your dimensions look thin, black and tidy instead or thick and green as it is by default? I've looked in the options and didn't see a way to change it. Thanks?..
In the latest FreeCAD, you can create a datum plane directly off the angled plane at the top by clicking that face then the "datum plane" button. Much easier though the origin point isn't set to the center of the face.
@@Adventuresincreation Honestly even if you (rightfully) worried of TNP, you can create datum plane by clicking face first, then in preference delete reference and choose "Deactivated" attachment. It will not move datum plane. It can be done either during datum plane creation or changing it preference afterwards as well.
Thanks. I'm self taught with freecad from way back. I have used the datum plane a few times. While on that note, I have nearly always built parts up buy mapping sketches to faces and building from there. What is the advantage to this method? I can see that it would avoid some of the heartbreaks where a small change to a early piece of the part breaks the whole model. Is that the main benefit?
Lol, I get the hybrid unit system woes. I'm from and in the states but I refuse to use Imperial for CAD because it just feels arbitrarily more difficult. Also me: using mils for PCB design 😅
Thanks so much for sharing the great work! I'm approaching my CAD development from the perspective of "how will this part/model print"? Given that, I'd probably approach this as three separate parts and add a mechanism for joining the three upon print completion/post processing. Is there a method, now that you have the completed part, for simply separating the three and saving out as sep stl files? In my head it makes more sense designing this way because the dimensions/etc.... would be easier to set in this method and then just separate out the parts into their separate components. However, that's keeping in mind that, my head, is in Kindergarten in relation to CAD design and of course FreeCad. Again, thanks for the post, great stuff!
If you want to make separate STL files, it would be best to create separate bodies of each part that you creating to print that way. I think that part would print ok as one piece if you put some supports on the "lugs" and under the "flange". I have been doing some 3D prints with clips to put parts together to make printing faster. Those have worked well even in PLA.
You are half right, assembly and top down design are possible they are just not as advanced as some CAD systems yet. Remember, FreeCAD is improving rapidly and is extremely powerful, you may have to adjust your thinking a little bit. I can tell you that back when I first started using CAD, a system to create these models was extremely expensive and specialized, the fact that you can create complex models for free and on an OK laptop is simply amazing!
@@Adventuresincreation Good point. For me it depends upon what the part is functionally doing and how much force that will be applied. In the case of this part I could see hollowing the pillar and running a threaded rod or similar item to provide more strength for the top plate and carry any excess load, etc...
@@nedeljkomucic311 Thanks Nedeljko, I'm definitely swimming with water wings here. Give me about five years of designing/producing and I'll be strong. I bought my 3d printer with the goal of developing my own models for printing. Of course the heart of this is CAD and from my view so far, FreeCad absolutely rocks. Sure, 360 is the top end but, it also comes with a top end price and? I'm running FreeCad on RPI 4B with 8GB mem and on the still beta 64bit OS. All of which, perform incredibly well. Re assembly and top down design I'm sure I'll find plenty of walls as with anything but, learn to work around them.
There is always more than one way to model items. As long as the approach will create a "topological naming issue" free model. You can do create it any way you would like.
I wasn't being critical of your excellent videos. I am learning FreeCAD and found another way to create the datum plane by accident and thought it easier than getting involved in trig. A neat, and time saving, feature for parametric modelling would be the ability to select values directly from the spreadsheet. Having to retype spreadsheet. etc gets tedious. Also I used Alias Manager instead of EasyAlias as the online copy is screwed at this time. @@Adventuresincreation
how to rotate the DatumPlane around not its own axis but around the origin? When I have to rotate around a cylinder, I have to calculate sin and cosin. Not practical
sorry I had problems with version 20.1, and couldn't cut, copy and paste! it's finally solved, I installed version 18.4 and it works without any problems.
@@Adventuresincreation so far I have been able to make everything, but copying and pasting a part of a drawing in Sketcher does not work! these in the edit menu are inaccessible and slightly colored, and ctrl + c don't work either! not even after a full reinstall of the 20.1 version without addons gave no improvement. Am I doing something wrong in the new version that was possible in the older versions?
Thank you for this. It is very helpful. My question though. If I wanted to fabricate this, it seems to me that it is at least 3 different parts. Can I model it in this same way and then come back and slice it in to different parts?
@@Adventuresincreation thank you. I was thinking, what if I just want to model a large multi part body roughly and then cut it into parts later. Is that a possibility or should I just think in parts from the start?
LOL... I don't think in inches anymore, I grew up right around the time when we were switching in the UK however, when I went to work as Toolmaker the industry was still using a lot of the "lease lend" equipment that was provided from the USA after the war, that meant we had to convert everything on a drawing from mm to inches, lots of fun. The drawings were covered in notes. Then the old machines got digital readouts and life was good again. - Ah, those were the days ;-)
How come there are no patron subscription plans? I am shortlisting which channel I will subscribe to and yours is high on the list, I have very limited income so cannot sub to many, but there's no info on plans for yours which is the first time I have come across this?
Where/ what Height to put Datum plane? Create a new side view sketch, then "create a point in the sketch" where the vertical green line and middle of 35° line intersect. Next, Constrain the Ht. Between the new point and the "middle base point"(sorry, I don't know the proper term) to force FreeCAD to show what the required Ht. Is.... then delete the sketch and plug number in for Datum plane Z Ht. Easy.....
Thanks for the video. Coming from CREO and solid works, I must say I'm quite disappointed that the developpers didn't work on extruding/sketching on a selected face. This is really a basic requirement for CAD. Still, developping that software is a massive amount of work, so a massive applause for those who developped it. But if they do upgrades, they should work on this before anything else. Working from existing faces/geometries is a MUST.
Creating a plane on a surface seems stupidly complicated in FC compared to Fusion 360. Having to perform the calculations etc for what should be a simple click.
Hi Danny, you could do that but if you modify your model after doing so, you risk experiencing the topological naming issue where the sketch will be attached the wrong face. That's why, at least for now, we have to use offsets and datum planes to create these features.
@@Adventuresincreation thank you. I found the article relating to this and it explains issues I had in the past. I knew the what, but not the why. I think his issue is what ultimately will send me back to Onshape. Your tutorials are brilliant though.
@@fishndive1961 You might want to hang on, the next release should have a fix that largely negates the issue. It's been in the works for a long time and will get there. I have become so used to it that I just work around it now but once it's fixed I will go back to using faces for datums.
You can do that but, you should not because you may have a problem with the topological naming issue. The face you link the datum plane to may change its ID and the plane will move.
I was surprised you dimensioned the hole with a figure of 30 If the important factor is that the hole is 10mm from each edge, surely that is best to constrain. Because if you change the height from 80 to say 100 then the hole breaks Just an observation
Hi Graham, as always there are many ways to skin a cat. Sometimes, you can decide that there are "reasonable" limits and not constrain for every use case however, if you really want to lock it down you certainly can in multiple ways. Glad you are thinking about it critically.
@@Adventuresincreation your videos have been a god send. I haven’t found anyone online who explains things *as I would want them explaining*. Many just skip over important things and leave me guessing. Every time I watch a video and think of a question in my head as I watch, the next words out of your mouth are the answer. You’re really thinking about your audience and you are pitching this at a perfect level. I’ve trained a lot of people over my 30y in software and it’s not easy to do. You’ve got this down to a fine art. Thank you 🙏 👍
This video just shows how much farther FreeCAD needs to go to be commerically competitive with something like Solidworks. The whole process where you had to dimension things off the origin and especially the angled datum offset calculation wouldn't have been necessary. Dimensioning off the origin is not a trivial matter of a few additional simple calculation, where you dimension your features off of is determined by your design intent. Yeah I know you could've "referenced external body" to get those edge lines into the sketch. That's also not necessary in something like Solidworks.
He could have dimensioned off of the edges just as well. I certainly would have. The new datum plane could have been created by selecting the angled face and then creating it. The only issue is that the origin doesn't automatically center on that face, but there must be a way to do that too. Doing that calc was unnecessary.
FreeCAD can work of edges and faces however, at this time, the standard version suffers from a topological naming issue which will cause the model to break if there are additional faces added after using a face as a reference. This is actively being worked on and can be seen working in the RealThunder branch. - I agree that it has a way to go before it is a viable commercial package but for many hobbyists it is an excellent alternative to learning a package who's price may change in the future.
I was about 7 or 8 when we decimalised in the UK, so I pretty much never used imperial, I do remember just old money where it was 240 pennies to the pound, 6 pennies per shilling, 20 shillings per pound.. WTH was they thinking, WHY... WHY... WHY!!! I have the same feeling about imperial measurements, WHY, WHY, WHY would you teach someone in 1/2, 1/4, 1/16, 1/32, 1/64.. 12 inches to a foot, 3 foot to a yard.. 16 oz to a pound! 14lb to a stone, 8 stone to a hundredweight.. WTH!!!! Its 2021 for crying out loud, abandon that stupid ass imperial system and stop torturing your poor kids with completely unnecessary complications LOL right, now I got that rant out of my system, back to vid.. :D
Those nasty shopkeepers were taking advantage of you @Louise Paisley-there were 12 pennies to the shilling just like the 12 inches to the foot. Nice rant. :) PS: be thankful you weren't in Jersey, over there they had 13 pennies to the shilling for a while… it made currency conversion with the French Franc easier! :D :D :D
@@GeoffRiley LOL I have no idea why 6 came out of my keyboard, there appears to be a disconnect appearing between what my brain says and what my fingers do... Seriously.. I am actually getting other symptoms too.. Thats what happens when you pass 40, every year a bit more of you falls to bits LOL
![CAD TUTORIAL : FreeCAD Beginner [EASY GUIDE]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/1QNVyMBV0fM/mqdefault.jpg)
Metric is the best method of measurement. I am an American and own a metric tape measure. So easy to measure- no more fractions.
Shhh don't tell anyone, I agree! 😉
So much better
As an european, can confirm
as a non us citizen, can confirm
Two weeks ago I decided to develop a new hobby - 3D printing and CNC. So I went out and bought a Snapmaker 2.0 and then started searching for software. Went from Wings 3D to Sketchup, to Fusion 360 only to finally land on FreeCad. Spent a few hours looking at several different tutorials to 'teach myself' modelling. After watching about 3 hours of video and just being super frustrated - found this video.
THANK YOU GOD!
Concise, clear, lays out a reasonably simple sketch with necessary concepts - and well narrated.
Excellent work - thumbs up, new subscriber + notifications and am headed to your patreon channel next.
I hope this helped. If you look at the beginner series playlist you will find it quite easy to create models in FreeCAD that you can either 3D print or CNC machine.
Me Too!
Terimakasih banyak bro.
Setelah muter muter nyari video tutorial freecad. Akhirnya nemu yang penjelasan nya mudah dimengerti, tidak terburu buru dengan hasil gambar, tapi lebih menjelaskan bagaimana gambar tersebut terbentuk.
Pokoknya mantap 👍👍👍👍
Terimakasih 🙏🙏🙏
You are welcome, I appreciate the feed back.
Well, I asked a question about why you calculated the datum plane location rather than choosing the face, and all I had to do was watch your next video and it was answered. Awesome. Thank you for your videos I am learning a huge amount.
Thanks for the feedback!
I like seeing your technique, and highlighting some tools I didn't know about or how to use before!
Thanks Nathan
Excellent tutorial. I had no clue what the datum plane was used for. I learned a lot from watching this. FreeCAD is slowly starting to make more sense to me.
That's great to hear, you will soon be at expert level. 😉
Thank you, I love your channel. Your videos have help me learn and develop parts for making my business run smother. I love doing cad work now and 3d printing.
Great to hear. Good luck with your business
Thanks. As a newby to Freecad, I picked up a couple useful tips. Mich appreciated!
You are very welcome!
Hello dear teacher, I would say that the video should be called : "Simple model in a complex way", jajajaja, just kidding, the calculation part using the formula is very interesting, but I am sure that many people do not understand where the formula comes from. I had to take pencil and paper and remember that the tangent of an angle is the opposite leg divided by the adjacent leg.
I did the exercise creating the Datum Plane using three points of the inclined plane at the top... with exactly the same result.
I congratulate you and hope you to continue uploading such excellent videos.
Best Regards from Venezuela...
It is true that some people may not know trigonometry however as engineers we should endeavor to learn such mathematical formulae as they are frequently used in the calculation of triangles. I am glad you were able to recreate the same with paper and pencil. It makes me happy to know you enjoyed it.
very much enjoyed this video, thank you for your efforts. Now that I'm retired (65) I have time to dig into CAD as I'm now the owner of a 3d printer and soon a desktop cnc mill. I'm very familiar with isometric drawings as a machinist and electrical engineer. . I've been bumping around CAD software ie Fusion 360 and a few others sort of picking stuff up but really need to find an instructional series that shows best practices for CAD drawings. I need to start at the beginning of your series now more for the learning where all the various keystrokes come from on the user interface. It is good to see how the process develops on a more complex model. I will revisit this video after plowing through the earlier ones from beginner on upwards to get familiar with the software.
Make sure you take a look at #27 it's on tech draw and will get you to a fully dimensioned drawing.
Didn’t know about the create edge link to an external geometry. Thanks exactly what I wanted to do for my design!
Excellent
IMHO you sir are an excellent instructor. I have followed all your videos and feel confident working with FreeCAD, you have taken me from the point of installing the software through learning a lot of the fundamentals to being able to model a complex part as you illustrated here. I must admit that I did pick up a couple of really good points today, tagging a point on a part of the geometry and asking for a horizontal or vertical measurement without specifying the center, I will use that! I have tried to understand the mirror and polar functions without much success before today! I still see way too many "broken face errors" when trying a complex shape or odd angles.
Thank you again for all your hard work in preparing and executing these videos, please continue with my education even though I am a spry 74 years old...
I am glad you are enjoying them. Look out for next week's video, I cover how to fix that broken face error in that one.
@@Adventuresincreation Broken face errors ... yeah, that will proly be my next too. :D
This video helped with how the model layering builds one upon another from the base sketch with relation to the planes. Thank you.
You are welcome, glad it helped
What a good teacher you are , thank you. Just downloaded today and watched 1/2 of the video and I succeeded in drawing all that i have seen . I will continue to-morrow.
I am only 67 yrs old and I am enjoying it as a hobby. May Jesus bless you.
Glad it helped!
3:15 the order of selecting the vertices is important. First select the two corners (upper left and bottom right) and than select the center / origin.
This is true
A way to get around this is to draw the rectangle from the center. That option is available.
thanks, very helpful in understanding relation between parts, bodies and how to use external geometry.
Glad you enjoyed it
Being a person who does not necessarily remember formulas, I ended up experimenting with the datum plane for the angled piece by attaching it directly to the surface produced by the angled cut of the upright, and used the upright's external geometry as reference for measurements and constraints of the angled face while in sketch mode. It's a bit easier IMHO than remembering somewhat obscure and complex formulas.
Just my 2 pennies. Thanks again for the excellent tutorial!
I am glad you are experimenting for yourself, that's what I hope will happen. Just one word of caution, if you attach a plane to a face you may run into the topological naming issue. If you do that, you might as well just create the sketch on the face that you were going to attach the plane to. You can create a datum plane on a base plane them move/rotate it from there.
@@Adventuresincreation Thanks for the reply. I thought using a datum plane on that surface instead of the surface itself would sort out the issue, since the plane is (I think) used in lieu of the surface itself. Isn't that how datum planes work? Well, I suppose that's how they should work in my head, haha... Guess I'll have to do some more experimenting to try and figure it out. Thank you.
"Even though I live in the United States, I'm doing all stuff in milimeters..."
You got me dude :)
I love inches but, working in a base 10 is so much simpler ;-)
Second time using FreeCAD and you made it feel like I’ve been using it forever!!! (Although I do come from a solidworks background)
Excellent, glad the videos are helping.
Nice tutorial going over some useful basic tools. Out of curiosity, why did you create a datum plane for the angle top bracket, versus just selecting the angled top face of the post for your drawing plane of reference?
The topological naming issue will present a problem if you use the face. The name of that face will change if you modify the model.
Thanks for the tut, dude, very helpful in getting familiar with the tools! FC is kinda counterintuitive as it comes to moving and joining objects compared to in tinkercad (which is why I have been struggling), but obviously the power is on another level. I am not much of a RTFM guy but after spending the last night trying and failing, trying this was really worth it.
Great, I am glad it helped
I appreciate your work so much, this is great stuff. I appreciate showing us how to modify a datum plane to sit on a custom axis, but I wanted to mention that it's also possible to do this by simply clicking on the face in question and choosing "Create a datum plane" from the Tasks tab.
Just be aware that attaching the datum plane to the face makes it vulnerable to the topo naming problem. I'm not sure there's really much use for attaching a datum plane to a face either. If you're doing that, why wouldn't you just sketch on the face directly? Hopefully in a few months, the topo naming problem will largely be fixed.
@@haysoos123 thanks for those details!
Just to reiterate what @haysoos123 said. If you watch the video I will publish this week FreeCAD Beginner #11 you will see a demonstration of the topological naming issue where I show how creating a sketch on a face is problematic. - It works but only if you don't modify the sketch afterward. That is why I don't use that technique. Hopefully, it will be fixed in release 0.20.
EDIT: I lie (sort of). After adjusting the hole diameters that are part of the multi-transforms, that triggered the topological naming problem when the datum plane was attached to a face.
@@Adventuresincreation I actually did it this way as I was recreating this part, i normally try it before watching your method. It worked fine, even if you go back and alter the length or width of the pillar etc. I understand the topological naming problem, but it didn't cause an issue in this context having just attached the datum plan to the face. I liked your approach for positioning the plane independently though, was good to see that.
@@TheMadMagician87 usually it works. It's when you adjust the model later that it all goes bad. I am glad you are trying it first before watching my solution. There are many ways to achieve similar ends.
Thank you sooo much for your videos. I started with 3D Design last week. By watching your videos, I was able to build this model based off the paper sketch before watching the rest of the video. (I used the polyline method for the pillar, but otherwise, I followed all the same steps!!!) Thanks!!!!!!
Well done, I am glad the videos are helping you
This might be dumb question, but I'm relatively new to CAD, so... instead of positioning datum plane, wouldn't it be faster and simpler to select the angle face on the body and then hitting sketch?
Yes it would but then your model may break because of the topological naming issue. Basically the reference to faces can change when the model is modified. Datums are a way to prevent your model from breaking this way.
@@Adventuresincreation that makes sense.. thank you
My second draw (this one was advanced in my point of view :) )! I reproduced it perfectly with some mistakes in the middle but I've corrected the alignment. Thanks a lot !
Excellent, it seems you are improving quickly
Thanks for the video, it was very helpful!
Great, glad it helped
If you now make a part list you will be disappointed with the 90 mm, if in reality it should be 80 mm.
but once I got to the Datum plane section, I knew this was the solution!
thanks for this tutorial in getting familiar with the tools!
Glad you figured it out
Love From KSA, learning a lot from you
Thanks!
Thanks for the video, it was nice to see it. I would suggest to do part of the process in an alternative way, using more planes, and cross references and giving names to the constraints so editting the model in the future will not turn into a problem, and the model itself will be less prone to errors.
Thanks for the feedback
This is great you explain very well thanks ! My printer is on the way so I’m practicing.
Great fun!
I am learning freecad because I want to do some simple lab fixtures and don't want spend money on SW or F360, but man TNP makes for a hell of a roundabout way of doing things.
Get the latest dev version rc1. 0 it has mostly fixed the tnp
I have a nasty habit of dimentioning all my holes, but your way of mirroring is far more simple.. Thanks..
Glad you liked it
Appreciate it, like your metric system too. Best regards
Thanks for the feedback
23:12 The quick and dirty way to do this is view the model from the side and zoom in on the gap until you are looking at micrometers ,then adjust the offset until the gap is gone or overlaps by a few μm
Yeah, you can get very close that way
My toolbox has more metric tools than SAE, and I use them on US vehicle too. It just makes sense. Some things refuse to die for no good reason.
Excellent video. As a CAD beginner, your videos have been very helpful. You explain every little click which matters a lot when objects can seem to disappear into thin air.
Thanks. The thing that won't disappear here is F for temps. My family always say they have no idea what that means as they only use C
Thumbs up for using MM!
Thanks
Thankyou very much
Could you please tell where I could get more information on setting the height of datum (90 -tan(35)*15).....
You are welcome. I am not sure what you are looking for? The datum height was a trignometric function.
The top of the pillar is a right-angled triangle, with a base of 15 and an angle of 35° The trigonometric function tan (tangent) is the ratio of the opposite side (call it h) to the base. So tan(35) = h ÷ 15. Rearrange to get h = 15 x tan(35). 90-h is the offset you need for the datum plane.
I remember sitting in trigonometry lessons at school, thinking "I'm /never/ going to need this stuff..."
Do you have advice on when to make a new part vs when to make another body in the same part? I use FreeCAD for woodworking and struggled with this choice, but I've landed on making every board its own part, and putting them together in the assembly workbench. Tedious and fragile to change, but it's the only way I've been able to plan for allowances like shelf grooves and make tech drawings for each board to be cut. I too came to FreeCAD recently from TinkerCAD, which was fine for 3D printing, but couldn't help me plan joinery.
I think your approach is sound. If the item is a discreet thing with its own features it should be a part. If the item is a piece of a whole then it can be a body. As you know, you can't assemble bodies only parts.
Amazing this lecture sir
Thanks and welcome
Can that offset calculation formula to move datum plane be done more simplistically without that mathematical formula?
Sure, you can do it however works for you.
Many thanks. As I understand it, you could have established the datum plane directly on the cut face (highlight the cut face, then make a datum plane) without having to do any computations.
In the latest version, you can do it on the face however, in older versions that would have caused an issue with the TNP
Ok. Anyway, good run through some basics. Thanks
Funny, I made parts on my router for a long time using inch and most of the drawings I got where in mm, and I converted them for the longest time before trying it in mm. I haven't gone back to in yet, I now convert in to mm!
Same here, I started out with inches but find metric way easier
At various places in your videos, you seem to have trouble with orbiting the model (about 28:30 in this one). I found by swapping the mouse for an inexpensive trackball a couple of years ago that CAD software became a lot easier to navigate. I was using F360 then. M570 trackballs were regularly available for about $15 back then. They are about $35 now. It took about a week to get the feel of it, but I wouldn't want to go back to an ordinary mouse now. FreeCAD works great with a trackball.
Thanks for the tip, I have used a trackball in the past but to be honest, it's not really a lot of trouble it's more a case of not having much space where my mouse is located. - If I was doing more FreeCAD than I do, I might consider the trackball. It's good tip for those that are doing a lot of CAD.
Thank you so much for your work.
You are very welcome
10 mils is 0,245 mm. mils is NOT short for mm, it's inch. very informative video thanks for that.
Thanks for your input
About the datum plane, is there no way to attach it directly to the surface ? I'm thinking solidworks, where I would draw directly on the surface.
Because as I see it, if me modify the height of the models, we have to calculate everything again, it is not dynamic
You can do that but you will be exposed to the topological naming issue at the moment. Once that is solved we could sketch directly on the face
@@Adventuresincreation wdym topological naming issue ?
Instead of using the tangent formula for the datum plane, can you set the face of the cut post as the sketch plane?
You can but you have to be careful not to cause the model to break due to the topological naming issue.
@@Adventuresincreation just saw that in another one of your videos 😅🙏
Great teather...thanks
Glad you enjoyed it!
Try Ace Hardware for metric screws if that place is available.
Thanks, I have done that but they are expensive. I found an assorted pack in Walmart that were more reasonable.
In your videos, you create a part first, then put the body in the part. Bodies can be created without being in a part; what advantage do we gain from starting with a part?
It's my sop, the parts come in handy for assemblies.
@@Adventuresincreation OK, thanks.
Lowe's has a good variety of metric fasteners.....screws, bolts, nut, etc.
I find it difficult to understand why so many Europeans have problems using the imperial system....I work in both and have no issue.
BTW, we don't normally use "fractions" for precision work, we use decimals...
I was brought up using inches, I worked as a tool maker where we manufactured to within thousands of an inch (thou) but our drawings were all in metric so we had to convert everything from mm to inch. I am very familiar with the imperial and metric systems. The metric system just makes more sense to me as does the Celsius scale (based on the freezing and boiling points of water). It's personal preference.
Is there anything inherently wrong with selecting the angled face at @13:29 and then creating the datum plane?
Just the topological naming issue, if you want to modify the model in the future, I would not suggest doing that until they fix it.
@@Adventuresincreation Yes... I see what you mean. I made a couple of models and tested it... Hopefully the developers will find a solution soon! Thanks!
There is a solution, it's a matter of incorporating it into the main stream. I have my fingers crossed for it being in the next version.
@@Adventuresincreation Sweet, good to know! Thanks! (I'll be keeping an eye out for your vid when it happens!)
May I ask how your dimensions look thin, black and tidy instead or thick and green as it is by default? I've looked in the options and didn't see a way to change it. Thanks?..
You can change them in the settings, you can pick colors etc
@@Adventuresincreation Finally found it - thank you very much.
Excellent, Thank you
Thanks!
In the latest FreeCAD, you can create a datum plane directly off the angled plane at the top by clicking that face then the "datum plane" button. Much easier though the origin point isn't set to the center of the face.
You still have to be careful using faces because of the TNP.
@@Adventuresincreation, I'm a complete beginner at this. What is TNP?
@@BriansBasicStuff topological naming problem. Essentially references to faces can change during model modification.
Is there an advantage to creating datum plane via z offset vs creatimg datum plane by choose a face/area and click datu, plane?
The Z offset will avoid the topological naming issue
@@Adventuresincreation Honestly even if you (rightfully) worried of TNP, you can create datum plane by clicking face first, then in preference delete reference and choose "Deactivated" attachment. It will not move datum plane. It can be done either during datum plane creation or changing it preference afterwards as well.
Thanks. I'm self taught with freecad from way back. I have used the datum plane a few times. While on that note, I have nearly always built parts up buy mapping sketches to faces and building from there. What is the advantage to this method? I can see that it would avoid some of the heartbreaks where a small change to a early piece of the part breaks the whole model. Is that the main benefit?
Yes Cory, that's the only reason I don't recommend doing that. I am hoping this is fixed in the next release.
@@Adventuresincreation Unfortunatelly, v0.20 won't fix it... :(
@@zoltanberkes8559 no, they are talking about the next major release now.
Lol, I get the hybrid unit system woes. I'm from and in the states but I refuse to use Imperial for CAD because it just feels arbitrarily more difficult.
Also me: using mils for PCB design 😅
I was brought up on imperial measurement - I still measure weight in stones but metric is much easier in a CAD environment.
also you can click on any face and select datum plane and it will be on that face.
Yes, but then it may break due to the topological naming issue
@@Adventuresincreation 😏
Thanks so much for sharing the great work! I'm approaching my CAD development from the perspective of "how will this part/model print"? Given that, I'd probably approach this as three separate parts and add a mechanism for joining the three upon print completion/post processing. Is there a method, now that you have the completed part, for simply separating the three and saving out as sep stl files? In my head it makes more sense designing this way because the dimensions/etc.... would be easier to set in this method and then just separate out the parts into their separate components. However, that's keeping in mind that, my head, is in Kindergarten in relation to CAD design and of course FreeCad. Again, thanks for the post, great stuff!
If you want to make separate STL files, it would be best to create separate bodies of each part that you creating to print that way. I think that part would print ok as one piece if you put some supports on the "lugs" and under the "flange". I have been doing some 3D prints with clips to put parts together to make printing faster. Those have worked well even in PLA.
I don't think you are in kindergarten , Free Cad is. Assembly and Top Down design are not possible yet . Or .......
You are half right, assembly and top down design are possible they are just not as advanced as some CAD systems yet. Remember, FreeCAD is improving rapidly and is extremely powerful, you may have to adjust your thinking a little bit. I can tell you that back when I first started using CAD, a system to create these models was extremely expensive and specialized, the fact that you can create complex models for free and on an OK laptop is simply amazing!
@@Adventuresincreation Good point. For me it depends upon what the part is functionally doing and how much force that will be applied. In the case of this part I could see hollowing the pillar and running a threaded rod or similar item to provide more strength for the top plate and carry any excess load, etc...
@@nedeljkomucic311 Thanks Nedeljko, I'm definitely swimming with water wings here. Give me about five years of designing/producing and I'll be strong. I bought my 3d printer with the goal of developing my own models for printing. Of course the heart of this is CAD and from my view so far, FreeCad absolutely rocks. Sure, 360 is the top end but, it also comes with a top end price and? I'm running FreeCad on RPI 4B with 8GB mem and on the still beta 64bit OS. All of which, perform incredibly well. Re assembly and top down design I'm sure I'll find plenty of walls as with anything but, learn to work around them.
Question: When you created the datum plane for the inclined top why didn't you create the datum plane from three points on the top surface instead?
There is always more than one way to model items. As long as the approach will create a "topological naming issue" free model. You can do create it any way you would like.
I wasn't being critical of your excellent videos. I am learning FreeCAD and found another way to create the datum plane by accident and thought it easier than getting involved in trig. A neat, and time saving, feature for parametric modelling would be the ability to select values directly from the spreadsheet. Having to retype spreadsheet. etc gets tedious. Also I used Alias Manager instead of EasyAlias as the online copy is screwed at this time. @@Adventuresincreation
@@davidgoadby I am glad you have found alternative ways that work for you. Thanks for sharing them.
how to rotate the DatumPlane around not its own axis but around the origin? When I have to rotate around a cylinder, I have to calculate sin and cosin. Not practical
I will think about adding this to a future video.
sorry I had problems with version 20.1, and couldn't cut, copy and paste!
it's finally solved, I installed version 18.4 and it works without any problems.
Glad you got it figured out. Seems odd that v 0.20 is giving you problems
@@Adventuresincreation so far I have been able to make everything, but copying and pasting a part of a drawing in Sketcher does not work!
these in the edit menu are inaccessible and slightly colored, and ctrl + c don't work either!
not even after a full reinstall of the 20.1 version without addons gave no improvement.
Am I doing something wrong in the new version that was possible in the older versions?
It should work
Thank you for this. It is very helpful. My question though. If I wanted to fabricate this, it seems to me that it is at least 3 different parts. Can I model it in this same way and then come back and slice it in to different parts?
I would create 3 separate bodies, that way you can manipulate them separately.
@@Adventuresincreation thank you. I was thinking, what if I just want to model a large multi part body roughly and then cut it into parts later. Is that a possibility or should I just think in parts from the start?
Personally, I would think it parts from the start. It will help you with fabrication in the future.
@@Adventuresincreation thank you very much
When the model goes away when sketching on a pad, I find it easier to close the sketch and reopen it to get the model to show up.
Yeah, you can just go to the model tree and click on it, then press space bar, it will come back on.
Neat, thanks.
You are welcome
You go back to inches to get screwed... :)
LOL... I don't think in inches anymore, I grew up right around the time when we were switching in the UK however, when I went to work as Toolmaker the industry was still using a lot of the "lease lend" equipment that was provided from the USA after the war, that meant we had to convert everything on a drawing from mm to inches, lots of fun. The drawings were covered in notes. Then the old machines got digital readouts and life was good again. - Ah, those were the days ;-)
haha nice comment ;)
could you not just attatch the datum plane directly to to face by selecting it (more efficient)
You can but you would run into the topological naming issue that way.
@@Adventuresincreation What topological naming issue ?
How come there are no patron subscription plans?
I am shortlisting which channel I will subscribe to and yours is high on the list, I have very limited income so cannot sub to many, but there's no info on plans for yours which is the first time I have come across this?
It's not tiered, for the lowest subscription you get it all.
Why not put the datum plane on the angled face?
The topological naming issue will bite you if you do that. In the future that may be fixed then you can just create the sketch on the face.
Why make the second extrusion from the same plane, rather than from the face of the first up by 80
If you use faces to work from you may incur the wrath of the topological naming issue. It's better to work from planes at this time.
At 22:34 I had an error so I stopped the video and I spent a half hour to figure out that I need calculate the distance not to put 79:50 😭😭😭😭😭💔💔
Glad you figured it out 😱
Thanks
You're welcome
I thought you were in the UK.
I am from the UK but live in the US.
Where/ what Height to put Datum plane? Create a new side view sketch, then "create a point in the sketch" where the vertical green line and middle of 35° line intersect. Next, Constrain the Ht. Between the new point and the "middle base point"(sorry, I don't know the proper term) to force FreeCAD to show what the required Ht. Is.... then delete the sketch and plug number in for Datum plane Z Ht. Easy.....
That's a good idea to avoid calculations
Thanks for the video. Coming from CREO and solid works, I must say I'm quite disappointed that the developpers didn't work on extruding/sketching on a selected face. This is really a basic requirement for CAD. Still, developping that software is a massive amount of work, so a massive applause for those who developped it. But if they do upgrades, they should work on this before anything else. Working from existing faces/geometries is a MUST.
It should be in the next major release after 0.20
In version 0.19 I can select a face and then press the "create a new sketch" button and start sketching on most surfaces no problem.
@@stijnliekens5834 you can but be careful as the topological naming issue is not solved yet, you can get into trouble very quickly.
Creating a plane on a surface seems stupidly complicated in FC compared to Fusion 360. Having to perform the calculations etc for what should be a simple click.
Once they fix the topological naming issue it will be just as easy
cool!
Thanks!
Could you not have just drawn a sketch on the slanted face without using a datum plane?
Hi Danny, you could do that but if you modify your model after doing so, you risk experiencing the topological naming issue where the sketch will be attached the wrong face. That's why, at least for now, we have to use offsets and datum planes to create these features.
A sensible American.
?!?
Just cause he's living in the US doesn't mean he's American XD
Rather than the complex formula to add the angled plane, why can't you just attach the plain to the top surface of the post?
The topological naming issue would negatively effect that approach
@@Adventuresincreation thank you. I found the article relating to this and it explains issues I had in the past. I knew the what, but not the why. I think his issue is what ultimately will send me back to Onshape. Your tutorials are brilliant though.
@@fishndive1961 You might want to hang on, the next release should have a fix that largely negates the issue. It's been in the works for a long time and will get there. I have become so used to it that I just work around it now but once it's fixed I will go back to using faces for datums.
Why do you make creating the datum plane so hard? You just select the face that is at the 35deg angle and create a datum plane.!!
You can do that but you may have issues with the topological naming issue.
Even England is going back to inches, and furlongs, ounces and hundredweights
I am not sure that is quite right, but I know what you mean ;-)
fractions will get you to the moon ...... JK I'm American and def enjoy the metric system.
I don't mind fractions, I grew in the imperial system. I just think metric makes so much sense.
Big Likkkkkkkkkkkkkkkke
Thanks!
Why not just click on the face of the slant then click the datum plane icon? No need to do any calculations.
You can do that but, you should not because you may have a problem with the topological naming issue. The face you link the datum plane to may change its ID and the plane will move.
@@Adventuresincreation Should be possible in the Realthunder version
I’d you work in inches, than you need to get your head examined! Because the metric system is superior for design.
I guess it is all about what you are used to.
I was surprised you dimensioned the hole with a figure of 30
If the important factor is that the hole is 10mm from each edge, surely that is best to constrain. Because if you change the height from 80 to say 100 then the hole breaks
Just an observation
Hi Graham, as always there are many ways to skin a cat. Sometimes, you can decide that there are "reasonable" limits and not constrain for every use case however, if you really want to lock it down you certainly can in multiple ways. Glad you are thinking about it critically.
@@Adventuresincreation your videos have been a god send. I haven’t found anyone online who explains things *as I would want them explaining*. Many just skip over important things and leave me guessing.
Every time I watch a video and think of a question in my head as I watch, the next words out of your mouth are the answer. You’re really thinking about your audience and you are pitching this at a perfect level.
I’ve trained a lot of people over my 30y in software and it’s not easy to do. You’ve got this down to a fine art. Thank you 🙏 👍
@@GeeTheBuilder thanks for the feedback mate.
OKAY!!
Thanks
This video just shows how much farther FreeCAD needs to go to be commerically competitive with something like Solidworks. The whole process where you had to dimension things off the origin and especially the angled datum offset calculation wouldn't have been necessary. Dimensioning off the origin is not a trivial matter of a few additional simple calculation, where you dimension your features off of is determined by your design intent. Yeah I know you could've "referenced external body" to get those edge lines into the sketch. That's also not necessary in something like Solidworks.
He could have dimensioned off of the edges just as well. I certainly would have.
The new datum plane could have been created by selecting the angled face and then creating it. The only issue is that the origin doesn't automatically center on that face, but there must be a way to do that too. Doing that calc was unnecessary.
FreeCAD can work of edges and faces however, at this time, the standard version suffers from a topological naming issue which will cause the model to break if there are additional faces added after using a face as a reference. This is actively being worked on and can be seen working in the RealThunder branch. - I agree that it has a way to go before it is a viable commercial package but for many hobbyists it is an excellent alternative to learning a package who's price may change in the future.
metric IS fractions. It's just fractions of 10s
Good observation.
I was about 7 or 8 when we decimalised in the UK, so I pretty much never used imperial, I do remember just old money where it was 240 pennies to the pound, 6 pennies per shilling, 20 shillings per pound..
WTH was they thinking, WHY... WHY... WHY!!!
I have the same feeling about imperial measurements, WHY, WHY, WHY would you teach someone in 1/2, 1/4, 1/16, 1/32, 1/64.. 12 inches to a foot, 3 foot to a yard.. 16 oz to a pound! 14lb to a stone, 8 stone to a hundredweight.. WTH!!!!
Its 2021 for crying out loud, abandon that stupid ass imperial system and stop torturing your poor kids with completely unnecessary complications LOL
right, now I got that rant out of my system, back to vid.. :D
Lol, you expressed that well 😉
Those nasty shopkeepers were taking advantage of you @Louise Paisley-there were 12 pennies to the shilling just like the 12 inches to the foot.
Nice rant. :)
PS: be thankful you weren't in Jersey, over there they had 13 pennies to the shilling for a while… it made currency conversion with the French Franc easier! :D :D :D
@@GeoffRiley LOL I have no idea why 6 came out of my keyboard, there appears to be a disconnect appearing between what my brain says and what my fingers do... Seriously.. I am actually getting other symptoms too..
Thats what happens when you pass 40, every year a bit more of you falls to bits LOL
Mouse is way too large, distracting
For people with impaired vision at their request.
why is math useful
It allows you to derive results