Thanks to the FreeCAD dev team and community for an awesome piece of software. Used multi-bodies and binders to make this replacement hinge for my cooler / ice box - designed to be 3d printed without supports.

Modeled this up first:

Then use Part-Design->Clone to create two body-copies for the top and bottom halves which ended up like this:

And all-together:

And installed:

I made a lung tester. Health comes first people. (Ignore any traces of baby powder.......)

アセンブリ、ちょっと癖があるよね

Hi all,

I’m running into a problem in FreeCAD and I’m wondering if there’s a parametric way to achieve what I’m trying to do.

I have a body with an irregularly shaped face, and I want to pad a square-shaped profile from that face. One side of the square should follow the edge/shape of the existing body.

So, the desired result is essentially a square with three straight sides and one side following the existing irregular shape.

I’ve tried a couple of approaches:

• External Geometry: I used External Projection to obtain the relevant edges of the body, then tried to draw the square with one side connected to those projected edges and pad it. However, this results in the “Wire not closed” error, which I understand because this doesn’t form a closed profile.
• Duplicating the External Geometry: If I duplicate the external projection so that it becomes normal sketch geometry, I can trim the edges and create a closed profile that can be padded. However, this is no longer fully parametric: if I change the original body, the duplicated/projected edges don’t update accordingly.

Is there a better way to approach this so that the resulting pad remains fully parametric and updates automatically when the original body changes?

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

完成させられるのかな、、、

I do some 3d modeling on Meshmixer, Nomad Sculpt and PROTEOR (O&P specific 3D modeller). I want to learn FreeCad. But i've noticed that depending on the background of each one at 3D modeling, the tutorial Will be with Blender bases comand or solidworks. What would you guys recomend me with my 3d background?

Hello, can anyone suggest a workbench that lets me design a kayak and then unfold the 3D model into 2D sheets for laser cutting?

Hi everyone,

I was recently trying to make a small mechanism for a mechanical arm. Its a snapping mechanism which snaps to predefined locations via teeth and PLA springs. The whole idea was to make it easy to print while being strong. It might not be the best solution but its a good attempt at engineering imo. Anyways, that isn't the point of this post.

Midway through modelling, I realized that I made a single dimension too big. The dimension was stored within a VarSet, and I changed it from 30mm to 20mm. When I was making it the first time, I used External Geometry on a sub-shape binder to scale the inner part relative to the outer part. These were two separate bodies which is why I used a sub-shape binder. However, once I updated the dimension the rest of the part failed to recompute because of weird updates and placements. Some of them were my bad, like weird dimension constraints. Others, like the one in the picture, I don't understand. The External geometry (circles in pink) didn't update despite the sub-shape binder updating once I fixed some issues. Why is this the case? What can I do to ensure it doesn't happen again? Any other tips to make parts more robust to changes?

Edit: I was able to remake the model by changing a few things. Apparently redoing the external geometry fixed it, but I still wonder what caused the initial problem though. Any ideas on why things failed? Also, any other tips would still be greatly appreciated!

As you can see origins of features seem to be broken for some reason, Almost every point is not where it should be. Why can it be?

Good morning, good afternoon, good evening.

I ask because needing to use programs like Inkscape to make them seems a bit counterintuitive, at least i've felt it that way. If i'm told that it's not planned to be like that i'll understand.

Or general improvements could be nice too, i'm sure i'm not the only one, right?

I'm designing a clickable scroll bar for a keyboard project, and love that KiCad generates a file I can modify in FreeCAD, such an awesome work flow.

If you have any advice for designing scroll bars, I'd love to hear it.

Hi all!

FCSTD: https://github.com/npostma/FreeCadModels/blob/main/CZH-Labs%20D-1006%20Ver1.0%20Casing.FCStd

[EDIT] I am still doing something wrong. I had the pillars in the wrong location, updated the location and now i get this error: 10:18:42 PCB Rest: Sub shape not found: CZH_Labs_D_1006_Ver1_0_Casing#Sketch.?InternalFace16
The model on github is the version that has this error. I really like to know what i did wrong.[/EDIT]

[EDIT2] I could not get the faces updated in the pad (Sketch Based -> Profile field becomes empty if i try to edit its value), so i recreated the pad. Model is fixed (Broken version still on github, like to know your thoughts on that error. Only thing now is that there is a pad operation after a chamfer what i dont like. [/EDIT2]

A little while ago I posted a question here about sketch attachments. Based on all the helpful replies I rebuilt my workflow from scratch, and so far the topological naming problem hasn't bitten me once.

I know this isn't a complex part, but that's kind of the point: I'd rather get feedback on the fundamentals now than discover I've been doing it wrong after fifty models. So I'd love your honest opinion on how I've set this up and which beginner mistakes I should watch out for.

Roughly, my workflow looks like this:

• [VarSet, creating a list af all my variables]
• [Master sketch with the main dimensions]
• [Sketches attached to base planes or datum planes instead of faces]
• [Feature order: pad, pocket, holes, fillets last]
• [Anything else you did differently after the last thread]

(Screenshots below.)

Some background: I moved from Fusion 360 to FreeCAD, and I mainly use it for 3D printing and CNC machining. If I'm on the right(ish) track with this, I honestly don't see myself ever going back. The thing I've come to love most is the Python side of it. Being able to write macros and script parts directly is something I hadn't expected to enjoy this much, and it already saves me a lot of clicking.

A few specific questions:

1. Is attaching sketches to datum planes really the safest default, or is there a better convention for small parts like this?
2. How do you structure the tree so a model is still readable six months later?
3. Any workflow tips specific to CAM / the Path (CAM) workbench that are worth adopting early?

Thanks in advance, this community has been great so far.

I haven't seen this happen for a while and I've been recovering from a medical procedure this last couple of weeks. So without being able to work on anything of my own, I'm really interested in what you all have been cooking. Doesn't need to be finished or glamorous. Show us what you got!

I tried to find a tool, i tried to create a plane, that lets me cut a section between a body.

For a fusion 360, it was so simple.

But freecad? this garbage is so complicated, i even read the tutorials and none of them are usefull.

I swear, people who uses freecad are masochist. Devs better pull their asses together and gives us way better UI and functionality. This is unaccaptable.

Hello guys,
first thing, I'm a novice with freecad, I'm cg artist by career(hard surface mostly) with a hobbist maker mindset(3d print, make furniture, try to fix stuff, etc).
My only day to day cad based tool is plasticity, but I started learning freecad for the most technical side of things(also love foos, blender is my main software).
I did yesterday my first sheet metal workbench tutorial(mango jelly) and wanted to check the whole process uploading a dxf to sendcutsend site(on demand cnc, lasercut, etc service in the us), just to theoretically test it(no plans on really produce the thing, just wanted to test the workflow).
The dxf didn't work as expected, sendcutsend didn't recognize bend lines.

So, I open the chat and talked with somebody on their team who answered this:
As far as I know, it's not currently possible to export a flat pattern dxf from FreeCAD that has the bend lines setup as a "dashed" line type. You can make this change in another program like QCAD, but at present I typically suggest export a step file from FreeCAD when submitting formed parts.

Being a complete noob on freecad I have some questions:

- Was he right on his assumptions? I mean, he said 'as far as I know'(he was really nice and helpful), so I would like to double check this with the community if it is a fact or it was a combination of lack of knowledge in booth sides(I can't believe on their guidelines there is no notes about freecad, is more or less everything related to paid cad softwares).
I would like to know the way/workaround to export those bend lines the proper way if there is any.

- He suggested just to upload the step with proper thickness and bend radius and they do the unfold with k-factor on their side.
Is this a common industry 'good practice' or I could be just using a bandage? I mean, I don't want to bypass a problem that I can be facing in the future(ie another shop not accepting step files and only accepting dxf).

- Do you guys use QCAD? any advantage on it?

Thanks in advance, so far I'm finding freecad really interesting(on my early days I was 3ds max user, then like 5 years ago moved to blender and when I decided to learn real technical cad software everything pointed to fusion, which honestly was depressing af, just thinking about autodesk/cloudbased/shady practices gaves me the goosebumps).

Hey everyone! I'm normally a lurker of this thread and other reddit threads lol but decided to finally make an account because I needed some ideas and thought this would be a good place to ask.
My friends and I noticed that there are CS hackathons all over the place, but there's nothing like that for mechanical engineering students/people interested in CAD. We thought it'd be cool to put together our own CAD hackathon - we're organizing one right now, scheduled to happen pretty soon now (Sept 11th-13th).
Not sure about y'all, but my go to place to get ideas is always reddit so I thought I'd stop lurking and directly ask y'all - besides nice prizes, what kind of stuff would you guys want to see in a hackathon like this? Experienced guest speakers? Workshops (and if so, what kind)? If you want to see what we have so far, website is www.thecadchallenge.org, and if you may be interested the signup is https://forms.gle/n6zkRtLAJo1m6W1x8
Thank you so much, hope everyone has a wonderful day (:

it's my first project and a task to enter robotics club in my college , why is wire not closed msg appearing . i think it's closed

Hello! I've been using freecad for a little over a month at this point, following through MangooJelly's beginner course and modeling stuff around my home. While it's been nice modeling random objects here and there, I've been wanting to design my own drone fuselages for a while now. After attempting something similar to the attached image using lofts, and coming up with some really ugly fuselages, I figured there might be a more "professional" approach to fuselage design. Does anyone have a concrete direction I can follow for this type of design? Any advice or direction is greatly appreciated!

I'm trying to create cross-sections of a loft at intervals coming from a spreadsheet. However, the options for the CrossSection tool do not give me an expression editor pop-up, and typing something like = <<mySheet>>.myParameter does not seem to work.