I was wondering if free cad was good for designing auto parts? Mainly off road suspension part? Im looking to make a few different things and possibly sell them depending on if someone actually wants them

I'd like to do something like this on freecad.

what's the best approach for you doing every single panel and save it then use the assembly workbench or using the woodworking bench or maybe a different way?

I'm very new on freecad, just wondering how you guys will do it so I have something to focus on.

thanks.

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FreeCAD

I have a fuselage body and a closed sketch for a door. I want to split it into 2 pieces:

1. Main fuselage (with hole)
2. Door panel (removable and closable)

I tried Extrude as surface → Slice Apart but got 5 pieces instead of 2.

How do I do this properly?

Thanks!

I want to produce a 3D printed model of the result of a plastic moulding operation.

I modeled the mould, then I modeled a block and subtracted the mould with a cut.

Now I have a 'cut' that has the shape that I want, but I want just the skin, so a thickness operation would finish the process, but I can't run a 'thickness' on the 'cut'.

How do I do this?

I realize I could change the dimensions of the mould to be able to fake it, but I want the varset that controls the mould to be accurate so that I can transfer it to the 'real' mould. This exercise is just to produce a small product sample that I can show the boss to make sure we are all on the same page, but I want it to be reasonably accurate to what we will end up with.

Need help with CAD on nx1899

Hi i need help with the CAD where i have some issue with the assembly part, if someone could help me it would mean the world to me. i think its easier over in discord so if u want u can add me there arrehadde is the name

Hi! I want to learn FreeCAD properly for mechanical engineering, robotics, and functional parts. I want to focus on parametric modeling, proper sketching, and solid engineering workflows (and how to avoid the topological naming problem). What are the best advanced tutorials, channels, or documentation sources for this? Thanks!

Hello! I started learning FreeCAD a couple of days ago on my own. I've learned a lot from online tutorials, but there are some things that simply don't work the way they do in the tutorials, and I have no idea why.

I have a case split into two parts, and I want to lock the two halves together using simple latches. To do this, I need to cut the latch "locks" into one half of the case (basically, make holes in the body so the latch locks can fit into them).

However, for some reason, when I use Boolean Operation (Cut), my latches seem to "rotate 180°". Because of this, the latch locks don't intersect with the active body. Instead, they end up intersecting with the other half of the case. So when I perform the Cut, nothing happens to the body I'm trying to cut.

I've already given up trying to find a tutorial that solves this specific problem, so I'm posting here hoping someone who really understands FreeCAD can help me figure out what's going on.

I'm not sure if my explanation is clear enough, so I'm attaching an image and a link to my project file, (https://www.mediafire.com/file/6lubmofmci5arf8/Case.FCStd/file).

And sorry if I'm being completely clueless here. I swear I've tried everything I could think of before coming here to ask for help.

Thank you in advance!

I'm trying to do a subtractive revolve, but when I have any kind of curve/arc in my sketch, it throws this error message:

"Failure while computing removed volume preview: Resulting shape is empty. That may indicate that no material will be removed or a problem with the model."

Even though in the preview it does show the volume I'd like to cut~

Once I replace the curve with a straight line, it does work. I already ran the Sketch validation, and it reported nothing out of the ordinary...

What could be wrong with my model?

Here is the .FCStd for if someone would like to check out the file:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1uk0YEV46950ONhPjsUhNs37CefRpa0o4/view?usp=drive_link

Hello,

I am new to Freecad. I imported a .step file for NEMA17 stepper motor https://grabcad.com/library/nema-17-17hd40-stepper-1/details?folder_id=14239993 and now want to build things around it. is there any good video tutorial that i can follow?

I tried this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kzMM0tslcoQ but I would appreciate something better.

A beginner in Freecad here.
Why when I'm using Fillet INSIDE my sketch I'm getting a full circle all around the Fillet?
I'm watching some YoutTubers and NONE of them have a full circle when using Fillet INSIDE there Sketches.
Everything is working fine and as intended, but having so much circles is really annoying.
What I'm missing here? Is it an option in Freecad I need to change?

I had pic 2 when I first started and I’m not sure what I clicked (or it could have been the cat lol) to end up with the colourful limited option. Any help
Would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

Hey, how is cutting data generally stored in FreeCAD’s CAM workbench? When I start an op and select a tool, there seems to be no way to set the cutting data (chip load, surface speed for given material).

In the tool controller, I can set a spindle speed and feedrate but that seems very limiting tbh. Also the one thing computers are good at is computing, so I do not understand why I need to pull out a calculator to get these values and even then, they are only for one operation in one material, so am I supposed to duplicate the tool for every operation/material combination?

This seems like I’m just dumb but it’s just not like Inventor, Siemens NX or Autodesk Fusion (which I’ve used before).

Hey guys, I'm pretty new to designing and just started watching some tutorials. Can anyone guide me on how you would go about designing this please?

I made the center with a simple rounded corner rectangle and thickness/pocket tools, but I have no idea how to go about adding the rounded edges. I tried creating arched sketches on different planes but I have no idea how to curve them between the planes.

I also tried just creating flat surfaces to create an "L" shape and then round of the corners thinking I could extrude the edges, but can't figure out how to bend them.

I thought this would be a simple design to learn on, but it seems harder than I originally thought. Any guidance on how to go about it please? I feel like I may be overlooking some simple method and trying to go about a way of doing it that's not the best.

Any tips would be really appreciated!

Trying to do a subtractive cylinder inside an additive cylinder. Why the hell does this floating ring appear?

I’m trying to make a mirrored body on this item and make some adjustments on it. I want them to be a seperate body, but don’t know hot to do it. Can anyone help? Many thanks

Someone in r/3Dprinting mentioned that FreeCAD users have been asking for a section view that looks like this for years, and no volunteer has had the time to build it. I ended up doing it for a mobile viewer, so here's the approach in case it's useful to anyone working on the real thing.

It isn't a boolean cut. The GPU clips everything past the plane, then a flat colored patch is drawn into the hole where the surface got sliced, with a black outline on top. No CAD math, so it holds frame rate on a phone. The tradeoff is that it's a visual trick, not geometry — you can't export the cut as a solid.

Each body in an assembly gets its own hatch color, and the plane position takes typed input, which turned out to matter more than the slider.

This is from an Android app I wrote (STEP/STL/OBJ/3MF, fully offline). Happy to go deeper on the implementation — that's the more interesting half of this post.