I wished FreeCAD would be as professional as Blender is, but in the current state it does kinda everything, but nothing really good. For playing and wasting time it is perfect, but it is miles away from getting even close to products like Inventor, NX or Solidworks. It really needs active development supported by a open source company and new versions every month!
Blender wasn't always that way, not too long ago people would turn their nose up at Blender for being terrible, hard to use etc but a slowly increasing loyal community, donors and contributors made it grow and improve and the 2.8 release was in incredible milestone. KiCAD has a very similar story, FreeCAD could too.
@@blendarious That's really cool that you stuck with it all the way back then, 2013 Brodie would not have agreed with you at all, I personally struggled to find logic in how it worked and good tutorials online at that time, so I didn't put the effort into it and give it a decent chance back then.
Nothing changed for you guys. If you use Fusion 360 above the level they restricted, you’re not using it as a hobbyist. The level of functionality that the free F360 version provides, even after the restrictions, is mind blowing. You’re certainly free to go with open source, just don’t expect the same functionality and speed of modeling.
@@tomuhr5802I think you're underestimating quite a number of hobbyists here, lots of non commercial users were using a lot of functionality that has been removed from Fusion. Also think about the number of open source projects that have been effected by this, both the 3D side and because Adsk rolled Eagle into Fusion. After using Fusion for 5 years, I'm amazed that Adsk actually think it is ready to charge people money for at all.
@@BrodieFairhall No. I was quite clear in what I was saying. But sure, humor yourself. Since you clearly think that software on this level should be for free, what I would consider rather delusional, FreeCad is ideal for you. While we, that actually use these different CAD platforms for work, consider Fusion 360 the most cost efficient software on the market. And look nothing against open source, there’s a lot of amazing stuff out there, but please stop the whining on what you should get for free.
Fusion are really going to regret their recent move to restrict hobby use. In 5 years time with an army of freeCAD users starting their own businesses, not many are going to want to start shelling out $$$ and embark on a learning curve to switch to Fusion.
For anyone new to CAD design, don't be fooled: The Hole tool is very useful. The hole tool allows you to define a hole with a radius, counterbore/countersink, and optional tapered point at the bottom. The software will then create a revolved cut with the defined profile shape. This can be later edited as a single feature with a single defined center point, which will reduce the number of sketches and features that you might mess up. Additionally, if you are designing something to be machined from a solid material, properly modeling the taper from the end of the drill bit is important. It allows you to correctly analyze the model, and the machinist doesn't have to call you up and ask how deep the hole should be because flat bottom holes can't be drilled. This is less critical for 3D printing applications, but the ability to create more complex hole geometry in less steps is still helpful.
You can definitely drill flat bottom holes. It's just not practical as the need for a specific drill would add to the cost unnecessarily unless you really need it flat for some reason.
I agree, this was a somewhat odd recommendation by Brodie. I use the hole tool as I find the workflow of having all properties as a single feature to be easier to manage, but then again I don't do any professional work, only things for home use so perhaps my use-case is different.
Now with FreeCAD 0.20 you can even make holes with real threads for screws with different standarts like M1, M2... or custom ones. ruclips.net/video/hXkNqsATWcs/видео.html It will be out soon.
This is exactly the video I was searching for! The new license changes prompted me to look for alternatives to Fusion 360, plus I realized it won’t run natively on the Linux workstation I’m building next year. I’m still pretty new to CAD in general so I figured better to switch now than later, but all my experience so far is with Fusion so I was looking for a tutorial just like this to get a jump start on switching. Thanks for taking the time to make this!
Same reason I'm here. I always hated fusion since I learned solidworks first. And their price changes and reducing features has only made me hate it more.
I started learning and using Fusion 360 couple of months ago after getting a bit frustrated with FreeCad, and I was considering paying for subscription when I got better with Fusion 360. But the stunt AutoCad pulled opened my eyes to the fact that I will always be at the mercy of Autocad and they can change the terms any time they like and there's nothing I can do about it. So I am back to learning FreeCad where no one can dictate what I can or can't do, and I will be donating to the project whatever I can when I can.
Would be keen to see a section on a key part of my Fusion workflow - jumping back and forth in the timeline and making edits. Not just revising a sketch, but reorganizing the order of things (eg move a fillet command to later in the timeline) or deleting an extrude (pad) operation. Oh and appreciate the moderate pace and even voice over of the video :)
^ this. Give this person a cookie. Also a newb to FreeCAD coming from Fusion 360. It's been quite a smooth sail upto the moment but a few things like this keep me missing Fusion.
Awesome stuff, thank you! Would love to see an Assembly! Also during the weekend I've now several times come across the recommendation to NOT sketch directly on a face but rather create a datum plane and use that instead, to work around some error that's currently still in FreeCAD. I'd love if you could go into that, maybe with a demonstration of said error so one knows what one wants to avoid. Right now it's all still a bit of a mystery 😅
That is called the wiki.freecadweb.org/Topological_naming_problem and it results in problems down the road, when you have to recompute the model, such as when changing a parameter. Attaching a sketch to a face makes a relationship based on the numbering of the entity, e.g. Face01. So if that face was the result of some operation, like a Pad, and you recompute your model, but your faces come out with a different numbering, e.g. Face01 is no longer "the top face", then your model will break.
@@kurtkremitzki1558 Absolutely right! Fusion actually suffers from the same problem too, but less people encounter it I guess. I can definitely show an example of the error in a video too, I have done it to myself a lot.
I'm looking forward to realthunder's topological naming fixes making it into mainline FreeCAD. I think the advice on how to use datum planes I've read hasn't been consistent. I'm still new, but I get the idea that the best approach is to have the datum planes drive both the surfaces and the sketches that would be on those surfaces? But realthunder's work should usually make that a boondoggle I think. I've gotten used to SolidWorks getting topological naming mostly right, but I've still seem models fall apart topologically there and realthunder's naming scheme looks even more robust. I crashed his build before managing to induce a topological naming error when I tried yesterday. 🙂
I've been using Solidworks for nearly 20 years so I would like to see some comparisons to SW. I still have a valid SW license and would be happy to contribute in any way possible to further the open source progress of FreeCad.
Seems to me that FreeCad is a lot more similar to solidworks than it is to fusion - for example the differentiation between additive and subtractive tools is very similar to Solidworks.
I learned Solidworks in 2000 and have been using it until 2017 when I discovered OnShape. I've dabbled with FreeCAD for years but never become proficient.
@@TooManyProjectsWorkshop Agreed. In many other ways. I don't know if SolidWorks still has these limitations currently because I haven't used it in a while but back in the day when I did, you also couldn't have open sketches, and you couldn't split bodies. Additionally, the sketch is absorbed into the body, where in fusion you can use sketches over and over again.
I laughed out loud when you said that hole is something you'll probably never use because that's a specific software feature I'm looking for. In Fusion 360 it's great for easily modeling printable threads and countersunk fasteners.
Just like "you will never use the grid". Something in the middle of nowhere looks great. I guess they tried to create software not for designers but for kids.
@@vladimirseven777 Sketcher is a constraints driven application, for noobs using the grid can give the impression that lines/curves are connected because the endpoints start/finish at the same place. This is not the same as being constrained together. That is why a lot of people never use the grid. It just isn't much help.
I dont use the grid in 360, so would not use it here. Been playing with freecad for a few weeks now, but still use 360 on a regilar basis for modelling.
Ditto the comments about the hole feature - it's extremely useful when ultimately moving to engineering prints. If all one is doing is FDM/SLA printing, probably less so, though the standard c'sink and c'bore features are good to if you want to print them - get them sized right. Though I was just messing with it in 0.19.22665 (current as of this is 22670) and the hole feature is broken in it. Working fine in 0.18. So one's mileage may vary with the development build rather than the stable branch.
I’ve reached the max of my editable documents ( only 30) on Fusion 360 and now can’t save new designs , time to move to Freecad , many thanks for a great Tutorial.
Yeah, most people who have an opinion on FreeCAD years ago, couldn't work out how to get started and base everything off that one outdated bad experience. Without direction, it isn't clear where to start in FreeCAD, but once you're up and going, you'll work out it's far better at some things than Fusion and not as good at others, just like comparing Fusion to Solidworks etc.
Subbed and Belled. Would be lovely to see "Beginner" "Intermediet" and "Advance" user tutorials. There are a couple of beginner videos out there but I think if you made a complete series from beginner to advanced you would gain alot of subs and many people would benefit from it. Looking forward to see lot's and lot's of videos from you!
I had a fusion 360 tutorial series up, on how to make folding knives up over a year ago, 20 videos. I left them up for a month - tons of views, little to no likes on videos, very little comments, no patreon support (not even a dollar a month) and only 5 subscribbers. Honestly, I think it's about the teacher - this guy's channel would do GREAT with tutorials, people like me just don't mesh well with the majority or don't know how to teach others their skills - so now I just make time lapse videos of my designs. Subbed, and looking to move over from fusion 360.
Oh i just realized I'm not subbed :O Great tutorial thanks :3 I created my first part in this for my project now :D it was simple and hard to do when you're used to fusion but I already feel better at it! also I'm really happy there's a tutorial for someone who already knows CAD fundamentals but is transitioning!
It's hard to unlearn habits, it took me a long time to grasp FreeCAD, but now I couldn't imagine going back to a closed source CAD suite, especially an Autodesk tool.
I have been using FCad v0.18 for about two solid months now. I am nowhere experienced in CAD generally, but I have become very comfortable in using FCad. The only real issue I have now is learning how to get text on my objects. It works sometime and getting the orientation of my text is a little troubling. But I am quite satisfied with its performance and the current tools it has. I still have a lot to learn. Its is an enjoyable application with a nice CAD community involved. Thanks for your input on this application.
Small tip: when you change settings like you did at the beginning, please do things like that a bit slower, and make sure to do things in the order you say. (You said change the gradient and add anti-aliasing, but you did those things in the order of adding anti-aliasing and then changing to a solid color background.) Great video, thanks for publishing this one!
@@bullzebub I was trying to give you a tip, not asking a question about how to do something. You also way underestimate the power of cosmetic changes. Most people in the free-to-use market who shy away from FreeCAD do so because of cosmetics.
A significant difference seems to be in FreeCAD each sketch can only have one shape. In Fusion, I'm used to a sketch having many shapes, and then extruding those shapes to different heights, and even starting at different offsets. But it seems in FreeCAD, that's not the way. So many more sketches. Do I understand it right? (Edit: The first sketch can only have one shape, but sketches on the body later can have multiple so long as they don't overlap, but it seems they all get padded the same)
Pretty much right, you can have multiple shapes in one sketch if there is one outer sketch and multiple inner sketches. But since pad works on the entire sketch/you can't pick what parts of a sketch to pad and ignore others and you can only have one solid within a body, you can't have multiple separate shapes within a sketch.
And that's one of the reasons why F360 is so attractive and easy to use. Everyone go use Freecad, I'll keep using the nice tools, all to myself muhahah
So a while back, 2 years ago, i did my cswp solidworks certification. But since that is super expensive haha, i am looking into freecad. I would like to take all the examples from my book and course, then recreate them in freecad. Thanks for the video
the trim tool didn't work on my circle D: it's such a bummer that I can't select surface of a sketch or parts of it to pad like fusion and solidworks. I hope they add that soon!
The trim tool can be a bit finicky, it can do weird things depending on how your sketch is constrained. I don't use it 99% of the time. You could use the arc tool to create the part of the circle you need instead of making a circle and trimming it. As for being able to selectively pad (or use any other action on) parts of sketches, I doubt that will ever be in FreeCAD, as it's generally viewed as bad CAD practice. I learned why it's bad in Fusion when I started making a lot more customisable / highly parametric designs before I really understood why fully constraining sketches was so important, so I got a lot of topological problems and a lot of other weird geometry problems. It wont effect you in Fusion unless you are really doing a lot of parametric design, but as I learned FreeCAD I started applying what I learned to Fusion and it made me much, much better at Fusion. Oh also I remember you talking about wanting to project surfaces from imported parts etc. While I kinda advise against it in the long run, this video from Andrew CAD (ruclips.net/video/MCY5IrWrHrU/видео.html) will introduce you to the shape binder tools which will let you do exactly that.
I know how to use Fusion quite well and have some very basic skills on FC. This was very good video. I haven't known about that missing vertex option and have bit struggled with boolean operations. This immediately explained what I've been likely doing wrong in couple occasions. Very good job 👍👍
You did a fantastic and I mean fantastic job of explaining things. You are a either a natural at this or you have instructed before. In a short time you gave clear information on how Freecad works including things to watch out for! Really hope you do more! Cheers!
I just wanted to chime in and add that the sketch function in FreeCAD is in fact very similar to that in Solidworks (I trained in Solidworks as part of my engineering degree). I think we all got a bit spoilt by how A360 sketches. A360 sketching is really nice, while Solidworks/FreeCAD being a little more 'clunky', but it still works and works well.
I wish I was a developer such that I could contribute. Ask my team. You don't want me submitting any pull requests. ;) I can however contribute to the Wiki. ~P
Subscribed. What I'd really want to know more about is how to deal with 3d sketching, more specifically on non orthogonal planes and for scaffolding purposes. Thinking of situations where you know a few parameters and need to use the sketch as a construct to find the actual measurements of your parts.
@@BrodieFairhall Currently in Fusion, I use 3d sketching to model complex concave shapes on multiple construction planes that are not the origin planes. Those scaffold construction sketches are parametrized by measurements that are NOT the final part dimensions, basically their job is to actually compute where the part should go and how to bend the shape to conform to that. Sorry I know this sound confusing. If I had to think of a concrete example that more people could understand it would be something like this: You have to design an aftermarket car bumper, you only know the location of the fastening points and of the chassis bounds, these are not located on any single 2d plane, and you have to generate a shape that surrounds them with and matches the fastening locations. I hope that makes some sense, if not don't worry too much, I'll end up figuring it out somehow.
Wow, the limitations are major, and it the workflow requires many extra steps. Definitely not switching, I would rather buy a license for 800 bucks or pay monthly few for software that is better useable. Don't get me wrong, I like that some found a working alternative for them, but when I had to live with that restrictions and completely different workflow, I would rather switch my hobby.
You're absolutely welcome to do that. But remember, this is only a 10 minute bare bones intro, there is so much more to FreeCAD than I can fit in a short Video. I have a commercial Fusion360 licence, so I'm not effected by Autodesk's latest stunt. I use FreeCAD because it is way better than Fusion at a lot of things, so I'd encourage you to have a genuine look at learning it.
I know, right? If you have a hobby like 3D printing and 3D design you might as well enjoy what you're doing, not suffering and dealing with clunky software. Either buy, pirate or just change your hobbies
Is it that it looks bad or do you believe it is bad to use? It has changed a fair bit since this ancient video came out (0.22 is bringing some more significant changes) I'll agree, it's not the prettiest, but I think it is well set out for being fast/efficient (which is the opposite to what I find with Inventor and Fusion), especially for keyboard shortcuts.
Subscribed! I am happy to see tutorial video with subtitles (must required for deaf/foreign community). I was going to use Fusion 360 and learned license policy was recently changed. I finally switch to FreeCAD and Blender that I recently installed. I hope that developers catch up like insanely expensive commercial CAD applications (AutoCAD, SolidWorks, etc.)
Fusion 360 seems to be one of the easiest pieces of SW to learn CAD. I made a start with DesignSpark Mechanical, then tried Fusion. Not an expert user but I do feel comfortable using it. My initial attempt with FreeCad was similar to using Solidworks 2013. It feels much more difficult, and was somewhat dissapointed. Willing to try more with FreeCad mainly because it's available for my work laptop, as a 3D Experience licence for designing stuff cannot be justified yet. And I do need occasionally to design something for work. If it wasn't for the cloud based feature of Fusion 360 I would already consider buying a proper licence. Anyway good video.
Great tutorials. FC isn't easy to learn. I've used Rhino and Fusion360 and FC is by far the most complicated and non-intuitive. I hope the developers look into simplifying the process like in DesignSpark Mechanical and Space Claim. I am currently using DesignSpark Mechanical (which is a free version of Space Claim and has been for many years without any of the SolidWorks licensing games) and I can believe how intuitive it is and how brilliant the toolset is. I was actually up and running creating complex parts (a guitar necks and bodies) within a couple of hours after viewing a few RUclips videos. FC developers should take a close look at DesignSpark Mechanical or Space Claim toolsets to get ideas for simplifying the FC interface. The Pull, Combine and move tools are so powerful and such a pleasure to work with. Please FC take a look at DesignSpark. Thanks Brodie for you time and efforts on helping us understand FC better.
Thanks! DSM is very nice and simple to pick up and work with for sure, but lacks the non destructive workflow that most cad suites have (like rhino, fusion, FreeCAD, Solidworks etc.) along with a whole lot of other features. FreeCAD is primarily developed by about 4 people as a hobby outside of their day jobs, I'm sure they'd love to be able to make it more intuitive and easy to pick up but FreeCAD needs more contributors, donations and users in general to help that happen. If you want to see what is potentially coming to FreeCAD soon, you could look at RealThunder's Link Stage 3 branch on GitHub, there are some significant UI/UX and QoL developments going on there that you may be very interested in. As for DSM, Ansys or RS could turn around any minute and change the free licence, just like RS have done in the past with Designs Park PCB, which is why I'd rather invest my time and donate to FreeCAD.
I'd love to see a video on loading reference into freecad and modelling from it? It's something I do quite often in F360, and I'm definitely considering the switch after this latest nerf of the free licence.
@@BrodieFairhall In fusion I regularly load reference images in, then calibrate them with a scale & model over them to make something in fusion. Does freecad allow that?
In a way, this Fusion360 shitstorm is a blessing for FreeCAD, i did a lot of training in Siemens SolidEdge, just to be wasted time, so i learned and NEVER EVER waste time again learning how to use a closed source tool. Fuck Autodesk and guys, learn your lesson here. Thanks for the tips at the end!!
Trying to learn 3D CAD. Tried Fusion 360. Couldn't save. Couldn't connect to anything online. Couldn't export stl. Laggy and buggy on my pretty beefy system. Fusion 360 wanted a lot of money. Fusion 360 is making FreeCAD look amazing.
Great video, i had almost given up on free cad but in an effort to ditch windows 10 for liunx fusion360 is not a real option. However your vids have given me a good feeling about the move. Now just need to export all my projects. Keep up the good work.
Very nice video! If I could ask, I would like to see video about threads in freecad. I tried it few years ago and it was horrible! Maybe with a bit of guidence it will be possible to switch to freecad!
Really great video, so many little tips to pick up. I was trying freecad for the first time tonight and I had struggled without knowing how to align to the grid/edges, I know now! The UI also looks much better with your suggestions! The other thing I was struggling with was camera control, the cube in the top right can't be dragged like in fusion and the camera itself seemed to stay in rotation mode until I let go of shift. Maybe a video on that would be good :)
Instead of "Shift + Right Mouse Button" to rotate, you can also use "Middle Mouse Button + Right Mouse Button" (Which I always forget doesn't exist in Fusion every time I use it)
Exactly what I was looking for. I've been using FreeCAD for years as a viewer but have never had any idea where to start with designing. I have used F360 a few times to design little things for 3D printing but the hobbyist licence keeps eroding. With this, I can make the leap I needed to make. Thanks!
I am trying to convert too, but i can't figure out how to extrude part from the sketch - not the whole sketch. I used to do that alot in 360 and that's just how my workflow is. I red in a forum that i have to select the edges i want to extrude (they have to form a closed loop of course) and upgrade them to wire and then upgrade them to surface that i should be able to extrude. Upgrading to wire doesn't seem to work though. Any suggestions? Is my freecad broken or am i missing something. I use 0.19_22474 because auto constraints is not working in the current stable version 0.18.4
This caught me out when I first transitioned from Fusion too and shows that I really should have left information about turning construction geometry on an off in a sketch. Short answer is, in the "Part Design" workbench, you have to pad the entire sketch, but, you can change which parts of the sketch are included in the pad by editing the sketch and toggling on "Construction" for any of the lines you don't want included in the pad. You'll notice on the right hand side of the sketcher tools (just before the constraint tools in the way I have the toolbars setup in my video), there is the "Construction Mode" button (red square with a dashed Blue square above and right of it). You can select any line(s) in your sketch and click this button and it will toggle whether or not the line(s) are included (white lines) or ignored (blue lines) in a pad (or any other operation). Joko Engineering shows Construction Geometry 18 minutes into this video ruclips.net/video/gbNg3mzm84s/видео.html I hope this makes sense.
It is not advised to link to external geometry in the fashion shown, instead the sketch should be linked, not the generated solid. Otherwise a decent intro,well done.
Absolutely right, I'm doing a few more videos this week and one is specifically going to be about the topological naming problem, how to cause it, how to fix it and ultimately how to do it properly. Most people who try FreeCAD, unfortunately drop it after 15 minutes of trying to get anything accomplished, so I just wanted to get people feeling like they can actually create something before dropping the big problems on them, especially when Fusion lets you get away with so many lazy things.
This video is very nicely done. Great info on the similarities and tips on how fusion360 users can find comfortable ways of doing things in FreeCAD. But, it immediately teaches techniques that, while very convenient, wiill almost guarantee the new user will quickly face the topological naming issue. Especially when encouraging the user that sketches can be changed at any time. While ture, there are caveats. Teaching/explaining how to use sketches attached to base planes with offsets, and other techniques, while less convenient, can avoid confusion and frustration. New users have enough to cope with transitioning from Fusion360, no sense adding to the frustration.
Absolutely right, I'm doing a few more videos this week and one is specifically going to be about the topological naming problem, how to cause it, how to fix it and ultimately how to do it properly. Most people who try FreeCAD, unfortunately drop it after 15 minutes of trying to get anything accomplished, so I just wanted to get people feeling like they can actually create something before dropping the big problems on them, especially when Fusion lets you get away with so many lazy things.
Yea, I see the "15 minute" tolerance all the time. I did a series of written tutorials that, I thought, tried to present the "learn to stand, before you attempt a marathon" and the response was a room full of crickets. ;) And, yes, Fusion does allow one to get lazy. ;)
@Brodie Fairhall & others: is FreeCAD a good replacement for (google) Sketchup aswell? usages: 3dprinting part design; simple mechanical linkages and frame design for welding and fabrication
Yay! Thanks much!! I absolutely refuse to use Fusion 360. Turned away from AutoCad at R17 and never want to look back. Sketchup Pro V8 has been my home since then (later Sketchups have less features). Curves are terrible in Sketchup for STL file creation though so, gonna check this out. Thanks again!
I guess it really comes down to what you need. Sofar it seems to me that for mechanical solid modeling FreeCAD delivers very well. But for product design where you work more with surfaces, blend curves etc it quickly shows missing tools. RealThunder is a pretty god sent for FreeCAD to catch up.
You should really check out the curves add-on, OCCT has incredible surface modelling power and this workbench really makes it accessible. ruclips.net/video/iUhHgnvgpo0/видео.html
I've actually never used either of them. For the small amount of CAD I do I use MoI. But the Fusion news made me look into FreeCad. I opened the program and didn't have the foggiest idea what to do. I couldn't even find any tools.
They would be so much better if they just made the interfacing exactly like fusion. Honestly, most of the major differences isnt in technical capability, it's purely interface.
But it's not Fusion. Learning something new is challenging and we all compare anything new pretty harshly against what we know. If you want to, you can customise the UI and there are UI add-ons, icon packs etc that you can add. Beyond similar icons, Autodesk's real 3D CAD suite, Inventor, doesn't have the same interface as Fusion.
FreeCAD needs some UI overhaul... the huge number of small icons isn't really good for user experience. Everyone hated Ribbon UI when it was introduced, but in hindsight Ribbon helps with the clutter and legibility way more than people realize. Something similar to FreeCAD woudl be great. Especially when the resolutions of the screens are increasing rapidly, small 16x16 icons are just the evil. Having multiple tabs for different type of editing is also good in reducing clutter. And CAM integration would be almost essential these days. It's not in the style of linux-type software to integrate anything but one thing in a program, but frankly, manufacturing and designing are so integrated that I hope they'll add CAM facilities as well that can update when the model updates :)
You can change the Icon size in the preferences menu, the dropdown is just under the one theme selection one. There is a Ribbon UI add-on github.com/HakanSeven12/Modern-UI FreeCAD does have CAM integration
They're just entirely different workflows. FreeCAD takes a bit of time to get used to, but I am just as fast in FreeCAD as I was in Fusion360 and Inventor.
I would like to go to freecad but sadly, it's like many other open source tools. GUI is not straightforward, it's not as focused to task I'm working on etc. What I am talking about? Well, just look how much you have to mouse around just to set dimensions or extrude, click OK etc. Why not to have this things RIGHT at the mouse pointer and do not mouse through all the monitor to set a dimension or to confirm something to just hit Enter or Escape for cancel? Most people are using big monitors and high resolutions to get as much of space as possible. Just to create something simple you will be mousing around like an idiot. GUI is, was and will be an achilles heel of most of the OpenSource apps, otherwise great for possibilities and backend. Look what Apple (and to certain degree, Google) has done with a software using a lot of OS code… That's how it should be. Sadly, developers are not usability and interface experts so the SW works this way. It's always like the GUI is an afterthought, just to snap it there to have some buttons…
A lot of people are initially put off by FreeCAD's interface. since this is a tutorial video I am making sure I use a fresh install without any modifications (with the exception of the theme change), I also limited the amount of keyboard shortcut keys I used in favour of showing and using the buttons in the menus, ok buttons, cancel buttons etc. If you were to watch me use FreeCAD when I'm not recording, I have a very different setup, I use the keyboard for almost everything and my workflow is much, much more streamlined. The main branch of FreeCAD only has 3 main developers, so aesthetics, UI and UX don't get get as much attention as most people would like, but there are a lot of addons to improve this, which can all be downloaded directly through the addon manager in FreeCAD. Some good examples are; - Modern UI: github.com/HakanSeven12/Modern-UI - Pie Menu: github.com/triplus/PieMenu One of the main developers, Lei Zheng (aka RealThunder) has been making some incredible UI and visual upgrades in their development branch (Link Stage 3 github.com/realthunder/FreeCAD_assembly3/releases), many of which will likely be rolled into the next version of FreeCAD next year. Here is a good example of what FreeCAD Link Stage 3 can look like ruclips.net/video/s7O0gIvXnLU/видео.html And additions to the pie menu ruclips.net/video/tq-FJH0p9aE/видео.html Hopefully, after Autodesk pulling their recent stunts with Fusion 360 and Inventor LT, more attention, contributions and donations so In all honesty though, once most people start to get used to any CAD software, shortcut keys get used more and menus less, even fast menus radial/pie style context menus are much slower than a well thought out, context aware set of keyboard shortcuts.
Great video, thanks. Had been using Fusion for a little while, but as it is cloud based, and my connection speed is not so great (retired, and no money) I decided to use FreeCAd. What this did highlight was, my 3D modelling skill. None. I do get confused with bodies, and multiple bodies in the same project, and the relationship when I use, say the sweep tool. FreeCAd is somewhat more bare bones than Fusion, but it is where I am now, for the speed. If you have the time, a lesson on the what is the 'tree' and the rules that would apply to bodies, and how bodies work in the project. regards, David
Hi David, thank you for the feedback on both of my videos! I am planning to do some more FreeCAD videos shortly, but in the mean time I'd suggest checking out videos from FreeCAD Academy / Flowies corner (same person, but they have an English and a German channel), Andrew CAD (has great explanations of each individual tool on detail), Joko Engineering and Math Code Print. If you have any issues, let me know. Good luck!
it's awesome for personal projects! I respect so much for the people who have made this happened! However, it seems like it can't go further than personal projects. Even fusion360 is not for professional settings :( such as drawings in fusion is some sort of joke. I hope this takes off. software community has got amazing open source libraries like opencv to tensor flow with thousands of contributors. The problem with these kinds of softwares seems lack of contributors.
I started fusion last year and with all their shenanigans and my trial ending, I’m exporting my projects and switching to free cad. This video is godsend
Super good intro! I've been learning FreeCAD for about a week and didn't come across everything you showed here earlier, like: - trim tool - validating sketch Since I got started with 3D modeling only now I can start directly on FreeCAD instead of being tempted by Fusion360 and likely migrate from later 😁 This unclear "10 active documents limit" might get quite the annoyance on their free plan.
Hm. I have intersecting lines in like all of my Fusion 360 sketches. Is there a reason it can't be done in FreeCAD? I've not yet made up my mind if i want to switch. This intersecting lines thing is a real bummer for me.
I have massively over simplified the sketcher for this video to get people started, I'll do a more detailed video on the sketcher and how I use it. You can have intersecting lines, it just works a bit differently to Fusion.
fusion 360 is a good tool but i've started with freecad years ago. What i don't like in freecad is the machining workshop, i don't know if they are planning improvement.
I like Freecad alot. I have however stumbled upon Siemens Solid Edge and that thing is a local install with local storage. Definitely a solid 360 contender
Solid Edge and Solidworks both seem to be nudging in to the space Autodesk opened up with their recent stunt. It's great to see some kind of community support coming from Siemens and Dassault Systems, it's also a smart move for a company to get people familiar with their tools so that is the one they want to buy if they do any commercial work. There is always still that risk that they will change their licensing. FreeCAD might be lacking a bit of polish right now, but, it is still a fantastic tool and if the community gets behind it, it will grow and they'll have a tool that no one can take away from them. Blender and KiCAD are excellent examples of this.
can you show the CAM environment of freecad? And versions ago, when you use chamfers it breaks the model all the time after editing a history sketch. Is this fixed?
I have plans to do a video on the CAM workbench. With regards to the chamfers, it sounds like you're referring to the "Topological Naming Issue", there is a fix for it in RealThunder's dev branch that you can try. (github.com/realthunder/FreeCAD_assembly3/releases) But all the videos I do will show how to work around that issue.
Validating a sketch into the sketch is impossible, it doesn't let me. Validating it when a body has been already creating means not being able to see it. This software is still a mess. edit: I'm in V19.something. I've been very rude, this software has a lot of potential and it's normal to be rough on the edges if there are only 3 people working on it. I hope it will succeed and become even better than Fusion.
A free alternative to Fusion that runs on Linux is alluring. Is it dependable and easy to use to do typical operations for 3D printing or is it frustrating and buggy? Thank you!
nice, clear, slow explanations ..... pls keep making such video on freecad. One note though- your theme color screen make it hard to see text and icons on youtube....I think the default is clearer when streaming on youtube
Great video! I work as a professional using CREO... and I am not happy with Fusion for my home applications. FreeCAD seems to be more like Creo than Fusion.... I will try it.
The Darker theme comes standard in the 0.19 pre release version and isn't available in 0.18. You can find the 0.19 version here github.com/FreeCAD/FreeCAD/releases/tag/0.19_pre
Another Fusion 360 refugee here - sub'd and waiting for LOTS of content on FreeCad ! Thanks !!!
search joko engineering freecad
I wished FreeCAD would be as professional as Blender is, but in the current state it does kinda everything, but nothing really good. For playing and wasting time it is perfect, but it is miles away from getting even close to products like Inventor, NX or Solidworks. It really needs active development supported by a open source company and new versions every month!
Blender wasn't always that way, not too long ago people would turn their nose up at Blender for being terrible, hard to use etc but a slowly increasing loyal community, donors and contributors made it grow and improve and the 2.8 release was in incredible milestone. KiCAD has a very similar story, FreeCAD could too.
@@BrodieFairhall I mean I used Blender excessively back in 2013 and it was amazing. The experience was far better than using FreeCAD in 2020.
@@blendarious That's really cool that you stuck with it all the way back then, 2013 Brodie would not have agreed with you at all, I personally struggled to find logic in how it worked and good tutorials online at that time, so I didn't put the effort into it and give it a decent chance back then.
Fusion 360 exile here. Thanks for the useful intro.
I'm here seeking asylum from the autodesk oppressors.
Welcome aboard!
Disappointing that they added even more restrictions to Fusion360 free version. I understand why, but it still blows.
Nothing changed for you guys. If you use Fusion 360 above the level they restricted, you’re not using it as a hobbyist. The level of functionality that the free F360 version provides, even after the restrictions, is mind blowing. You’re certainly free to go with open source, just don’t expect the same functionality and speed of modeling.
@@tomuhr5802I think you're underestimating quite a number of hobbyists here, lots of non commercial users were using a lot of functionality that has been removed from Fusion.
Also think about the number of open source projects that have been effected by this, both the 3D side and because Adsk rolled Eagle into Fusion.
After using Fusion for 5 years, I'm amazed that Adsk actually think it is ready to charge people money for at all.
@@BrodieFairhall No. I was quite clear in what I was saying. But sure, humor yourself. Since you clearly think that software on this level should be for free, what I would consider rather delusional, FreeCad is ideal for you. While we, that actually use these different CAD platforms for work, consider Fusion 360 the most cost efficient software on the market. And look nothing against open source, there’s a lot of amazing stuff out there, but please stop the whining on what you should get for free.
7 dislikes from Autodesk representatives.
Thanks for the quick how-to video Brodie.
Fusion are really going to regret their recent move to restrict hobby use. In 5 years time with an army of freeCAD users starting their own businesses, not many are going to want to start shelling out $$$ and embark on a learning curve to switch to Fusion.
Sure they just pirate inventor an be done with it.
Fusion 360 is unusable for me anymore, so i'm just an X hobbyist user now. Giving Freecad a try now.
For anyone new to CAD design, don't be fooled: The Hole tool is very useful.
The hole tool allows you to define a hole with a radius, counterbore/countersink, and optional tapered point at the bottom. The software will then create a revolved cut with the defined profile shape. This can be later edited as a single feature with a single defined center point, which will reduce the number of sketches and features that you might mess up. Additionally, if you are designing something to be machined from a solid material, properly modeling the taper from the end of the drill bit is important. It allows you to correctly analyze the model, and the machinist doesn't have to call you up and ask how deep the hole should be because flat bottom holes can't be drilled. This is less critical for 3D printing applications, but the ability to create more complex hole geometry in less steps is still helpful.
I mean, you can drill a flat bottomed hole with an annular cutter or an endmill. But it's not optimal.
Heartily agree...
You can definitely drill flat bottom holes. It's just not practical as the need for a specific drill would add to the cost unnecessarily unless you really need it flat for some reason.
I agree, this was a somewhat odd recommendation by Brodie. I use the hole tool as I find the workflow of having all properties as a single feature to be easier to manage, but then again I don't do any professional work, only things for home use so perhaps my use-case is different.
Now with FreeCAD 0.20 you can even make holes with real threads for screws with different standarts like M1, M2... or custom ones. ruclips.net/video/hXkNqsATWcs/видео.html
It will be out soon.
Love your narrative style. I'm using FreeCAD for 3D printing and look forward to more guides.
Instablaster.
I believe the days of over priced sub based app's are nearly over F360, Adobe and the other exorbitant priced app's are just not worth using anymore.
Nah, as long as big companies are shelling out the money for Creo, Catia, Autocad, they have no incentive to drop the price
This is exactly the video I was searching for! The new license changes prompted me to look for alternatives to Fusion 360, plus I realized it won’t run natively on the Linux workstation I’m building next year. I’m still pretty new to CAD in general so I figured better to switch now than later, but all my experience so far is with Fusion so I was looking for a tutorial just like this to get a jump start on switching. Thanks for taking the time to make this!
Glad I could help!
Let me know if you get stuck on anything in particular.
Freecad trava muito
Same reason I'm here.
I always hated fusion since I learned solidworks first. And their price changes and reducing features has only made me hate it more.
freecad will become like blender now
Freecad doesn't have the support Blender has. let's hope that they'll improve the software, I'm looking forward to migrate.
@YS TR very bad news. It makes me want to complete computer engineering just to help with the software myself lol
@YS TR not true at all. Why so negative? The realthunder branch is nearly perfect.
@@yosyp5905 do your own research, ys tr is negative and has clearly no clue of the current development of freecad.
@@peterjansen4894 who's YSTR? can you explain more?
I started learning and using Fusion 360 couple of months ago after getting a bit frustrated with FreeCad, and I was considering paying for subscription when I got better with Fusion 360. But the stunt AutoCad pulled opened my eyes to the fact that I will always be at the mercy of Autocad and they can change the terms any time they like and there's nothing I can do about it. So I am back to learning FreeCad where no one can dictate what I can or can't do, and I will be donating to the project whatever I can when I can.
Would be keen to see a section on a key part of my Fusion workflow - jumping back and forth in the timeline and making edits. Not just revising a sketch, but reorganizing the order of things (eg move a fillet command to later in the timeline) or deleting an extrude (pad) operation. Oh and appreciate the moderate pace and even voice over of the video :)
^ this. Give this person a cookie.
Also a newb to FreeCAD coming from Fusion 360. It's been quite a smooth sail upto the moment but a few things like this keep me missing Fusion.
Awesome stuff, thank you! Would love to see an Assembly! Also during the weekend I've now several times come across the recommendation to NOT sketch directly on a face but rather create a datum plane and use that instead, to work around some error that's currently still in FreeCAD. I'd love if you could go into that, maybe with a demonstration of said error so one knows what one wants to avoid. Right now it's all still a bit of a mystery 😅
That is called the wiki.freecadweb.org/Topological_naming_problem and it results in problems down the road, when you have to recompute the model, such as when changing a parameter. Attaching a sketch to a face makes a relationship based on the numbering of the entity, e.g. Face01. So if that face was the result of some operation, like a Pad, and you recompute your model, but your faces come out with a different numbering, e.g. Face01 is no longer "the top face", then your model will break.
@@kurtkremitzki1558 Absolutely right! Fusion actually suffers from the same problem too, but less people encounter it I guess.
I can definitely show an example of the error in a video too, I have done it to myself a lot.
@@kurtkremitzki1558 Thank you very much! I really need to do some reading on the wiki it seems. That node just did wonders to my understanding.
@@BrodieFairhall That'd be a great video. 👍 TiA 😃
I'm looking forward to realthunder's topological naming fixes making it into mainline FreeCAD. I think the advice on how to use datum planes I've read hasn't been consistent. I'm still new, but I get the idea that the best approach is to have the datum planes drive both the surfaces and the sketches that would be on those surfaces? But realthunder's work should usually make that a boondoggle I think. I've gotten used to SolidWorks getting topological naming mostly right, but I've still seem models fall apart topologically there and realthunder's naming scheme looks even more robust. I crashed his build before managing to induce a topological naming error when I tried yesterday. 🙂
I've been using Solidworks for nearly 20 years so I would like to see some comparisons to SW. I still have a valid SW license and would be happy to contribute in any way possible to further the open source progress of FreeCad.
Search for Joko Engineering Freecad Solidworks.
He did a nice video on FreeCAD from a Solidworks Users Perspective
Seems to me that FreeCad is a lot more similar to solidworks than it is to fusion - for example the differentiation between additive and subtractive tools is very similar to Solidworks.
@@TooManyProjectsWorkshop I was thinking the same but I've only watched one video so far.
I learned Solidworks in 2000 and have been using it until 2017 when I discovered OnShape. I've dabbled with FreeCAD for years but never become proficient.
@@TooManyProjectsWorkshop Agreed. In many other ways. I don't know if SolidWorks still has these limitations currently because I haven't used it in a while but back in the day when I did, you also couldn't have open sketches, and you couldn't split bodies. Additionally, the sketch is absorbed into the body, where in fusion you can use sketches over and over again.
I laughed out loud when you said that hole is something you'll probably never use because that's a specific software feature I'm looking for. In Fusion 360 it's great for easily modeling printable threads and countersunk fasteners.
In FC there is an add-on which allows for the creation of scaled threads specifically for 3D printing, the fasteners WB.
Just like "you will never use the grid". Something in the middle of nowhere looks great. I guess they tried to create software not for designers but for kids.
@@vladimirseven777 Sketcher is a constraints driven application, for noobs using the grid can give the impression that lines/curves are connected because the endpoints start/finish at the same place. This is not the same as being constrained together. That is why a lot of people never use the grid. It just isn't much help.
I dont use the grid in 360, so would not use it here. Been playing with freecad for a few weeks now, but still use 360 on a regilar basis for modelling.
Ditto the comments about the hole feature - it's extremely useful when ultimately moving to engineering prints. If all one is doing is FDM/SLA printing, probably less so, though the standard c'sink and c'bore features are good to if you want to print them - get them sized right. Though I was just messing with it in 0.19.22665 (current as of this is 22670) and the hole feature is broken in it. Working fine in 0.18. So one's mileage may vary with the development build rather than the stable branch.
FreeCAD it's an astonishing achievement
I’ve reached the max of my editable documents ( only 30) on Fusion 360 and now can’t save new designs , time to move to Freecad , many thanks for a great Tutorial.
It would be great to have more of you guys on FreeCAD Discord channel
discord.gg/HrhnvnE
Thanks Brodie!! You are Just the guy we need to get us going in Freecad
Wow, everything I heard about it was either outdated or wrong. Er, why do I need F360 now exactly?
Yeah, most people who have an opinion on FreeCAD years ago, couldn't work out how to get started and base everything off that one outdated bad experience. Without direction, it isn't clear where to start in FreeCAD, but once you're up and going, you'll work out it's far better at some things than Fusion and not as good at others, just like comparing Fusion to Solidworks etc.
The best part about the F360 plan restructuring is all of the programming talent also into CAD who will iterate upon FreeCAD and OpenSCAD.
Yes please continue with FreeCAD tuts. Would like a video on G-code creation and possible a simulation starter.
I second this request !!
I am just starting 3d design. This stuff is pretty hard. Thanks for explaining it well
Subbed and Belled. Would be lovely to see "Beginner" "Intermediet" and "Advance" user tutorials. There are a couple of beginner videos out there but I think if you made a complete series from beginner to advanced you would gain alot of subs and many people would benefit from it. Looking forward to see lot's and lot's of videos from you!
AliceDad I second that 👍
I had a fusion 360 tutorial series up, on how to make folding knives up over a year ago, 20 videos. I left them up for a month - tons of views, little to no likes on videos, very little comments, no patreon support (not even a dollar a month) and only 5 subscribbers. Honestly, I think it's about the teacher - this guy's channel would do GREAT with tutorials, people like me just don't mesh well with the majority or don't know how to teach others their skills - so now I just make time lapse videos of my designs. Subbed, and looking to move over from fusion 360.
FreeCAD is very promising. Though I wish it were more stable on Mac OS. It would be nice to ditch the PC that I only use for CAD work.
Nice Introduction Video, Brodie. I like your methodical tutorial approach. Nicely done.
Oh i just realized I'm not subbed :O Great tutorial thanks :3
I created my first part in this for my project now :D it was simple and hard to do when you're used to fusion but I already feel better at it!
also I'm really happy there's a tutorial for someone who already knows CAD fundamentals but is transitioning!
It's hard to unlearn habits, it took me a long time to grasp FreeCAD, but now I couldn't imagine going back to a closed source CAD suite, especially an Autodesk tool.
I have been using FCad v0.18 for about two solid months now. I am nowhere experienced in CAD generally, but I have become very comfortable in using FCad. The only real issue I have now is learning how to get text on my objects. It works sometime and getting the orientation of my text is a little troubling. But I am quite satisfied with its performance and the current tools it has. I still have a lot to learn. Its is an enjoyable application with a nice CAD community involved. Thanks for your input on this application.
Please note at 3:40 - when the sketch turns green it is “fully defined” - i.e. zero degrees of freedom. This is very important.
Small tip: when you change settings like you did at the beginning, please do things like that a bit slower, and make sure to do things in the order you say. (You said change the gradient and add anti-aliasing, but you did those things in the order of adding anti-aliasing and then changing to a solid color background.)
Great video, thanks for publishing this one!
Well.. they was cosmetic changes so its not that important. Why not play around yourself? 😀
@@bullzebub I was trying to give you a tip, not asking a question about how to do something. You also way underestimate the power of cosmetic changes. Most people in the free-to-use market who shy away from FreeCAD do so because of cosmetics.
Another Fusion 360 user refugee and sub'd also
Welcome aboard!
The trim tool was a revelation - thank you sir!
FreeCAD has a different workflow from fusion360.. you always mix between workbenches. part - part design - draft
A significant difference seems to be in FreeCAD each sketch can only have one shape. In Fusion, I'm used to a sketch having many shapes, and then extruding those shapes to different heights, and even starting at different offsets. But it seems in FreeCAD, that's not the way. So many more sketches. Do I understand it right? (Edit: The first sketch can only have one shape, but sketches on the body later can have multiple so long as they don't overlap, but it seems they all get padded the same)
Pretty much right, you can have multiple shapes in one sketch if there is one outer sketch and multiple inner sketches. But since pad works on the entire sketch/you can't pick what parts of a sketch to pad and ignore others and you can only have one solid within a body, you can't have multiple separate shapes within a sketch.
And that's one of the reasons why F360 is so attractive and easy to use. Everyone go use Freecad, I'll keep using the nice tools, all to myself muhahah
Thank you so much for the "Highlight open vertexes " button! That has been a big frustration.
That was a massive frustration for me too when I was starting out, that's why I made sure I put it in the video!
So a while back, 2 years ago, i did my cswp solidworks certification. But since that is super expensive haha, i am looking into freecad. I would like to take all the examples from my book and course, then recreate them in freecad.
Thanks for the video
This introduction was just what I needed to get started! Thank you for creating this video!
also switched to FC. SCREW autodesk and their money and control greed!
the trim tool didn't work on my circle D: it's such a bummer that I can't select surface of a sketch or parts of it to pad like fusion and solidworks. I hope they add that soon!
The trim tool can be a bit finicky, it can do weird things depending on how your sketch is constrained. I don't use it 99% of the time.
You could use the arc tool to create the part of the circle you need instead of making a circle and trimming it.
As for being able to selectively pad (or use any other action on) parts of sketches, I doubt that will ever be in FreeCAD, as it's generally viewed as bad CAD practice. I learned why it's bad in Fusion when I started making a lot more customisable / highly parametric designs before I really understood why fully constraining sketches was so important, so I got a lot of topological problems and a lot of other weird geometry problems. It wont effect you in Fusion unless you are really doing a lot of parametric design, but as I learned FreeCAD I started applying what I learned to Fusion and it made me much, much better at Fusion.
Oh also I remember you talking about wanting to project surfaces from imported parts etc. While I kinda advise against it in the long run, this video from Andrew CAD (ruclips.net/video/MCY5IrWrHrU/видео.html) will introduce you to the shape binder tools which will let you do exactly that.
I know how to use Fusion quite well and have some very basic skills on FC. This was very good video. I haven't known about that missing vertex option and have bit struggled with boolean operations. This immediately explained what I've been likely doing wrong in couple occasions. Very good job 👍👍
You did a fantastic and I mean fantastic job of explaining things. You are a either a natural at this or you have instructed before. In a short time you gave clear information on how Freecad works including things to watch out for! Really hope you do more! Cheers!
I just wanted to chime in and add that the sketch function in FreeCAD is in fact very similar to that in Solidworks (I trained in Solidworks as part of my engineering degree). I think we all got a bit spoilt by how A360 sketches. A360 sketching is really nice, while Solidworks/FreeCAD being a little more 'clunky', but it still works and works well.
I wish I was a developer such that I could contribute. Ask my team. You don't want me submitting any pull requests. ;) I can however contribute to the Wiki. ~P
There are so many ways people can contribute to FreeCAD beyond writing code! wiki.freecadweb.org/Help_FreeCAD
Subscribed.
What I'd really want to know more about is how to deal with 3d sketching, more specifically on non orthogonal planes and for scaffolding purposes. Thinking of situations where you know a few parameters and need to use the sketch as a construct to find the actual measurements of your parts.
I'm sorry, I want to make sure I get what you're asking correct. Do you have a simple example you could point me at?
@@BrodieFairhall Currently in Fusion, I use 3d sketching to model complex concave shapes on multiple construction planes that are not the origin planes. Those scaffold construction sketches are parametrized by measurements that are NOT the final part dimensions, basically their job is to actually compute where the part should go and how to bend the shape to conform to that.
Sorry I know this sound confusing. If I had to think of a concrete example that more people could understand it would be something like this: You have to design an aftermarket car bumper, you only know the location of the fastening points and of the chassis bounds, these are not located on any single 2d plane, and you have to generate a shape that surrounds them with and matches the fastening locations.
I hope that makes some sense, if not don't worry too much, I'll end up figuring it out somehow.
LEAVING FUSION TO BE FREE CAD ADEPT
Nice Video, even for me who didn't use Fusion. Can you show an assembly? Thanks!
I plan to do a video on one of the assembly workbenches this week :)
Wow, the limitations are major, and it the workflow requires many extra steps.
Definitely not switching, I would rather buy a license for 800 bucks or pay monthly few for software that is better useable.
Don't get me wrong, I like that some found a working alternative for them, but when I had to live with that restrictions and completely different workflow, I would rather switch my hobby.
You're absolutely welcome to do that.
But remember, this is only a 10 minute bare bones intro, there is so much more to FreeCAD than I can fit in a short Video.
I have a commercial Fusion360 licence, so I'm not effected by Autodesk's latest stunt. I use FreeCAD because it is way better than Fusion at a lot of things, so I'd encourage you to have a genuine look at learning it.
I know, right? If you have a hobby like 3D printing and 3D design you might as well enjoy what you're doing, not suffering and dealing with clunky software. Either buy, pirate or just change your hobbies
It's honestly impressive how truly terrible the UI of this program is.
Is it that it looks bad or do you believe it is bad to use?
It has changed a fair bit since this ancient video came out (0.22 is bringing some more significant changes)
I'll agree, it's not the prettiest, but I think it is well set out for being fast/efficient (which is the opposite to what I find with Inventor and Fusion), especially for keyboard shortcuts.
As a Rhino 3D User, this free CAD video tutorial is very useful for me. Thanks. Subbed.
Subscribed! I am happy to see tutorial video with subtitles (must required for deaf/foreign community). I was going to use Fusion 360 and learned license policy was recently changed. I finally switch to FreeCAD and Blender that I recently installed. I hope that developers catch up like insanely expensive commercial CAD applications (AutoCAD, SolidWorks, etc.)
Thats should be available via RUclips Subtitles button, Id love to see a translated subtitles from all the other language's in the world
Fusion 360 seems to be one of the easiest pieces of SW to learn CAD. I made a start with DesignSpark Mechanical, then tried Fusion. Not an expert user but I do feel comfortable using it. My initial attempt with FreeCad was similar to using Solidworks 2013. It feels much more difficult, and was somewhat dissapointed. Willing to try more with FreeCad mainly because it's available for my work laptop, as a 3D Experience licence for designing stuff cannot be justified yet. And I do need occasionally to design something for work. If it wasn't for the cloud based feature of Fusion 360 I would already consider buying a proper licence. Anyway good video.
👍 Thank you.
Subscribed. 😃
Great tutorials. FC isn't easy to learn. I've used Rhino and Fusion360 and FC is by far the most complicated and non-intuitive. I hope the developers look into simplifying the process like in DesignSpark Mechanical and Space Claim. I am currently using DesignSpark Mechanical (which is a free version of Space Claim and has been for many years without any of the SolidWorks licensing games) and I can believe how intuitive it is and how brilliant the toolset is. I was actually up and running creating complex parts (a guitar necks and bodies) within a couple of hours after viewing a few RUclips videos. FC developers should take a close look at DesignSpark Mechanical or Space Claim toolsets to get ideas for simplifying the FC interface. The Pull, Combine and move tools are so powerful and such a pleasure to work with. Please FC take a look at DesignSpark. Thanks Brodie for you time and efforts on helping us understand FC better.
Thanks!
DSM is very nice and simple to pick up and work with for sure, but lacks the non destructive workflow that most cad suites have (like rhino, fusion, FreeCAD, Solidworks etc.) along with a whole lot of other features.
FreeCAD is primarily developed by about 4 people as a hobby outside of their day jobs, I'm sure they'd love to be able to make it more intuitive and easy to pick up but FreeCAD needs more contributors, donations and users in general to help that happen.
If you want to see what is potentially coming to FreeCAD soon, you could look at RealThunder's Link Stage 3 branch on GitHub, there are some significant UI/UX and QoL developments going on there that you may be very interested in.
As for DSM, Ansys or RS could turn around any minute and change the free licence, just like RS have done in the past with Designs Park PCB, which is why I'd rather invest my time and donate to FreeCAD.
I'd love to see a video on loading reference into freecad and modelling from it? It's something I do quite often in F360, and I'm definitely considering the switch after this latest nerf of the free licence.
As in loading a scan/mesh as a reference?
@@BrodieFairhall In fusion I regularly load reference images in, then calibrate them with a scale & model over them to make something in fusion. Does freecad allow that?
Ah, I understand now, you can definitely do this in FreeCAD and it would make for a good little video :)
@@joebywan You mean something like this?: ruclips.net/video/KAnU4GK-0iM/видео.html
YEP!!! I'm switching!!! Thanks for this it was exactly what I was looking for.
can you show me how I could make a cylinder and have a texture wrap around it? I am drawing a blank on how to start...thanks
I'll look at a way to incorporate this in a video soon
@@BrodieFairhall thank you so much.
In a way, this Fusion360 shitstorm is a blessing for FreeCAD, i did a lot of training in Siemens SolidEdge, just to be wasted time, so i learned and NEVER EVER waste time again learning how to use a closed source tool. Fuck Autodesk and guys, learn your lesson here.
Thanks for the tips at the end!!
Trying to learn 3D CAD. Tried Fusion 360. Couldn't save. Couldn't connect to anything online. Couldn't export stl. Laggy and buggy on my pretty beefy system. Fusion 360 wanted a lot of money. Fusion 360 is making FreeCAD look amazing.
Well STEP is back in fusion so I no longer have to go through the pain of learning freecad
To each their own, learning FreeCAD made me use Fusion better and now I never have to worry about the next time Autodesk do their thing.
Until they remove it again or something else more important to you. But it's also true that Freecad is still clunky.
Is it working and scaling with 4k Displays? Because F360 is NOT.. even if they claim it does..
I used F360 as a hobbiest for years, then it all went to hell. I have been looking for something for my 3D printer designs. I’ll try this right away.
How did it go? Easier?
Great video, i had almost given up on free cad but in an effort to ditch windows 10 for liunx fusion360 is not a real option. However your vids have given me a good feeling about the move. Now just need to export all my projects. Keep up the good work.
Excelente explicación, gracias por mostrar y apoyar a Freecad.
Saludos desde Chile.
Really well done. Subbd
I just downloaded freecad, my free fusion 360 version expired.
Very nice video! If I could ask, I would like to see video about threads in freecad. I tried it few years ago and it was horrible! Maybe with a bit of guidence it will be possible to switch to freecad!
Really great video, so many little tips to pick up. I was trying freecad for the first time tonight and I had struggled without knowing how to align to the grid/edges, I know now! The UI also looks much better with your suggestions!
The other thing I was struggling with was camera control, the cube in the top right can't be dragged like in fusion and the camera itself seemed to stay in rotation mode until I let go of shift. Maybe a video on that would be good :)
Instead of "Shift + Right Mouse Button" to rotate, you can also use "Middle Mouse Button + Right Mouse Button" (Which I always forget doesn't exist in Fusion every time I use it)
Thanks for a nice video about FreeCAD.
What did you use to get keyboard input and mouse clicks into your video?
It's an app called KeyMon
@@BrodieFairhall I sorry, do you have a link or something, I only find spyware named KeyMon.
@@lgrfbs github.com/critiqjo/key-mon
@@BrodieFairhall Thanks.
Exactly what I was looking for. I've been using FreeCAD for years as a viewer but have never had any idea where to start with designing. I have used F360 a few times to design little things for 3D printing but the hobbyist licence keeps eroding. With this, I can make the leap I needed to make. Thanks!
I am trying to convert too, but i can't figure out how to extrude part from the sketch - not the whole sketch. I used to do that alot in 360 and that's just how my workflow is. I red in a forum that i have to select the edges i want to extrude (they have to form a closed loop of course) and upgrade them to wire and then upgrade them to surface that i should be able to extrude. Upgrading to wire doesn't seem to work though. Any suggestions? Is my freecad broken or am i missing something. I use 0.19_22474 because auto constraints is not working in the current stable version 0.18.4
This caught me out when I first transitioned from Fusion too and shows that I really should have left information about turning construction geometry on an off in a sketch.
Short answer is, in the "Part Design" workbench, you have to pad the entire sketch, but, you can change which parts of the sketch are included in the pad by editing the sketch and toggling on "Construction" for any of the lines you don't want included in the pad.
You'll notice on the right hand side of the sketcher tools (just before the constraint tools in the way I have the toolbars setup in my video), there is the "Construction Mode" button (red square with a dashed Blue square above and right of it). You can select any line(s) in your sketch and click this button and it will toggle whether or not the line(s) are included (white lines) or ignored (blue lines) in a pad (or any other operation).
Joko Engineering shows Construction Geometry 18 minutes into this video ruclips.net/video/gbNg3mzm84s/видео.html
I hope this makes sense.
@@BrodieFairhall Thank you for your reply! I will try this tomorrow. You've gained another subscriber.
It is not advised to link to external geometry in the fashion shown, instead the sketch should be linked, not the generated solid. Otherwise a decent intro,well done.
Absolutely right, I'm doing a few more videos this week and one is specifically going to be about the topological naming problem, how to cause it, how to fix it and ultimately how to do it properly. Most people who try FreeCAD, unfortunately drop it after 15 minutes of trying to get anything accomplished, so I just wanted to get people feeling like they can actually create something before dropping the big problems on them, especially when Fusion lets you get away with so many lazy things.
This video is very nicely done. Great info on the similarities and tips on how fusion360 users can find comfortable ways of doing things in FreeCAD. But, it immediately teaches techniques that, while very convenient, wiill almost guarantee the new user will quickly face the topological naming issue. Especially when encouraging the user that sketches can be changed at any time. While ture, there are caveats. Teaching/explaining how to use sketches attached to base planes with offsets, and other techniques, while less convenient, can avoid confusion and frustration. New users have enough to cope with transitioning from Fusion360, no sense adding to the frustration.
Absolutely right, I'm doing a few more videos this week and one is specifically going to be about the topological naming problem, how to cause it, how to fix it and ultimately how to do it properly. Most people who try FreeCAD, unfortunately drop it after 15 minutes of trying to get anything accomplished, so I just wanted to get people feeling like they can actually create something before dropping the big problems on them, especially when Fusion lets you get away with so many lazy things.
Yea, I see the "15 minute" tolerance all the time. I did a series of written tutorials that, I thought, tried to present the "learn to stand, before you attempt a marathon" and the response was a room full of crickets. ;) And, yes, Fusion does allow one to get lazy. ;)
@Brodie Fairhall & others: is FreeCAD a good replacement for (google) Sketchup aswell? usages: 3dprinting part design; simple mechanical linkages and frame design for welding and fabrication
For all of those things it absolutely is!
Yay! Thanks much!! I absolutely refuse to use Fusion 360. Turned away from AutoCad at R17 and never want to look back. Sketchup Pro V8 has been my home since then (later Sketchups have less features). Curves are terrible in Sketchup for STL file creation though so, gonna check this out. Thanks again!
Do you have this spoken in english , not in serbo-croat which is what it seems to me????????
I guess it really comes down to what you need. Sofar it seems to me that for mechanical solid modeling FreeCAD delivers very well. But for product design where you work more with surfaces, blend curves etc it quickly shows missing tools. RealThunder is a pretty god sent for FreeCAD to catch up.
You should really check out the curves add-on, OCCT has incredible surface modelling power and this workbench really makes it accessible.
ruclips.net/video/iUhHgnvgpo0/видео.html
@@BrodieFairhall I did watch and follow it - when I bring the STEP export into Fusion it shows many tangency issues. I might have to investigate more.
I've actually never used either of them. For the small amount of CAD I do I use MoI. But the Fusion news made me look into FreeCad. I opened the program and didn't have the foggiest idea what to do. I couldn't even find any tools.
This is exactly the reason I decided to make the video. It's not obvious where to start.
They would be so much better if they just made the interfacing exactly like fusion. Honestly, most of the major differences isnt in technical capability, it's purely interface.
But it's not Fusion.
Learning something new is challenging and we all compare anything new pretty harshly against what we know.
If you want to, you can customise the UI and there are UI add-ons, icon packs etc that you can add.
Beyond similar icons, Autodesk's real 3D CAD suite, Inventor, doesn't have the same interface as Fusion.
FreeCAD needs some UI overhaul... the huge number of small icons isn't really good for user experience. Everyone hated Ribbon UI when it was introduced, but in hindsight Ribbon helps with the clutter and legibility way more than people realize. Something similar to FreeCAD woudl be great.
Especially when the resolutions of the screens are increasing rapidly, small 16x16 icons are just the evil.
Having multiple tabs for different type of editing is also good in reducing clutter.
And CAM integration would be almost essential these days.
It's not in the style of linux-type software to integrate anything but one thing in a program, but frankly, manufacturing and designing are so integrated that I hope they'll add CAM facilities as well that can update when the model updates :)
You can change the Icon size in the preferences menu, the dropdown is just under the one theme selection one.
There is a Ribbon UI add-on github.com/HakanSeven12/Modern-UI
FreeCAD does have CAM integration
Coming from Fusion 360 making stuff in FreeCAD is quite a bit more tedious, I really hope it can get more attention and support.
They're just entirely different workflows. FreeCAD takes a bit of time to get used to, but I am just as fast in FreeCAD as I was in Fusion360 and Inventor.
I would like to go to freecad but sadly, it's like many other open source tools. GUI is not straightforward, it's not as focused to task I'm working on etc.
What I am talking about? Well, just look how much you have to mouse around just to set dimensions or extrude, click OK etc. Why not to have this things RIGHT at the mouse pointer and do not mouse through all the monitor to set a dimension or to confirm something to just hit Enter or Escape for cancel? Most people are using big monitors and high resolutions to get as much of space as possible. Just to create something simple you will be mousing around like an idiot.
GUI is, was and will be an achilles heel of most of the OpenSource apps, otherwise great for possibilities and backend. Look what Apple (and to certain degree, Google) has done with a software using a lot of OS code… That's how it should be. Sadly, developers are not usability and interface experts so the SW works this way. It's always like the GUI is an afterthought, just to snap it there to have some buttons…
A lot of people are initially put off by FreeCAD's interface. since this is a tutorial video I am making sure I use a fresh install without any modifications (with the exception of the theme change), I also limited the amount of keyboard shortcut keys I used in favour of showing and using the buttons in the menus, ok buttons, cancel buttons etc. If you were to watch me use FreeCAD when I'm not recording, I have a very different setup, I use the keyboard for almost everything and my workflow is much, much more streamlined.
The main branch of FreeCAD only has 3 main developers, so aesthetics, UI and UX don't get get as much attention as most people would like, but there are a lot of addons to improve this, which can all be downloaded directly through the addon manager in FreeCAD.
Some good examples are;
- Modern UI: github.com/HakanSeven12/Modern-UI
- Pie Menu: github.com/triplus/PieMenu
One of the main developers, Lei Zheng (aka RealThunder) has been making some incredible UI and visual upgrades in their development branch (Link Stage 3 github.com/realthunder/FreeCAD_assembly3/releases), many of which will likely be rolled into the next version of FreeCAD next year.
Here is a good example of what FreeCAD Link Stage 3 can look like ruclips.net/video/s7O0gIvXnLU/видео.html
And additions to the pie menu ruclips.net/video/tq-FJH0p9aE/видео.html
Hopefully, after Autodesk pulling their recent stunts with Fusion 360 and Inventor LT, more attention, contributions and donations so
In all honesty though, once most people start to get used to any CAD software, shortcut keys get used more and menus less, even fast menus radial/pie style context menus are much slower than a well thought out, context aware set of keyboard shortcuts.
Really excellent tutorial and likewise with all the other videos on FreeCAD I have seen of yours. Thank you!
Great video, thanks. Had been using Fusion for a little while, but as it is cloud based, and my connection speed is not so great (retired, and no money) I decided to use FreeCAd. What this did highlight was, my 3D modelling skill. None. I do get confused with bodies, and multiple bodies in the same project, and the relationship when I use, say the sweep tool. FreeCAd is somewhat more bare bones than Fusion, but it is where I am now, for the speed. If you have the time, a lesson on the what is the 'tree' and the rules that would apply to bodies, and how bodies work in the project. regards, David
Hi David, thank you for the feedback on both of my videos! I am planning to do some more FreeCAD videos shortly, but in the mean time I'd suggest checking out videos from FreeCAD Academy / Flowies corner (same person, but they have an English and a German channel), Andrew CAD (has great explanations of each individual tool on detail), Joko Engineering and Math Code Print.
If you have any issues, let me know.
Good luck!
it's awesome for personal projects! I respect so much for the people who have made this happened! However, it seems like it can't go further than personal projects. Even fusion360 is not for professional settings :( such as drawings in fusion is some sort of joke. I hope this takes off. software community has got amazing open source libraries like opencv to tensor flow with thousands of contributors. The problem with these kinds of softwares seems lack of contributors.
I started fusion last year and with all their shenanigans and my trial ending, I’m exporting my projects and switching to free cad. This video is godsend
No better time than now, FreeCAD is only going to get better for this point on.
Could you explain primitive attachment please
Super good intro! I've been learning FreeCAD for about a week and didn't come across everything you showed here earlier, like:
- trim tool
- validating sketch
Since I got started with 3D modeling only now I can start directly on FreeCAD instead of being tempted by Fusion360 and likely migrate from later 😁
This unclear "10 active documents limit" might get quite the annoyance on their free plan.
is it possible that freeCAD can merge company or something like tying up with blender3D?
I believe after the release of 0.19 the team are going to seriously look into the formation of a company or foundation to help either development
Brodie's custom background colour details:
Hue: 144
Sat: 24
Lum: 118
Red: 113
Green: 123
Blue:138
Are you aware of a shortcut that allows you to search commands in FreeCAD? Similar to the 'S' key in Fusion 360? It's such a useful shortcut.
I'm actually not sure, I'll have to look into it.
I've also used Fusion for over 5 years and I've never used the command search there either.
Hm. I have intersecting lines in like all of my Fusion 360 sketches. Is there a reason it can't be done in FreeCAD? I've not yet made up my mind if i want to switch. This intersecting lines thing is a real bummer for me.
I have massively over simplified the sketcher for this video to get people started, I'll do a more detailed video on the sketcher and how I use it. You can have intersecting lines, it just works a bit differently to Fusion.
fusion 360 is a good tool but i've started with freecad years ago. What i don't like in freecad is the machining workshop, i don't know if they are planning improvement.
You can look on the FreeCAD forum and there may be some more information on a roadmap for the Path worbench
I like Freecad alot. I have however stumbled upon Siemens Solid Edge and that thing is a local install with local storage. Definitely a solid 360 contender
Solid Edge and Solidworks both seem to be nudging in to the space Autodesk opened up with their recent stunt. It's great to see some kind of community support coming from Siemens and Dassault Systems, it's also a smart move for a company to get people familiar with their tools so that is the one they want to buy if they do any commercial work. There is always still that risk that they will change their licensing.
FreeCAD might be lacking a bit of polish right now, but, it is still a fantastic tool and if the community gets behind it, it will grow and they'll have a tool that no one can take away from them. Blender and KiCAD are excellent examples of this.
can you show the CAM environment of freecad? And versions ago, when you use chamfers it breaks the model all the time after editing a history sketch. Is this fixed?
I have plans to do a video on the CAM workbench. With regards to the chamfers, it sounds like you're referring to the "Topological Naming Issue", there is a fix for it in RealThunder's dev branch that you can try. (github.com/realthunder/FreeCAD_assembly3/releases)
But all the videos I do will show how to work around that issue.
Validating a sketch into the sketch is impossible, it doesn't let me. Validating it when a body has been already creating means not being able to see it. This software is still a mess.
edit: I'm in V19.something. I've been very rude, this software has a lot of potential and it's normal to be rough on the edges if there are only 3 people working on it. I hope it will succeed and become even better than Fusion.
A free alternative to Fusion that runs on Linux is alluring. Is it dependable and easy to use to do typical operations for 3D printing or is it frustrating and buggy? Thank you!
Absolutely! Initially, it may seem daunting / hard to wrap your head around, but the workflow absolutely makes sense once you get it.
nice, clear, slow explanations ..... pls keep making such video on freecad. One note though- your theme color screen make it hard to see text and icons on youtube....I think the default is clearer when streaming on youtube
Great video! I work as a professional using CREO... and I am not happy with Fusion for my home applications. FreeCAD seems to be more like Creo than Fusion.... I will try it.
Thanks for making this video.
Hey, how did you get that darker theme? Ive looked around but did not find it. I would love to have theme as the dark one is a pain to my eyes
The Darker theme comes standard in the 0.19 pre release version and isn't available in 0.18.
You can find the 0.19 version here github.com/FreeCAD/FreeCAD/releases/tag/0.19_pre