LibreCAD

[PeterDRG]

Is anyone using LibreCAD ?
I have installed it but have never used it before. I would like to use it to create these and then create an STL file to print from. Is this feasible, please? The discs are 54mm diameter and 10.5mm thick.

 

[Paul135]

Hi Peter,

Short answer no. Unfortunately LibreCad is only 2D and has not had any development for some years. For 2D you would be better with QCad, which in its community edition is free but again does not do STL. To create your STL files you would be better to go with FreeCad, also free but a very powerful 3D modelling package. It does have plenty of good tutorials on YouTube.

Paul

 

[PeterDRG]

Thanks Paul. Very helpful. It looks like I already have it, too, in my Linux library.

 

[SmithDoor]

I do think updates in important after a few years.
I have Autocad 2000LT with last update 2000. Today it is installed on Windows 10 64 bit.
Works great

Dave

 

[ajoeiam]

Hi Peter,

Short answer no. Unfortunately LibreCad is only 2D and has not had any development for some years. For 2D you would be better with QCad, which in its community edition is free but again does not do STL. To create your STL files you would be better to go with FreeCad, also free but a very powerful 3D modelling package. It does have plenty of good tutorials on YouTube.

Paul

Work IS happening on version 3 - - - - just not done yet.
FreeCAD may be powerful but I am finding that the tutorials are all too often sadly out of date.
(then all too often the tutorials assume you know what you're doing and they're just showing you a tiny little bit new - - - - find the video tutorials mostly something that takes me far too many hours to figure out exactly what they 'are' doing - - - - then the work benches seem to revel in finding a different way of doing things from each other - - - -that really gets interesting - - - - then the fact that you can't really dimension anything (you know with tolerances and all the rest) it seems like these guys are all paper pushers - - - - most of them seem like they've never actually fabricated or built something - - - or their way of getting things on the computer sure seems that way - - - - end rant!)

 

[awake]

Is anyone using LibreCAD ?
I have installed it but have never used it before. I would like to use it to create these and then create an STL file to print from. Is this feasible, please? The discs are 54mm diameter and 10.5mm thick.

Yes, I have used LibreCAD fairly extensively. I haven't used it as much lately (see below), but for some projects I find it easier to work in 2D (or maybe just to work out some particular issue of 2D geometry), and LibreCAD does everything I need. That said, my first CAD experience was with TurboCAD "way back when," and LibreCAD has a very different process, so it took a bit of time to get comfortable with it ... but now I suspect I'd have a hard time going back to TurboCAD.

Work IS happening on version 3 - - - - just not done yet.
FreeCAD may be powerful but I am finding that the tutorials are all too often sadly out of date.
(then all too often the tutorials assume you know what you're doing and they're just showing you a tiny little bit new - - - - find the video tutorials mostly something that takes me far too many hours to figure out exactly what they 'are' doing - - - - then the work benches seem to revel in finding a different way of doing things from each other - - - -that really gets interesting - - - -

I find myself doing most of my work in FreeCAD these days. Joe's comment above points to both the good news and the bad news - the good news is, there are a LOT of tutorials out there on FreeCAD; the good news is that the program is very flexible and it continues to develop rapidly. The bad news is, it can be hard to sort out the up-to-date and most helpful tutorials, and the UI can be inconsistent.

With regard to tutorials (at least on YouTube), I would say that they have gotten better at including the version in the title - the latest version of FreeCAD is .19, so look for tutorials that refer to that version. The second thing I would say is that it is probably helpful to work through a beginner series of videos first; otherwise you are watching various edge cases or advanced techniques or so on, and can easily get lost because they are assuming you know the basics. I'm pretty sure I've seen more than one beginner series based on v.19, but the only one I can name is by "Adventures in Creation," he is up to tutorial # 15 in the series. Caveat: I have only watched a bit of these; I would not say that the creator is the best "tutorialist" out there, but they are usable / useful. Other YouTubers that I find particularly helpful with FreeCAD are Joko Engineering and sliptonic, but they tend to talk about advanced features or edge cases. Note that sliptonic has an inexpensive book on how to use FreeCAD; it is based on an earlier version, but most of what he teaches is still relevant.

With regard to the inconsistent UI: There is an effort to correct that, but it is a tradeoff that is not uncommon in open software - will the volunteer developers put time and energy into creating that new feature that will be really useful, or into going back and tweaking the existing UI? Again, some effort is going into the latter, but probably the overall balance is skewed to the former.

I have heard people say that there is a higher learning curve with FreeCAD. I can't speak to that, as I have never tried to learn any other 3D CAD software. However, I will say that when I have watched an occasional YouTube video that includes a Fusion360 segment, I have about equal instances where I think, "that seems like a clunky way to do it; it's a lot easier in FreeCAD", vs. "that's a cool way to do it - wish FreeCAD had that."

then the fact that you can't really dimension anything (you know with tolerances and all the rest) it seems like these guys are all paper pushers - - - - most of them seem like they've never actually fabricated or built something - - - or their way of getting things on the computer sure seems that way - - - - end rant!)

Joe, I am not sure what you mean by not being able to dimension anything. Can you unpack that a bit? You mention tolerances - you can certainly include tolerances in the drawings that you can produce from the 3D models, but I'm not sure how it would work to actually build the model with tolerances. Do other CAD programs allow for that? (I'm picturing some sort of fuzzy boundaries on every object in the model ... ???) I've never had any trouble putting dimensions on anything I want, but then again, I am no engineer, so I may be doing it wrong (very likely!) or not understanding some aspect of dimensioning (also very likely!) or so on.

 

[SmithDoor]

I have try using LibreCAD but how do you input dimension in LibreCAD?

Dave

Yes, I have used LibreCAD fairly extensively. I haven't used it as much lately (see below), but for some projects I find it easier to work in 2D (or maybe just to work out some particular issue of 2D geometry), and LibreCAD does everything I need. That said, my first CAD experience was with TurboCAD "way back when," and LibreCAD has a very different process, so it took a bit of time to get comfortable with it ... but now I suspect I'd have a hard time going back to TurboCAD.



I find myself doing most of my work in FreeCAD these days. Joe's comment above points to both the good news and the bad news - the good news is, there are a LOT of tutorials out there on FreeCAD; the good news is that the program is very flexible and it continues to develop rapidly. The bad news is, it can be hard to sort out the up-to-date and most helpful tutorials, and the UI can be inconsistent.

With regard to tutorials (at least on YouTube), I would say that they have gotten better at including the version in the title - the latest version of FreeCAD is .19, so look for tutorials that refer to that version. The second thing I would say is that it is probably helpful to work through a beginner series of videos first; otherwise you are watching various edge cases or advanced techniques or so on, and can easily get lost because they are assuming you know the basics. I'm pretty sure I've seen more than one beginner series based on v.19, but the only one I can name is by "Adventures in Creation," he is up to tutorial # 15 in the series. Caveat: I have only watched a bit of these; I would not say that the creator is the best "tutorialist" out there, but they are usable / useful. Other YouTubers that I find particularly helpful with FreeCAD are Joko Engineering and sliptonic, but they tend to talk about advanced features or edge cases. Note that sliptonic has an inexpensive book on how to use FreeCAD; it is based on an earlier version, but most of what he teaches is still relevant.

With regard to the inconsistent UI: There is an effort to correct that, but it is a tradeoff that is not uncommon in open software - will the volunteer developers put time and energy into creating that new feature that will be really useful, or into going back and tweaking the existing UI? Again, some effort is going into the latter, but probably the overall balance is skewed to the former.

I have heard people say that there is a higher learning curve with FreeCAD. I can't speak to that, as I have never tried to learn any other 3D CAD software. However, I will say that when I have watched an occasional YouTube video that includes a Fusion360 segment, I have about equal instances where I think, "that seems like a clunky way to do it; it's a lot easier in FreeCAD", vs. "that's a cool way to do it - wish FreeCAD had that."



Joe, I am not sure what you mean by not being able to dimension anything. Can you unpack that a bit? You mention tolerances - you can certainly include tolerances in the drawings that you can produce from the 3D models, but I'm not sure how it would work to actually build the model with tolerances. Do other CAD programs allow for that? (I'm picturing some sort of fuzzy boundaries on every object in the model ... ???) I've never had any trouble putting dimensions on anything I want, but then again, I am no engineer, so I may be doing it wrong (very likely!) or not understanding some aspect of dimensioning (also very likely!) or so on.

 

[awake]

Hi Dave,

There are two ways to respond to this question - not sure which of these is the one you are primarily thinking about, so feel free to ask for more focus. I'm using mm for my units below, but you can just as well use inches.

Answer 1: You dimension elements of the drawing as you put them in place. The most precise way to do this is through the "command line interface."

For example, to create a circle in LibreCAD, you CAN click on the tool, click on a point to serve as the center, and stretch it out to some radius. If you have snapping enabled, this can be quite precise, but only if the snapping points match the desired dimensions. E.g., if the snapping points are on a 1mm grid, it is going to be hard to create a circle with a 1.6mm radius. You can zoom in until the snapping grid becomes .1mm ... but then what if you need a 1.62mm radius? Yes, you can zoom in even more, but at some point this becomes very tedious, and might be hard to be sure you're getting 1.62 instead of 1.52.

For ultimate precision, use the command line interface instead of the point and click described above. When you select the circle tool, you will see in the lower right corner a box that is asking for the center of the circle. You can set that by clicking, but you can also go into that box and directly type in absolute coordinates (e.g., 22.5,-13.47 to put the center at x=22.5 and y=-13.47) OR relative coordinates (e.g., @10,-10 to set the center 10 over and 10 down from the last point entered). After you hit enter, then it will ask for you to set the radius. Again, you can point and click to set it as above, but you can also directly enter the radius (e.g. 1.62 <enter> to set the radius to 1.62mm).

Answer 2: You add a dimension (i.e., dimension text) to an existing drawing by selecting the appropriate dimensioning tool and applying it to a particular feature in the drawing.

For example, once you have drawn a circle as above, then you can select the radial dimension tool, then click on the circle; that will cause dimension text and an appropriate leader line to show up, which can then be dragged to wherever you want it to be on the drawing. For best results, I recommend using layers so that dimensions are one layer, and drawing is on another. Set the color of the dimension layer as desired (e.g., red). Then turn the displya of the dimension layer on or off as needed. (This was probably way too brief a reference to layers - using layers can be a very powerful way to stack up different components of a project "in place," and then turn the layers on or off to see one component or the way they go together.

 

[BaronJ]

Hi Guys,

I'm a Qcad user ! In Qcad you can select the circle tool and directly enter the radius. A far as adding dimensions is concerned you select any of several options and click on the points you want to dimension.

I've tried FreeCAD but I found it very awkward, its not for me.

 

[SmithDoor]

Can just click on a in point (pass line end point) and add dimension (per set for angle) using the command line to enter the dimensions.

Dave

Hi Dave,

There are two ways to respond to this question - not sure which of these is the one you are primarily thinking about, so feel free to ask for more focus. I'm using mm for my units below, but you can just as well use inches.

Answer 1: You dimension elements of the drawing as you put them in place. The most precise way to do this is through the "command line interface."

For example, to create a circle in LibreCAD, you CAN click on the tool, click on a point to serve as the center, and stretch it out to some radius. If you have snapping enabled, this can be quite precise, but only if the snapping points match the desired dimensions. E.g., if the snapping points are on a 1mm grid, it is going to be hard to create a circle with a 1.6mm radius. You can zoom in until the snapping grid becomes .1mm ... but then what if you need a 1.62mm radius? Yes, you can zoom in even more, but at some point this becomes very tedious, and might be hard to be sure you're getting 1.62 instead of 1.52.

For ultimate precision, use the command line interface instead of the point and click described above. When you select the circle tool, you will see in the lower right corner a box that is asking for the center of the circle. You can set that by clicking, but you can also go into that box and directly type in absolute coordinates (e.g., 22.5,-13.47 to put the center at x=22.5 and y=-13.47) OR relative coordinates (e.g., @10,-10 to set the center 10 over and 10 down from the last point entered). After you hit enter, then it will ask for you to set the radius. Again, you can point and click to set it as above, but you can also directly enter the radius (e.g. 1.62 <enter> to set the radius to 1.62mm).

Answer 2: You add a dimension (i.e., dimension text) to an existing drawing by selecting the appropriate dimensioning tool and applying it to a particular feature in the drawing.

For example, once you have drawn a circle as above, then you can select the radial dimension tool, then click on the circle; that will cause dimension text and an appropriate leader line to show up, which can then be dragged to wherever you want it to be on the drawing. For best results, I recommend using layers so that dimensions are one layer, and drawing is on another. Set the color of the dimension layer as desired (e.g., red). Then turn the displya of the dimension layer on or off as needed. (This was probably way too brief a reference to layers - using layers can be a very powerful way to stack up different components of a project "in place," and then turn the layers on or off to see one component or the way they go together.

Hi Dave,

There are two ways to respond to this question - not sure which of these is the one you are primarily thinking about, so feel free to ask for more focus. I'm using mm for my units below, but you can just as well use inches.

Answer 1: You dimension elements of the drawing as you put them in place. The most precise way to do this is through the "command line interface."

For example, to create a circle in LibreCAD, you CAN click on the tool, click on a point to serve as the center, and stretch it out to some radius. If you have snapping enabled, this can be quite precise, but only if the snapping points match the desired dimensions. E.g., if the snapping points are on a 1mm grid, it is going to be hard to create a circle with a 1.6mm radius. You can zoom in until the snapping grid becomes .1mm ... but then what if you need a 1.62mm radius? Yes, you can zoom in even more, but at some point this becomes very tedious, and might be hard to be sure you're getting 1.62 instead of 1.52.

For ultimate precision, use the command line interface instead of the point and click described above. When you select the circle tool, you will see in the lower right corner a box that is asking for the center of the circle. You can set that by clicking, but you can also go into that box and directly type in absolute coordinates (e.g., 22.5,-13.47 to put the center at x=22.5 and y=-13.47) OR relative coordinates (e.g., @10,-10 to set the center 10 over and 10 down from the last point entered). After you hit enter, then it will ask for you to set the radius. Again, you can point and click to set it as above, but you can also directly enter the radius (e.g. 1.62 <enter> to set the radius to 1.62mm).

Answer 2: You add a dimension (i.e., dimension text) to an existing drawing by selecting the appropriate dimensioning tool and applying it to a particular feature in the drawing.

For example, once you have drawn a circle as above, then you can select the radial dimension tool, then click on the circle; that will cause dimension text and an appropriate leader line to show up, which can then be dragged to wherever you want it to be on the drawing. For best results, I recommend using layers so that dimensions are one layer, and drawing is on another. Set the color of the dimension layer as desired (e.g., red). Then turn the displya of the dimension layer on or off as needed. (This was probably way too brief a reference to layers - using layers can be a very powerful way to stack up different components of a project "in place," and then turn the layers on or off to see one component or the way they go together.

 

[CFLBob]

Is there a site somewhere with a bit of a review or summary of all these free and low cost CAD programs?

I'm running an old version of good software, Rhino 3D, and it's getting to be time to look for upgrades.

I played with the Freecad 0.19 briefly and found it won't read Rhino's *.3dm files. I don't want to lose over 15 years of work in Rhino.

 

[toolingjim]

Is there a site somewhere with a bit of a review or summary of all these free and low cost CAD programs?

I'm running an old version of good software, Rhino 3D, and it's getting to be time to look for upgrades.

I played with the Freecad 0.19 briefly and found it won't read Rhino's *.3dm files. I don't want to lose over 15 years of work in Rhino.

Just a quick thought re your Rhino files. Have you looked at whether you can resave or batch convert your .3dm files to a more common file format which can in turn be read by another cad program? One of the more common file types was Autocad's .dwg file (or whatever they are using this week). Several cad systems I have seen could take Autocad files in and convert them into their native format. Accuracy of the conversion can range from perfect to wth is that on the screen? You may already know this, but I just thought I'd throw it out there.
A quick Google search also showed .3dm file converters are available. Quality, cost, suitability unknown.

Jim (Just a guy who likes to build stuff)

 

[Paul135]

Hi Guys,

I'm a Qcad user ! In Qcad you can select the circle tool and directly enter the radius. A far as adding dimensions is concerned you select any of several options and click on the points you want to dimension.

I've tried FreeCAD but I found it very awkward, its not for me.

Hi Baron,

If like me you come from a 2D CAD background, yes, FreeCAD seems very awkward. The difficulty I find comes from the 2D on the "paper" aspect going to expressing your ideas in a 3D model. I have read often of this difficulty. However I persist with trying to learn to use it as it can do the things I will need for 3D printing and CNC milling. I also need FreeCAD as it has a specific workbench for other projects I wish to try in the future. Part of the awkwardness comes for me as having to learn alien concepts (for me that is) such as constraints and parametric modelling.

My CAD experience all came from Autocad, starting from around 1981. Retirement meant no Autocad so I went Draftsight; fantastic for an Autocad user. When that went paid for and I should add I have used Ubuntu for years so I needed another solution that would run on Linux. After experimenting with LibreCad and QCad, I have gone QCad as it does more and its community version is adequate at the moment for my needs. If I need more from it going to the paid version is good value. However I will not give up on FreeCad. Earlier versions were horrible for me but from 0.17 I found I could start to learn constructively and with 0.18 much smoother.

Paul

 

[Ozwes007]

I use LibreCad for 2D and OpenScad for 3D, and I teach all my apprentice to use them As well. It’s very easy to draw 2D in LibreCad using the command line and OpenScad is Command driven. You can convert 2D drawings to 3D in OPENScad and you can convert 3D to 2D in OpenScad. As I have a programming background it is second Nature to use the command line. Plus side is there a number of very good Downloadable tutorials to work thru for both to learn.. also Openscad will output your STL files.

 

[ajoeiam]

snip

I find myself doing most of my work in FreeCAD these days. Joe's comment above points to both the good news and the bad news - the good news is, there are a LOT of tutorials out there on FreeCAD; the good news is that the program is very flexible and it continues to develop rapidly. The bad news is, it can be hard to sort out the up-to-date and most helpful tutorials, and the UI can be inconsistent.

snip

Joe, I am not sure what you mean by not being able to dimension anything. Can you unpack that a bit? You mention tolerances - you can certainly include tolerances in the drawings that you can produce from the 3D models, but I'm not sure how it would work to actually build the model with tolerances. Do other CAD programs allow for that? (I'm picturing some sort of fuzzy boundaries on every object in the model ... ???) I've never had any trouble putting dimensions on anything I want, but then again, I am no engineer, so I may be doing it wrong (very likely!) or not understanding some aspect of dimensioning (also very likely!) or so on.

As a machinist - - - - it became very clear that NOTHING is exact.
(Grab a piece of pipe and chuck it up - - - - run an indicator on it for one example.)

In FreeCAD you are asked for a numeric value for the dimension - - - - you cannot - - - - at least I've never found a way to use it when modelling - - - you just cannot input something like 62.000 +0.000/-0.005 mm say for a bearing housing. I was working on a fairly high speed mechanism (looking for up to 10 500 rpm as a design max - - - limited by bearing capabilities in fact). Bearing information will give you the needed housing size, with those tolerances, and the shaft size, and its tolerances. Including ALL the important information in any kind of drawing is crucial imo. So when I cannot include any tolerancing the dimensions become almost worthless. There are lots of problems that are created when tolerances are not included - - - some of which are tolerance stacking, and tolerance direction for just two. (Tolerance stacking occurs when a number of parts are connected - - - - if every part is at the high end of the tolerances you will get quite a different assembly than if all the parts are at the low end of the tolerances (gets very important when you're playing with precision stuff - - - most commonly found in having bearing pockets and also machined shafting). Tolerance direction - - - most often tolerance are + and - a certain amount - - if a interconnected group of parts are all produced to the high side - - - - or conversely to the low side - - - - well there are now fit issues. (Also FreeCAD devs mostly seem to have worked with a tiny bit of what is available out in the real world - - - - see anything that includes pipe in their software. The range of pipe schedules is missing more than one or two items never mind their sizes - - - there are other such issues.)

That sorta help?

Please advise.

 

[ajoeiam]

Is there a site somewhere with a bit of a review or summary of all these free and low cost CAD programs?

I'm running an old version of good software, Rhino 3D, and it's getting to be time to look for upgrades.

I played with the Freecad 0.19 briefly and found it won't read Rhino's *.3dm files. I don't want to lose over 15 years of work in Rhino.

I haven't found any reasonably comprehensive listings never mind comparisons on Open Source stuff.

Recently ran into a couple more heavy featured CAD programs - - - - every one has their own way of doing things with a vertical line for a learning curve.
Maybe we need to develop such a list here?

As much as paper drawings are today almost considered a waste of time - - - - that losing years worth of work due to software incompatabilities just doesn't happen. The 3D stuff does make for lots of 'purty pictures' though.

 

[L98fiero]

I have heard people say that there is a higher learning curve with FreeCAD. I can't speak to that, as I have never tried to learn any other 3D CAD software. However, I will say that when I have watched an occasional YouTube video that includes a Fusion360 segment, I have about equal instances where I think, "that seems like a clunky way to do it; it's a lot easier in FreeCAD", vs. "that's a cool way to do it - wish FreeCAD had that."

I use Alibre and on the forum there is one user in particular that seems very experienced and has used a number of high end CAD programs. His comments suggest that each program has issues that he's like changed, some seem significant and some less so but all of them have 'work arounds' if you are used to a particular program and users of the other program will say the same about the one you are using. It seems on balance that all of them have idiosyncrasies but all do the job though their strong points might be with different aspects of CAD.

 

[CFLBob]

Just a quick thought re your Rhino files. Have you looked at whether you can resave or batch convert your .3dm files to a more common file format which can in turn be read by another cad program? One of the more common file types was Autocad's .dwg file (or whatever they are using this week). Several cad systems I have seen could take Autocad files in and convert them into their native format. Accuracy of the conversion can range from perfect to wth is that on the screen? You may already know this, but I just thought I'd throw it out there.
A quick Google search also showed .3dm file converters are available. Quality, cost, suitability unknown.

Jim (Just a guy who likes to build stuff)

Thanks, Jim. The thought occurred to me, but I hadn't gone looking. I looked around on FreeCad's website to see if there was some sort of add-on or plugin that read .3dm files but didn't search for bulk converters. I have files from my first steps in Rhino going back to 2004. In a way, I'd hate to have to sort through them and decide what to keep and what to throw.

Rhino reads and writes a lot of other formats and really what prompted this thought about changing is a problem with importing other files. It says it will import pdf files and it does - in some sense, except what I get is useless. I get a lot of lines and curves but dimensions don't come through and if I try to dimension things manually like I would in a Rhino drawing, it will measure things some but not others.

I experimented with Fusion360 a couple of years ago. It opened my Rhino files with no troubles.

 

[TSutrina]

Work IS happening on version 3 - - - - just not done yet.
FreeCAD may be powerful but I am finding that the tutorials are all too often sadly out of date.
(then all too often the tutorials assume you know what you're doing and they're just showing you a tiny little bit new - - - - find the video tutorials mostly something that takes me far too many hours to figure out exactly what they 'are' doing - - - - then the work benches seem to revel in finding a different way of doing things from each other - - - -that really gets interesting - - - - then the fact that you can't really dimension anything (you know with tolerances and all the rest) it seems like these guys are all paper pushers - - - - most of them seem like they've never actually fabricated or built something - - - or their way of getting things on the computer sure seems that way - - - - end rant!)

I have been using free cad for some years. Transition from Creo free version since couldn't make step files. The goal of commercial owned free cad programs is to get you to purchase. I agree with much of what you say. Free Cad made a step jump after 16 where the structure of the program changed. For the better but it was a hard jump. Old tutorials within a work bench are still useable. Thus if you want to learn how to sketch, use the part. or part design

Yes, I have used LibreCAD fairly extensively. I haven't used it as much lately (see below), but for some projects I find it easier to work in 2D (or maybe just to work out some particular issue of 2D geometry), and LibreCAD does everything I need. That said, my first CAD experience was with TurboCAD "way back when," and LibreCAD has a very different process, so it took a bit of time to get comfortable with it ... but now I suspect I'd have a hard time going back to TurboCAD.



I find myself doing most of my work in FreeCAD these days. Joe's comment above points to both the good news and the bad news - the good news is, there are a LOT of tutorials out there on FreeCAD; the good news is that the program is very flexible and it continues to develop rapidly. The bad news is, it can be hard to sort out the up-to-date and most helpful tutorials, and the UI can be inconsistent.

With regard to tutorials (at least on YouTube), I would say that they have gotten better at including the version in the title - the latest version of FreeCAD is .19, so look for tutorials that refer to that version. The second thing I would say is that it is probably helpful to work through a beginner series of videos first; otherwise you are watching various edge cases or advanced techniques or so on, and can easily get lost because they are assuming you know the basics. I'm pretty sure I've seen more than one beginner series based on v.19, but the only one I can name is by "Adventures in Creation," he is up to tutorial # 15 in the series. Caveat: I have only watched a bit of these; I would not say that the creator is the best "tutorialist" out there, but they are usable / useful. Other YouTubers that I find particularly helpful with FreeCAD are Joko Engineering and sliptonic, but they tend to talk about advanced features or edge cases. Note that sliptonic has an inexpensive book on how to use FreeCAD; it is based on an earlier version, but most of what he teaches is still relevant.

With regard to the inconsistent UI: There is an effort to correct that, but it is a tradeoff that is not uncommon in open software - will the volunteer developers put time and energy into creating that new feature that will be really useful, or into going back and tweaking the existing UI? Again, some effort is going into the latter, but probably the overall balance is skewed to the former.

I have heard people say that there is a higher learning curve with FreeCAD. I can't speak to that, as I have never tried to learn any other 3D CAD software. However, I will say that when I have watched an occasional YouTube video that includes a Fusion360 segment, I have about equal instances where I think, "that seems like a clunky way to do it; it's a lot easier in FreeCAD", vs. "that's a cool way to do it - wish FreeCAD had that."



Joe, I am not sure what you mean by not being able to dimension anything. Can you unpack that a bit? You mention tolerances - you can certainly include tolerances in the drawings that you can produce from the 3D models, but I'm not sure how it would work to actually build the model with tolerances. Do other CAD programs allow for that? (I'm picturing some sort of fuzzy boundaries on every object in the model ... ???) I've never had any trouble putting dimensions on anything I want, but then again, I am no engineer, so I may be doing it wrong (very likely!) or not understanding some aspect of dimensioning (also very likely!) or so on.

I still remember drafting board when I started working. Then I saw 2D cad programs and finally 3D cad programs. I have learned to use all of them and often multiple programs. So I have designed for an employer on Solid works a little, Pro E and Unigraphics significantly. Free 3D cad programs started with Granite from ProE and then their Creo, and I played with a half dozen others. No package creates surfaces that have tolerances. Tolerances information yes but the model itself no. The FreeCAD basic building work benches function the same as the same "benches" in every 3D cad program I have ever worked on. Learn sketch, part, and design FreeCAD an you have the basics. Even the out of date tutors will teach you how to use them. The difference in all cad programs is the step where you add up or put together the basic features like take a solid shape and combine or add to it or remove a solid shape, and put parts together into an assembly. Two basic approaches exist. The program records in order this process. So each time the model is updated it is built feature by feature from the first to the last. You can go back and change them but may effect later steps. The second approach is that a single complex solid is created with every save. Future created solids are added to or used to cut the complex solid. Some let you push and pull surfaces thus a radius can be changed. I think the step change was good for FreeCAD, from start to ~ 16 and then ~ 17 to today 19. Actually Pro E and Unigraphics also made similar changes because they needed to handle assemblies of a very large number of parts. Now FreeCAD can also handle large number of parts. Back to tolerances. The 2D drafting package in 16 and now 18 and 19 are not great. I seem to put the tolerances in a text block. I do however, think some effort is being put forth to do it the proper way. Have not explored it. Thus you have standard tolerances that apply to most surfaces and then a few special ones that get there own text which for me includes taping threads information.

 

[BaronJ]

Hi Baron,

If like me you come from a 2D CAD background, yes, FreeCAD seems very awkward. The difficulty I find comes from the 2D on the "paper" aspect going to expressing your ideas in a 3D model. I have read often of this difficulty. However I persist with trying to learn to use it as it can do the things I will need for 3D printing and CNC milling. I also need FreeCAD as it has a specific workbench for other projects I wish to try in the future. Part of the awkwardness comes for me as having to learn alien concepts (for me that is) such as constraints and parametric modelling.

My CAD experience all came from Autocad, starting from around 1981. Retirement meant no Autocad so I went Draftsight; fantastic for an Autocad user. When that went paid for and I should add I have used Ubuntu for years so I needed another solution that would run on Linux. After experimenting with LibreCad and QCad, I have gone QCad as it does more and its community version is adequate at the moment for my needs. If I need more from it going to the paid version is good value. However I will not give up on FreeCad. Earlier versions were horrible for me but from 0.17 I found I could start to learn constructively and with 0.18 much smoother.

Paul

Hi Paul,

Like you I used Autocad for a number of years, having been given an un-dongled copy. I have used the community edition of Qcad for odd things and then when I retired and started hobby engineering bought a licensed copy, which I'm very happy with. So yes a purely 2D background.

My son would love me to get a 3D printer, but I'm afraid that he will be very disappointed. I have absolutely no interest in 3D or CNC.

Thanks, Jim. The thought occurred to me, but I hadn't gone looking. I looked around on FreeCad's website to see if there was some sort of add-on or plugin that read .3dm files but didn't search for bulk converters. I have files from my first steps in Rhino going back to 2004. In a way, I'd hate to have to sort through them and decide what to keep and what to throw.

Rhino reads and writes a lot of other formats and really what prompted this thought about changing is a problem with importing other files. It says it will import pdf files and it does - in some sense, except what I get is useless. I get a lot of lines and curves but dimensions don't come through and if I try to dimension things manually like I would in a Rhino drawing, it will measure things some but not others.

I experimented with Fusion360 a couple of years ago. It opened my Rhino files with no troubles.

Hi Bob,

I know very little about Rhino, but my understanding is that Rhino will output your drawings in several different formats one of which is "DXF" most cad programs today will read and write DXF format.
Why not convert a couple and see how they look in other cad programs.