New User - Step-by-Step introduction to make a part/project?

[mpyusko]

I'm new to CAD/CAM. Never really used it before but always wanted to learn. But for a home user that can't afford to shell out hundreds or thousands of dollars on a commercially available program, I haven't had any real options... until now. I was wondering if there is a New User Tutorial that covers how to make your first part/project using FreeCAD. All the documentation I've been able to find seems to be written on the premise that the user already has a working knowledge of CAD/CAM. Something with click-by-click instructions to get me off the ground would be nice. I tried downloading some parts in .wrl format to tinker and modify them, but I honestly can't seem to figure it out. Not even sure if that's even the right thing to do. For someone who aspires to be a ME, this is quite frustrating.

For my first project I want to design a workbench using angle, rectangular tube and plate steel with a vise. Seems to me pretty basic. But honestly click-by-click instructions that would show me the basics on how to create anything would be nice.

Thanks.

[NormandC]

Hi mpyusko!

Unfortunately, there is no step-by-step tuturial that I know of. The FreeCAD development team is very small, there are 3 guys working on the project on their spare time. Two of them are programmers by trade, and programmers are not known to like writing documentation much. Then there are others who contribute sporadically.

The community of FreeCAD users (such as myself) is still small. There are some videos on YouTube, they may be referenced on the wiki but if not, you can do a search on YouTube. They may give you some examples of workflow.

I can try to give you some pointers though. The first thing you need to be familiar with is working with 3D coordinates. If you know about X, Y and Z axes then it's a good start.

FreeCAD is still in heavy development. It's modular by design, and like for other CAD software, there are always more than one way to do things.

The first (and basic) technique of solid modeling is Constructive Solid Geometry (CSG). You work with primitive shapes like cubes, cylinders, spheres and cones to construct your geometry by combining them, substracting one shape from the other, or intersecting them. These tools are part of the Part Workbench. You can also apply transformations on shapes, like applying rounds or chamfers on edges. These tools are also in the Part Workbench.

Then there are more advanced tools. You start by drawing a 2D profile which you'll either extrude or revolve.

So to take from your intended project, there would be two ways to construct an iron angle:

#1 by Constructive Solid Geometry

1. Start with the Part Workbench (View > Workbench > Part menu)
2. Click on the Box button to create a box
3. Change its dimensions by selecting it either in the 3D space, or by clicking it in the Project tab to the left, then
4. Click on the Data tab at the bottom, and change values for Height, Length and Width to say 750mm, 50 and 50
5. Create a second box the same way, but with values 750, 40 and 40
6. You'll now subtract the second box from the first. Select the first shape first (named Box), then the second one (named Box001), the selection order is important!
7. On the Part Workbench toolbar, click on the "Make a cut of two shapes" tool.

You now have your first iron angle. You'll notice that, in the Project tab on the left, both boxes have been replaced by a "Cut" object. Actually, they're not disappeared, but rather grouped under the Cut object. Click on the + in front of it, and you'll see that both boxes are still there, but greyed out. If you click on either of them and hit the space bar, it will show up. The space bar toggles visibility of selected objects.

Don't want the angle oriented that way? You just need to change the placement of the Box001 shape. Select it, unhide it, and in the Data tab, click on the + in front of Placement, then deploy the Position, and change its X and Y coordinates. Hit Enter, hide the Box001 shape again, and your angle orientation is now different. You can even change either of your shapes dimensions, and the Cut object will be updated. Pretty cool uh?

[NormandC]

There's a three attachments limit to posts... So there are the two following screen caps.

angle-04.jpg (24.74 KiB) Viewed 2826 times

angle-05.jpg (33.59 KiB) Viewed 2826 times

By the way, we can add rounds to the angle so it is more realistic! (the tool is called "Fillet")

angle-06.jpg (6.45 KiB) Viewed 2826 times

[NormandC]

#2 Way of constructing an iron angle: by extruding a sketch

This one requires that you start with a 2D profile. You need to activate the 2d Drafting workbench. Then

1. Set the working plane. Depending on your FreeCAD version (you should mention which one you installed, as there are a lot of changes between them), you'll have right under the toolbar, on the right, a "None" button. Click it, and on the left will appear right after "active command": Select Plane Offset, then a text field and a series of buttons. Assuming you want to start your profile on the plan view, select XY. The "None" button will now show "Top" as active plane.
2. Select the multiple-point wire tool, then start drawing a shape, using the text fields for X and Y positions. The relative box should be checked, as well as the "Filled" box.
   1. 1st point: 0,0
   2. 2nd point: 50,0
   3. 3rd point: 0,10
   4. 4th point: -40,0
   5. 5th point: 0,40
   6. 6th point: -10,0
   7. No 7th point, rather click on the "Close" button to close the profile. You should now have this profile, titled "Wire" in the Project tab:

      

      angle-07.jpg (4.17 KiB) Viewed 2826 times

3. Hit the zero key on the numpad to set the view to axonometric.
4. Activate the Part workbench.
5. Click on the Extrude tool.
6. On the Tasks tab on the left, select the Wire object. Then enter the desired length, say 750mm. Leave the direction at Z. Click Apply. You should now have an Extrude object in the Project tab:

   

   angle-08.jpg (12.86 KiB) Viewed 2826 times

This method has a minor caveat compared to the other one: to edit the shape, you need to edit the Wire, it's not as easy to do as the previous method.

And there are a few other ways to do it too! I hope these two examples get you started. You'll sure hit some snags along the way (I did when I first learned FreeCAD, and I have 3D CAD experience  ), but don't hesitate to ask questions.

[NormandC]

Last post for tonight: here are the two files. The forum only allows a limited number of file extensions. FreeCAD documents are not among them. I appended .zip to the filenames so they'd pass. Just remove the .zip in the names for FreeCAD to recognize them.

[yorik]

Normand my friend, now we have a basic step-by-step tutorial!!!
thanks for writing this!

*Edit* we should put it on the wiki!

[NormandC]

Yeah, I thought of that after it was done. I didn't plan for it to be so long but got carried away. It would be nice to have actually more than one tutorial (the draft tutorial) in the tutorials page. This needs formatting though, along with a few more screen captures I think.

Now I hope that our friend mpyusko comes back and that I haven't written all this for nothing!

[mpyusko]

Awesome! Thanks guys! I'll have to sit down and try it later. Sorry I didn't get back to you sooner, I was out launching rockets all weekend (http://www.pyro.ws)... perhaps another use for this program, rocket design.

Thanks again!

[mpyusko]

Sweet! I just followed both methods and came up with 2 similar parts. I'm using 0.9 on my Slackware 13.1 machine because it was the only version I could find already compiled for it. But I have .10 installed on a Virtualbox Debian Squeeze and I just installed .11 on a Win7 machine. (I tried compiling .11 on my Slackware box but I kept getting errors even though I had all the dependencies met. topic for another thread)

The only glitch I noticed following your instructions, aside from the tool names and such, was the 2D extrusion came out hollow. Perhaps this is a version issue. It also seems like all the Undo, Redo, Cut,Copy, Paste, tools are all grayed out too. That made it kinda tricky too. Again, this was version 0.9 on a PDC E6700@3.2GHz running Slackware 13.1 64-bit with 4GB RAM, ATI Radeon 5670 1GB, and a 1TB HD.

[yorik]

The only glitch I noticed following your instructions, aside from the tool names and such, was the 2D extrusion came out hollow. Perhaps this is a version issue.

Indeed. On versions < 0.11, 2D objects are not faces by fefault. So, you must first turn your wire into a face with the "upgrade" tool...