Comment by jstanley | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jstanley | Hacker News Reader

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For anyone else reading this:

The key thing to know in FreeCAD is that you almost always want to use the "Part Design" workbench. Then the workflow for creating a part starts with creating a "Body". The "Body" represents a single solid. The major features of your part are created with 2-dimensional sketches (either on the base planes, or on flat surfaces of the part, or on datum planes that you can define). The sketches are then "Padded" up to form a solid bit or "Pocketed" down to form holes in the solid bits (although there are other operations as well - Pad and Pocket are the most important).

Knowing that much should be enough to help you mentally plan your part, and then looking at the tutorials should be enough to learn how to use the UI. If you are reading this and are having trouble with FreeCAD please feel free to email me (address in bio) and I will try to help you.

I love FreeCAD and I wish it was the "default" hobbyist CAD instead of Fusion360.

I've just spent the last few hours going through some FreeCAD tutorials. I love it. This is so much fun. I've been hesitating to get a 3D printer because I haven't touched CAD since college... but I could definitely get into this.

That's the difference between freecad, sketch, and blender? I often see these names thrown around but not sure if each is used for a different purpose or if they're all the same but different people just prefer different software.

FreeCAD is a parametric CAD program. A Sketch is a type of thing within FreeCAD. Sketches are defined using constraints and dimensions, not free-hand drawing.

Blender is polygon-based 3D modelling with (pretty much) free-hand drawing and no constraints or dimensions.

FreeCAD and Blender can both export to many of the same formats (notably STL, for 3d printing), but their internal data representation, and supported workflow, is completely different.

FreeCAD is more appropriate when you want mechanical parts, and Blender is more appropriate when you want something artistic like a figurine.

CAD is operated based on constraint, e.g. make a square box and say "I want this to be 30mm x 45mm with this point, add a fillet (rounded corner) then make it coincident with this point" and let the software figure out how to shape/position the object. While Blender is more of a free-hand drawing, e.g. make a square box, make it certain size, make a corner rounded, then move it to the a certain point.

Blender has ability to do simple constraint, but it's not its primary uses. FreeCAD can also be used the Blender way but the software will warn about being under-constraint. Both FreeCAD and Blender can export to STL file (used by CAD softwares), but Blender's STL usually need to be scaled to real world measurements. In case of 3D printing, this STL file can be imported into a slicer software such as PrusaSlicer, which outputs GCode to control the printer (e.g. X, Y, Z coordinates, extrusion temperature, etc.)

I didn't put your recommendations under test, but that sounds like solid advice. Thanks for sharing!

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