Constraints define the relationship between parts of an object. parameters are pieces of information that define a property of a part – a 10cm cube would have a parameter for the X, Y, and Z axes equal to 10cm. This means all lines, figures, and subassemblies are defined by parameters and constraints. It’s simpler, and to print out a correctly sized part we’ll need to multiply anyway… If you read nothing else, read these two paragraphsįreeCAD is a parametric modeler. This is fine, because now we can design our part in eighths of an inch, where one eighth of an inch is one unit.
Well, it has units, where one FreeCAD unit is equal to one FreeCAD unit. Hit Create Sketch, Choose the XY-Plane, and marvel at your drawing grid.īefore you begin, you might as well change the grid size to 1mm and turn on grid snap.Ī word of note: While the grid size says millimeters, FreeCAD doesn’t really have units. Under the Start A New Project tab in the start page, click on the Part Design button. For most of our thing we’ll be using the Part Design workbench. After downloading and installing, you’ll end up with a “start center” that looks something like this:įreeCAD is unique among 3D design programs in that it has many different workbenches, or modes, to draw and model in. It’s available for Windows, Linux, and OS X in 32 or 64-bit varieties. To use FreeCAD, you might want to download FreeCAD. We won’t be copying this thing exactly – there’s a small taper on the tab with the counterbored hole – but we’ll get close enough so our finished model should be functionally equivalent. The tutorial for FreeCAD continues below.Īs with all tutorials, we’ll be copying this “thing”, taken from an 80-year-old textbook on drafting. Our in-house, overpaid SEO expert (he’s really just a monkey someone trained to use a bullwhip) demands I link to the previous ‘Making a Thing’ tutorials: Very powerful, very cool, and unlike a lot of CAD packages out there, free. Basically, you can think of this as a graphical extension of the Thingiverse Customizer. If you’re designing a thumbscrew and want the head larger while keeping the threads the same, FreeCAD is for you. If you need a bauble that’s three times the size of the original, FreeCAD’s parametric modeling makes it easy to scale it up. I don’t know if these suggestions reflect the popularity or difficulty of FreeCAD nevermind, it’s totally the difficulty.įreeCAD is an amazing tool that, if used correctly, can be used to make just about any part, and do it in a manufacturing context. There is one constant in all those comment threads: FreeCAD. I’ve been writing these tutorials on making an object in popular 3D modeling programs for a while now, and each week I’ve put out a call for what software I should do next.
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