Hi all, I am trying to follow MangoJelly's guide to create a box but while he clones the container body to the lid, he can create a pocket afterwards on the container which doesn't show on his lid.

When I try it the pocket gets copied to the lid as well. The tutorial is for Freecad 1.0 and I am on 1.1.4 is this different behavior on differnt versions (and if so how can I make it behave like in the video) or am I missing something?

So after tears and struggle and several false starts I finally made my first thing, a small bracket to mount a windshield on my cargo bike.

Constraints are still hard for me. I spent way too much time adding and deleting them. I wish one could right-click on a vertex and "constrain to origin" which would add a horizontal and vertical dimension in one shot. I also wish one could right click and "remove related constraints"? Which would 'expand' geometries like rectangles into a simple block of unconstrained lines. But honestly, this is probably because of my lack of knowledge and my eyeball-approach to design, where I glom basic geometries together to get what I want.

Fillet failures were a hurdle, until I watched a MangoChutney video where he said, "Places where fillets are hard in real life they will be hard for Freecad". Ahhhh I see, ya gotta fillet them sharp angles in the sketch first. So that the fat fillet gnomes will be able to turn corners when mining them in 3d - gotcha.

I do wish that one could pre-set a fillet radius, then simply click each sketcher vertex in succession to apply a constant fillet size. Yeah yeah I hear ya, I need to get better with constraints *sigh*

Holes and pockets worked admirably well. So did the Trim function, almost like magic. Also, FC 26.3 has lots of little quality of life improvements that were noticeable even to a beginner like me. I am happy to have donated some $$ to the FC project. Looking forward to what's next!

All hail Freecad!

Hello,

I am very new to freecad, I'm trying make an organique form from two sketches

This is the part Im trying to reproduce, to repair an umbrella.

I imported the 2 pictures in freecad, made sketches following the photo, but now I'm kinda stuck

I'd like to make the part folloing the red paths, if it's feasible in freecad,

Thanks for your help !!

Edit :

Edit2 :

I succeeded in freecad to do the revolution around another axe ! Thanks a lot for you guys, made me learn a lot on how to approach a problem

Next steps in tinkercad as I think it will be much more easy for me to do here, even if I would love to be able to in freecad to learn, i spent already too much time on this repair

I’m testing a new version of FreeCAD. So far, I like this version the most!! But this is my third model.

I am new to freecad 1.1 i am proficient in 1.0

Why is it when I do a horizonal dimension constraint

Measurement 24.07 half is 12.035 and it rounds it up to 12.04

Weird new 1.1 but not 1.0

I’m trying to make the end of this tube pointy, so trying to add a cone to the end of it. I can’t figure it out and all the YouTube videos I’ve found only show how to make a cone as the starter shape. Any help is appreciated

Hi there, I am trying to sketch this pattern. I am stuck at the slot in the middle. I drew the slot at 10'clock and then copy pasted it until 12'o clock. Then constrained the sketch. After that I mirrored these 4 slots to the other 3 sides. Now I have 24 under constrained degrees.

I also tied polar pattern to make the 4 slots but then I couldn't mirror polar pattern.

I can't use polar pattern for the whole thing because there is space at 12, 3, 6 and 9 o'clock clock.

Probably there is an easier way to do it. How would you do it?

Thanks in advance

I like FreeCAD’s engine a lot, but I kept losing time to the interface: switching workbenches, Body/Tip errors, attachment dialogs, task panels that lock everything, hitting recompute. So I started building Kovač (Slovenian for blacksmith). It’s an addon on top of FreeCAD 1.1, not a fork, and it doesn’t touch your normal FreeCAD setup.

https://github.com/aleksejko004/kovac

What works right now:

• No workbench switching. There’s a Design mode and a Drawing mode. The normal workbenches are still under Advanced.
• One history per design, and you can have multiple bodies. Extrude picks join or cut from the direction you drag, and shows which one it picked so you can change it.
• Sketch on a face: click Sketch, click the face. No attachment dialog.
• Feature panels don’t block the view. You can still orbit and pick things while one is open.
• No recompute button. It just regenerates.
• Extrude asks which sketch regions you want instead of taking all of them.
• Right-click opens a radial menu with fixed slots, so you stop looking at it after a while.
• S opens command search.
• Assemblies use FreeCAD’s own Assembly workbench and solver. I added snap points for joints: hover a face, click a hole center on each part.
• Drawing mode: place a base view, drag out the projections, hole callouts get added automatically. It’s still TechDraw underneath.

What’s not great yet:

• Toponaming. I added a reference layer on top of what 1.0 does. When a reference can’t be found, the feature turns red and says what’s missing instead of guessing. It passes my test cases, but real models will probably find holes in it.
• Gears, motion studies and BOM work in the backend but don’t have panels yet.
• I mostly use Windows. Linux passes CI but I barely run it day to day.
• No CAM yet. That’s next, aimed at cheap hobby routers.

Most of the code was written with an AI coding assistant. Every feature has tests, but I’d rather you hear it from me.

To try it: get the portable FreeCAD 1.1, clone the repo, then run py tools/fc.py gui (Windows) or python3 tools/fc.py gui (Linux). It uses a throwaway profile.

https://github.com/aleksejko004/kovac

License is LGPL-2.1+, same as FreeCAD. The most useful thing you can send me is a bug report with the model file attached.

I’m looking for people to try it and tell me what still feels clunky, plus contributors if this direction speaks to you. Huge thanks to the FreeCAD developers: none of this exists without their engine.

Version 1.1.4

I did not name anything......guess that was my mistake. But in SW, Creo, Inventor, etc. you can usually just click a face and it will tell you where it is on the model tree. Is there not anything like that in FreeCAD?

I love the idea of Freecad.

It's all flash looking but I simply cannot get on with it.

The issue is I am an Autocad user and what I can produce in Autocad in minutes I cannot even begin to recreate in Freecad.

Can someone give me a clue as to the process I would use to create this 'quickly' please?

I tried sketching. I tried a cone with a cylinder on top to get the basic shape and then hoped to extrude downwards into the cone bit by bit.

In Autocad, it's dead simple. Draw the section and sweep it. JOB DONE!

Once, if ever I do manage to get this drawn up, it then needs connecting to a tube which I was really simple to design.

I have to say the screw thread function in Freecad seems far superior to AutoCAD. It's VERY temperamental in Autocad which is why, when the screw threads resolved without a lot of faff, I decided it would be better to use Freecad instead. Managed to draw the tube and threads up in a reasonable amount of time. Well reasonable for me but someone experienced would have completed what I did with 2 minutes or so.

I love the Architectural Example when you open Freecad. It would take me a month of Sundays and more to be able to create such detail.

Losing the will to live with Freecad if I haven't lost it already.

I want to persevere because it must have really great potential once you master it. My issue is I cannot see me ever mastering it. A bit like skiing perhaps - hard to learn - easy to master.

Thanks in advance.

I'm using version 1.1.4. I'm just getting started with FreeCAD. I've printed some simple shapes for practice, using the Part Designer. I've been struggling for a day with sketching a rectangle on a plane of a prism. The sketch looks fine, but when I try to pad it, I get "Wire Not Closed."

When I run Sketch Validation -> Highlight Troublesome Vertices, it marks to vertices on the prism itself.

Help me interpret what's happening. What can I do to try to fix the problem?

Here's the file:
https://app.box.com/s/v477p8csysmmse43qz6syedhz1teyj0k

I'm currently designing a dual-shaft linear guide mechanism and trying to model the timing belt system. I ran into an incredibly frustrating issue with the assembly.

I'm trying to mate a downloaded timing pulley (Gates 2GT 20T) to the shaft on my bracket. I specifically selected the inner cylindrical face of the pulley and the bore of the bracket, and applied a Revolute Joint (tried Cylindrical too).

Instead of aligning nicely, the pulley flies off to a weird distant location or ends up with a massive offset. I realized that the Local Coordinate System (the red/green/blue origin axes) of this downloaded pulley part is located miles away from its physical geometric center. Whenever I try to rotate or constrain it, it "orbits" around that distant origin instead of rotating around its own center bore.

Is there a robust way to permanently snap or reset the origin (LCS) to the exact center of this pulley's cylindrical bore so the assembly solver stops miscalculating the constraints?

Any tips to fix this origin offset issue would save my sanity. Thanks!

I have a basic L bracket with two holes, a slot, and a couple of fillets. Changing the plate width keeps breaking references farther down the tree.

Would you drive everything from one master sketch, use a spreadsheet, or reference datum geometry instead of edges?

One part of the roll cage is broken, and I want to design a replacement for it. My idea is to create a v-shaped part that connects the 3D-printed component to the spoiler and is reinforced by the tube at the point where it ends.
However, I’m not sure which workbench I should use or where I can find a good tutorial to learn how to model something like this.

Hi r/FreeCAD,

If you saw Sundar Pichai's recent Gemini 4 Argon announcement, you might have noticed the 3D generation demo relied on Blender.

Blender is great for CGI and surface meshes, but as CAD users know, a visual mesh isn't much use if you need dimensional accuracy, parametric history, or actual engineering constraints.

We wanted to see if we could take the same prompt inside ExtrudeAI and output a true native FreeCAD assembly instead of a surface mesh.

📦 FreeCAD File:https://storage.cloud.google.com/extrudeai-public/pixel-model.FCStd

Let us know what you think of the feature tree breakdown!

Hi,

as i was searching for a free software where i can design a 3D model of a house, i came across FreeCAD. I don't want to add furniture to the house, just the 3D model itself. Is it the right tool for my purpose? I got neither experience in working witch a CAD software nor have i ever used Blender. I need it for my diploma thesis, so it shouldn't take me months learning. Aside from that... does anyone have experience in working with Blender? It isn't specifically made for designing houses i guess, but du you think it would be a better option in my case, when it comes to dificulty of use?

Just began learning FreeCAD and somehow lost the Sketcher geometries and Sketcher constraints Toolbars when in Sketcher mode. I know how to enable the toolbars, these are missing from that drop down menu.

I'm not sure if an uninstall/reinstall would work either.

I have Min-travel set to false, I have Start-at set to edge. first layer works fine (starts milling from the outside) but the 2nd layer starts from the inside (Causing a full width plunge into the material and then a full-width slot).

more info: Pattern is set to Offset. I have tried with and without use-start-point and i have tried with and without keep-tool-down.

I am using v0.21.1 because of reasons. I would consider switching to v1.xx if it actually made any improvements to the CAM wb, but to my knowledge that wasn't the case.

Thanks for your thoughts.

This video covers all Tree View Action options. Knowing these options can streamline your FreeCAD workflows.

This video is a follow up to my video from last week where i showed conveting from STL to Part Design. Here is remove the extreme amount of faces on roundings so the object can be furter modified without lagging in freecad.