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Over the past week I have been teaching myself to use Freecad, and coming from Software like Blender, the leap in logic is substantial.

Why though? A friend of mine, who is an avid Magic the Gathering player and father of three boys, was talking about how he had seen some of his competitors having bespoke deck boxes, and thought they looked awesome.

We talked a bit back and forth about which specs such a box would need to have, so that it could be standing in a living room without risking the cards, and an idea formed.

Having a 3d printer and the wishlist of specs in hand, I checked out the standard platforms to get stl's from, but none of the ones I found matched what we were looking for. Then I realised, this was a great opportunity to get some CAD-chops and started drawing sketches.

This is the result: a fully functional grimoire, that opens on the two hinges of the spine, and is locked by the clasp. It includes a shadow well, so you can see which commander deck is in the grimoire. In the two drawers (that are hidden when looking directly at it from the top) one is a fully functional dice tower and the other one is a card bay for tokens. There is also a shelf for dice on top of the deck, that is designed to lock standard dice in place, when the grimoire is closed.

Pretty stoked about actually managing to finish the design phase of a project like this, and next is on to printing it. Which pit falls do I need to be aware of when exporting it to print?

Also, how did I do?

Learning CAM in Freecad and having a problem creating g code for conical countersink holes. Watched youtube videos but they are using features i dont find, such as 3D surface, in 2 year old videos.

Anyone experiencing the same problem or has a solution?

Using Freecad windows 1.1.4 version.

TL;DR skip to the bold line below for the actual question

This is both a FreeCAD appreciation post from a beginner, and a beginner question.

I've been learning to use FreeCAD (1.1.4) for the past few weeks, with the goal of creating models for 3D printing. I'm still in the early stages of my learning journey. I have zero prior experience with CAD or 3D Modelling, so I'm learning both the application and the concepts all at once. Which may be a good thing, as there's no workflow from other programs to unlearn or comparisons to be made. :) So far, it has been a steep learning curve, but very much worth the effort. Thank you to everyone involved with FreeCAD!

I started by watching some random YouTube beginner tutorials, then got stuck at some point, mostly because they were for older versions and I lacked the skills to work around the differences. Then I stumbled upon the excellent videos by MangoJelly which made everything click. I am planning to follow through all of them soon.

In the meantime, I'm also working my way through the docs on wiki.freecad.org, which seems great. It led to a number of aha moments, such as the difference between the Part and PartDesign workbenches, which seems to confuse almost anyone coming to FreeCAD. I watched a number of videos on this subject, but I still wasn't quite getting it. The Part and PartDesign wiki page finally made it click. I admit that I did use ChatGPT a few times while working through the documentation to have it ELI5 certain paragraphs to me when I lacked the technical background to fully understand what was written.

So, here's my beginner question. It's mostly about checking my own understanding and learning best practices.

The wiki lists some advice for creating stable models. One of the points advises against attaching sketches to generated faces because doing so can make it harder to go back and change things without breaking the model.

Then, in the Creating a simple part with PartDesign tutorial, right after creating the main padded solid, the tutorial shows how to create a hole by creating a sketch on one of the faces generated by the padding feature and applying the Pocket tool to it.

From my understanding, an alternative would be to create a sketch on the XY plane, position it to align with the existing shape, and then create pocket from it. This would be more in line to the stable-model advice mentioned above.

I'm sure the advice isn't black and white (it never is), and in this simple case, working directly on the face of the shape seems much simpler to me. What would be the preferred way to do it? In what cases would you choose one approach over the other? And, more importantly, what is a good learning resource for knowing when to use each approach?

So about a week ago I had an argument in this sub stating how I don't know how long it's going to take me to transfer from Fusion to FreeCAD. I have today started working on a new project which should be very simple to model and I thought that could be a great excuse to give FreeCAD a shot, bog-standard experience. Granted I have only spent maybe 20 minutes here but I can say that it's so far been rather painless. I really want to see how far I can push this thing. it has definitely slowed down my work but that's just me getting used to the tools. I do have a question for the veteran FreeCAD users: How often do you play "find the unconstrained element" game? Of the 20 minutes of work I have probably spent 10 in the sketcher, looking at my sketch, trying to figure out what could possibly be left unconstrained. Is there anything to help me speed up the process?

Probably overthinking this, but for the life of me can't seem to figure out how to blend the arm into the half moon piece as well as the arm into the hook piece. Looking to make it smoother while adding some structural support.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

I´m trying to create this part with the CAM Workbench (Figure 1) and I have this to the moment (Figure 2); here you can see the operations made but in general it is:

- Profile to get rid of the extra 1 mm of the stock.
- Drilling for holes (they are there, trust)
- Milling but just to the top face of the cylinder.
- Profile of the outer cylinder (But I don´t know how to get rid of all the extra material)
- Helix from the inside of the cylinder.

I haven´t gone into the slots but I figure those may be easy once I get rid of all the extra material.

I´m not worried about if certain operations may seem complicated if a real CNC operations is to be used, but this is just a simulation task.

Hi I want to use sweep on all my triangles. I'm trying to recover some files I lost and I have managed to do it before (see 2nd pic) but now the sketches are not showing up for me. What am I doing wrong?

I want to get a chamfer-like structure around from the outer edges and inwards

Hi everyone,

I would like to present a small addon I have been working on, and I am looking for people willing to test it and tell me what breaks.

Repository: https://github.com/cipawow-ship-it/PartDesignUpgrade

License: LGPL-2.1-or-later | Requires FreeCAD >= 1.1.0 (PySide6)

WHAT IT DOES

It adds a few helpers to the PartDesign workflow, collected in one toolbar:

- Create Pipe / Subtractive Pipe - sweep a parametric profile (circle, square, triangle, pentagon, hexagon, octagon) along a sketch or a set of edges, with rotation, offset, wall thickness and corner transitions, plus a live preview. It is added as an additive or subtractive feature in the active body.

- Create Rib Between Faces - a stiffening rib without sketching: select two angled planar faces and you get a triangular gusset (with "Invert leg 1/2", thickness, offset and copies); select a plane plus a cylinder and you get one or more radial plates (copies + rotation angle). Triangle or rectangle profile, optional "Full face length".

- Assembly Cut - cut several bodies at once with a single sketch: a linked binder or an independent copy is created for each body and a pocket is applied automatically.

- Automatic symmetry (Mirror) - a small floating panel that mirrors every new pad/pocket through a parametric FeaturePython object, about the XY/XZ/YZ planes or about the X/Y/Z axes, with a distance/offset from the body centre.

- Weight / Volume - volume and mass of a body with a material density picker (metals, plastics, wood, glass, concrete, or a custom value).

HOW TO INSTALL

Clone the repository into your user Mod directory, e.g. on Windows:

%APPDATA%\FreeCAD\v1-1\Mod\PartDesignUpgrade

or use the Addon Manager (the addon has been submitted to the Addon Index:

https://github.com/FreeCAD/Addons/issues/176).

WHAT I WOULD LIKE YOU TO TEST

- Does the pipe tool behave when the path is a sketch inside a PartDesign body and when it is a set of edges?

- The rib between two angled faces: are the "Invert leg" options and the measured lengths intuitive?

- Assembly Cut on a document with three or four bodies.

- The automatic symmetry panel: does the mirror stay up to date while you keep modelling?

- Anything that produces an error in the Report view: please paste the full traceback.

Feedback, bug reports and feature requests are all welcome - either here or as issues on the repository:

https://github.com/cipawow-ship-it/PartDesignUpgrade/issues

Thanks for your time!

So I found this youtube video (neither did i make the video or created the WB) telling a development of Sketch Up Styled WB in FreeCAD for quick modelling and conceptual designs. This might answer the previous reddit post that asks for the WB from here: https://www.reddit.com/r/FreeCAD/comments/1vfyfmw/sketchup_workbench/

what do you guys think?

I'm using FreeCAD 26.3 RC1.

I have a complex component in a sketch that gets repeated a number of times in the sketch. I created an original of it and constrained it's geometry but not its location. I now want to copy and paste it throughout my sketch.

I need to rotate the component in the sketch. When I do that I lose the constraints that were on the component's geometry. Some of the constraints are horizontal and vertical, which will obviously get broken when I rotate it.

How do I rotate the component without losing its restraints ? Replace the horizontal and vertical constrains with parallel and perpendicular to one component ?

I tested this with a simple rectangular box where the sides were parallel and perpendicular but dimensioned. It lost the dimensions when I rotated it.

Is there a way to group the parts of a geometry in Sketcher so that it is treated as a single entity ?

This is my component:

When I Pad the sketch in Part Design it leaves a void in the part in the shape of the component. I know that one could create a sketch of just this part and then do multiple pockets outside of the main sketch but I'll run into the same problem rotating it in the other sketch. It's easier getting the geometry correct putting these pockets into the main sketch.

just trying to make a vacuum hose adapter. circle. pad with a taper angle, then thickness to match the smaller hose fitting. export as STL and when I load in Cura or Orcaslicer it only has the outer skin, not the inside one. tried pipe mode

Hey everyone

I recently made a Bearings Workbench for FreeCAD and I hope it's useful to the community.

• GitHub: https://github.com/PraveenKum11/FreeCAD_BearingsWB
• Full demo (9 min): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jp6taV2JM7o

So far I've only tested it on macOS. If you're on Windows or Linux, I'd really appreciate it if you could try it out and report any issues on GitHub. I found and fixed a lot of bugs during my own testing. The project now has 95 unit tests and GUI smoke tests. It is licensed under GPL-3.0-or-later

AI disclosure - I have used AI tools in the development of this project.

Feedback, bug reports and feature ideas are all welcome. Thanks for checking it out.

Hello,

I would like to create a model in FreeCAD where certain dimensions can be adjusted within the slicing software. If I understand correctly, this requires exporting the FreeCAD project in OpenSCAD format. Could you help me understand what I need to keep in mind when creating the project?

Thanks!

Don’t get me wrong, I am trying hard to learn Freecad. I like how they have improved over the years. And therefore I recently donated to the project too. But it is a pain to use it at times.

I tried a simple sketch today and I got a wire not closed error. I am not a noob to Freecad, but this error would not go. While looking for solutions I came across Solidcraft, an open source software. So decided to give it a try. It felt like fusion and I was able to get the same sketch working in 2 mins. For freecad I had already spent 20.

I would recommend you too to give a try. My mind was blown.

SOLVED: Thanks everybody for your help! Slicing with a datum plane worked.

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Here's a drawing of what I'm trying to do:
https://app.box.com/s/ucr5r7op65limbgmi2p9i8vi4enmw67n

How would I slice this prism about in the middle, along the tall, skinny yz plane, and then insert a section, like inserting a leaf in a dining room table?

I tried using the part workbench, selecting the plane, then part->split->slice apart, but I'm getting this error:

Bad selection
Select at least two objects. The first one is the object to be sliced; the rest are objects to slice with.

What's the right process? Would the second object be in the same file?

Thanks in advance for any help. I'm using 1.1.4

Showcase of a vehicle i made entirely in Freecad using the Sketcher, Draft, Curves, Part and Surface workbenches, remeshed using Qremeshify and joined them in Blender.

Here is the translation of the release notes and macro details into English, formatted for clarity:

FC_ybt_raytracer.FCMacro — v1.3.0

A built-in, simple numpy raytracer for FreeCAD (no external software required).

Changelog & Version History

https://github.com/sedatkrn/FC_YBTRayTracer/releases/tag/v1.3.0

v1.3.0

• Mesh Objects (Mesh::Feature):
  • Triangles are directly loaded into the scene without requiring re-triangulation.
  • Correctly placed within App::Part / Link (including LinkTransform).
  • Materials can be assigned and are listed in the Materials window.
• Headless API (ybt_raytracer.api):
  • Functions added: render_document, render_scene, prepare_scene.
  • Camera helpers: make_camera, fit_camera, orbit_cameras.
  • turntable() feature; settings can be passed as keyword arguments (applied only to that call).
  • tess_cache for moving part animations (shape is triangulated once, with only placement updated per frame).
  • Example macro: examples/FC_ybt_turntable.FCMacro (camera turntable / rotating part).
• "Include in Render": Per-object checkbox in the Materials window, plus "Include / Exclude Selected" buttons (uses the object's YBTInclude property).
• "Skip Off-Screen Objects" (CULL_OFFSCREEN): Off-screen objects are not triangulated and do not participate in scene bounds, shadows, or ground plane calculations.
• Regression Testing: Material-less Part scenes produce pixel-for-pixel identical output compared to v1.2.2.
• Click-to-Select in Preview:
  • Clicking a part in the render preview selects that object in the Materials window (hold Ctrl to add to selection) and highlights it in the 3D view (ybt_raytracer/pick.py; the scene now carries object IDs per triangle).
  • In "Paint Bucket" mode, clicking a part directly assigns the currently edited material to it.
• Similar Objects:
  • Objects sharing the same shape signature (number of faces/edges, area, volume; independent of position/rotation) like copies or Links are shown as "Similar ×N" in the list.
  • Batch operations available: "Select Similar Together", "Arrange Similar Side-by-Side", and "Select Similar".
• API Pick Function: Added api.pick_object(scene, camera, w, h, x, y).
• SPEED IMPROVEMENTS (2.79M triangle engine scene at 960x540: reduced from >10 min in previous versions to ~41 sec; 1920x1080 ~83 sec):
  1. Primary rays use a visibility buffer (accel.raster_rows; each triangle is evaluated only for pixels within its screen bounding box, avoiding full-triangle scans per pixel; output is pixel-identical to earlier versions). Anti-aliasing samples use the same buffer.
  2. Multi-level shadow grid (fine/coarse levels based on triangle size) + "definitely lit" early exit + vector pair testing (_LightGrid).
  3. Front-to-back sorted early exit (core._closest_sorted) for lead rays along glass/reflection paths. Screen tiles are calculated only in scenes containing glass or reflections.
• New Look & UI:
  • Dark gray color palette (theme.py + icons/; applied across both windows).
  • "Preview and Selection Screen": Framed viewport, mouse wheel zoom (anchored under the cursor), drag-to-pan, "Auto Center" and "1:1" buttons, double-click to fit. Zooming displays raw pixels without smoothing.
  • Collapsible sections for Quality, Virtual Ground, and Lighting by clicking their headers (Virtual Ground and Lighting are closed by default).
• Materials Window:
  • Opens to the left of the render window.
  • "Always on Top" checkbox (enabled by default, setting saved) prevents the window from hiding behind the preview when clicked.
  • Console-style process log (timestamped actions).
  • Preview refreshes after a 1-second delay following slider/number changes (PREVIEW_DELAY_MS).
  • Version number is displayed in the Render window title bar.
• Fast Opening Materials Window:
  • Window opens immediately while object scanning runs in the background; results are cached unless the document changes ("Refresh" bypasses the cache).
  • Optimized similar object signature calculation (replaced Area/Volume checks with face/edge count + local bounding box; scan time for 877 parts reduced from 25 sec to 2.5 sec).
  • Clicking the launch button while open brings the window to the front; button shows "Opening..." with a wait cursor during loading; press feedback added to buttons.
• Bug Fix: Fixed vertex matching collisions on smooth surfaces (resolved artifacts/speckles on complex solids like wheel rims or letter shapes; replaced the old xor-summary hash with a collision-free full key).