FreeCAD 0.19 - Tutorial - Simple Part with Part Design (EN)

In this episode we have a look at one of the fundamental tutorials from the official FreeCAD documentation. We complete the so called 'Simple Part with Part Design' Tutorial.

This video is divided into two different sections. In the first section, we follow the tutorial as intended in the FreeCAD wiki. Because this solution is not very stable regarding the common FreeCAD Topological Naming problem, we develop another solution, which makes use of variables and parameters and is a lot more rigid - so that later design changes will not harm the 3D geometry.

FreeCAD is a powerful open-source 3D modeling software used by designers,
architects, engineers, and hobbyists worldwide. It offers an intuitive interface and a wide range of features, from basic geometry creation to complex parametric modeling.

Chapters:
00:00 Introduction
01:01 Original solution from the documentation
05:51 Design changes to the original solution
08:25 Fix the model to make it more stable
14:00 Design changes - test the new solution
17:30 Conclusion

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About me:
Mechanical engineer specializing in digital product development.
CAD expert with over 11 years of experience in various CAD systems such as Siemens NX, Siemens Solid Edge, Catia V5, Onshape, FreeCAD and Fusion 360.
Former lecturer for basic CAD training in the engineering program of the Department of Environmental Planning/ Environmental Engineering at Trier University of Applied Sciences.

You can find my main channel (in German language) here:

Download FreeCAD 0.19 here:

#FreeCAD #PartDesign #Tutorial

[willydecraemer]

Your way of teaching is very clear. A delight for absolute beginners. Thank you very much for your dedication.

[John-fnjd]

solid proof of proper modeling to maintain the stability/integrity of the model. thank you so much friend for teaching this

[sugarmamajess]

Thanks so much. I am just starting my freecad journey for 3d printing. I have made my own curriculum (using these extremely valuable online videos and resources). I am in the "proper naming conventions for stable models" section😂. This video was very informative. The video is easy to understand for the noob and makes it very clear how 2 different models can be so different, saving some extremely frustrating moments. I am on to my homework now. Watch

[jhonny]

Hi. Please upload soon "BASIC COURSE #3".
Your great tutorials inpire me !.
Cheers from Chile.

[pieyed]

Finally! I now understand why I shouldn't place new elements on 3D faces. Thanks!!

[AibonitoPerformance]

Hope to see more videos soon, this has been great help for me, I really appreciate the time you took to explain this!!

[rackbites]

Best FreeCad tutorial on the intenet. Fast and to the point. Thank you.

[GapRecordingsNamibia]

I had to say thank you for taking the time to teach as this is a freeware program getting help on the forum is very difficult as the other people on the forum use terms that I am not yet familiar with leading to a lot of frustration for both parties.

[rcort]

Thank goodness for this guy who explained the problem and the workaround, but it is crazy that not only is the user not alerted to this problem, but the tutorial in the help actually encourages users to use the program in the flawed way! I agree with K5HU's comment below, but perhaps they don't fix the problem because it would involve a massive overhaul of the entire program to make it right.

[noanyobiseniss]

Holy shit this has been killing me!
I thought I was doing something wrong for the longest time and kept going in and fixing the plane attachments!
Bugs like this can make beginners just give up and quit and I put it down for a week because it was driving me insane.

[piranha]

The topological naming is for me one of the biggest show-stoppers for FreeCAD. I gained quite a few gray hair because of it when working on my first project, before I knew it was a problem. I slowly learn how to go through all the hoops it creates, with big help from FreeCAD Academy videos, but it is a pain to look for workarounds, when a convenient, easy, and simple (but buggy) solution is just withing a reach of hand. For me, until the TNP will be solved, FreeCAD will remain more of a toy cad than a serious tool.

Another annoyance of the 0.19 is lack of autocomplete for the named dimensions. Until the name is typed correctly in full, FreeCAD complains about unknown variable, without giving any hints about what may be the issue. Again, your videos helped me a lot with solving the mystery.
In 0.18 I used spreadsheets to keep all the named values, and IIRC autocomplete worked with them. It is not a problem when there are just a few, but with more than 10 or 20, it becomes impossible to remember all the names. I end up having a sheet of paper with a "symbol table" for the project.

[billpowell]

This is an excellent demonstration of that pesky topo naming error. Hope it goes away soon. I like your method to get around the error and will be using it for my designs. Thank you for sharing.

[Beachbone]

Intersting to work with the construction line and the referenz size for the position.
Something new learnd

[ThoughtandMemory]

I’m attempting to step up from sketch up to free cad. I see a bit of a learning curve in my future. The joys of getting a 3D printer I guess.

Subbed and thanks for your hard work.

[PenguinTutor]

Really useful. Sometimes FreeCAD breaks and it's hard to know why. At least this explains one of the reasons for problems when editing the model.

[GreyDeathVaccine]

Parameters baby! :-) Great tutorial. Can't wait to modify model I found on internet and print it :-)

[Elephantine]

Another good class. You are a good teacher! Thank you.

[TheOtherGuybo]

Another outstanding and appreciated tutorial

[adrianstephens]

Thank you. I'm a hobbyist ex-user of Fusion-360. In a complicated part (a rotor for a pond pump), I used a single sketch to derive about 20 lengths, taking into account necessary clearances between fixed and rotating parts. I then referenced points on that sketch from other commands, such as creating a pad that is level with the point on the sketch. I understand I could name all the derived dimensions in the original sketch in Freecad, but I was wondering what was the problem with linking to geometry from another sketch in this case? Would this be affected by the topo naming?

I'm not expecting an answer here, but just highlighting some of the questions a relatively new user of Freecad moving from Fusion-360 has.

[zvanstefan]

Thanks for great tutorials..just what I needed..a quality kick start!