alt Hacker NewsSlightly unrelated to this story, but I’m curious if anyone has good resources for learning FreeCAD. I have quite a lot of experience with SolidWorks, AutoCAD, OnShape, and similar software, but FreeCAD has always been hard for me to pick up.
Replies
I often recommend https://youtube.com/@deltahedra3d - some good tutorial videos and other excellent FreeCAD content.
MangoJelly on YouTube was my primary learning source, and a few other channels - but his "gelled" with me the best.
YouTube was very effective for me to learn FreeCAD. I just searched for some FreeCAD tutorials and followed-along. I had zero prior CAD experience though, so I was a "blank slate" in a way.
I'm similar with 20+ years of experience with Autodesk products so freecad was (and often still is) frustrating for me because I know what I need to do but don't know the freecad ways. Claude has been very helpful when I give it the context of my experience because it relates the Autodesk way to the freecad way in its explanations.
I am hopeful of:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/245787716-freecad-beginn...
and will be adding it to my next Amazon order.
This is for after you've done a tutorial or two:
There was a PDF I had a while back (can't remember the name) which has a bunch of shapes you had to design in a 3D CAD program, with some guiding measurements.
The shapes got harder to create as you progressed through the book. That was a good, fun way to sharpen my skills after I learned the basics.
Just a pre-heads-up: depending on what you're trying to do, the exact tool and thus tutorial you need maybe slightly different.
For example, I made a gasket for my mini PC awhile ago using FreeCAD. Designing it was a hell until I discovered the Sheet Metal Workbench in the plugin manager, and just like that, I got it designed & manufactured within ~4 days.
During my experience, most of my time was spent on learning how to use the Sheet Metal Workbench as well as how it interacts with other FreeCAD builtin features. FreeCAD itself is not that hard to learn.
Also, there are Piping Workbench too if you want to work on pipes, Wood Work Workbench if you want to do wood work etc, see: https://github.com/FreeCAD/FreeCAD-addons. Use the correct workbench for the right job will save you a lot of time.