1 Topic by Tin Falcon

  • Tin Falcon
  • Tin Falcon
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Topic: Trials tribulations and successes with FREECAD

Well guys and gals there has been much discussion on the merits of various Parametric drawing programs and modeling programs. 
I was a licenced user of Alibre CAd for a couple years. And still am considering getting a copy of Cubify design a descendant of the alibre  products. So today I download a copy of sad program 14 0r 30 day trial depending on what screen you look at and it has expired realy I have not even opened it.  And upon careful reading find that it will not modify stl files it will create them but not import them you need cubify sculpt to do that for another $150. 
So back to free cad. Cant say i really like it but have had some success. It has lots of options. The learning curve has variable pitch slopes and it seems as soon as you learn something you take a step or two back. About as easy as the start up procedure for a 747. 
At least crashing means you start over no real harm except a bruised ego and broken concentration.
I am working on a project I would like to have done in a few days.  Trying to get a working steam engine model finished . trying to modify parts.  And I see free cad will do mesh work. And it is possible to use it to modify stl files .  So some degree of success. the first attempts looked great on the Freecad screen but as soon as I loaded it in RH no change . then I discovered I had to draw it in  FC then convert to mesh then select all then eport. still a pain but i was able to modify and slice and the print is in progress.
Baby steps I guess.
Tin

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2 Reply by Claghorn

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Re: Trials tribulations and successes with FREECAD

I've tried different programs and always come back to openscad, though I ocassionally use things like meshmixer to convert a hollow stl file to a solid one so I can hack it up in openscad (the hollow files give openscad indigestion :-). Something about my programmer's mind prefers writing "code" to fooling with a mouse and 10,471 special keybindings.

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3 Reply by grob (edited by grob 2015-08-11 00:17:38)

  • grob
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Re: Trials tribulations and successes with FREECAD

Because of work I'm a heavy-interface parametric CAD kind of person (solidworks, ug NX, etc.), but the (repressed) inner programmer sees a lot of attraction in openscad too... Would work well with github haha! Just haven't found the time to have a go with it yet.

If you're looking for something free and parametric, there's now a couple of pretty good free parametric modelling options in the form of Autodesk Fusion 360 and OnShape - supposedly 'cloud-based' (i.e. stores your files on the net, kind of handy), they work OK and both can import and export STL I think.

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