Paid FreeCAD work.

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saul
Posts: 11
Joined: Fri Apr 17, 2015 8:53 am

Paid FreeCAD work.

Post by saul »

I've finally managed to get a design together that I am happy with in FreeCAD thanks to the help of a couple of users of this forum.

I've now got to prepare some DXF files for a machinist who refuses to even look at the file in FreeCAD!

Anyway, the project consists of five sides of a box. At present all five sides are in the same file because it was important to me to demonstrate how the five sides fit together. I've used the Shape2Dview tool and can see it works but my worry is that even if I spend some time getting things to how I believe they are correct the machinist still might not be able to work with what I produce. I'm particularly concerned as, although each of the five sides is actually a regular shape, the fact that there are some 'throughall' holes and some 'blind' holes in four different surfaces of each side will lead to some confusion in the projections.

I hope I'm not breaking any house rules or damaging the ethos of the FreeCAD project here (apologies in either case), but if there is anybody out there with experience of producing engineering drawings for metal workshops and they are happy to produce the five .DXF files from the attached drawing I will be happy to pay them (or donate to the project or whatever they are comfortable with).

Please PM me if you can help me.

Thank you.

ps. I can't attach the FCSTD here as it is 1.25 MB and there's a limit of 0.5MB on the forum. Here are some .jpgs of the project.
box1.jpg
box1.jpg (55.37 KiB) Viewed 4537 times
box2.jpg
box2.jpg (59.34 KiB) Viewed 4537 times
box3.jpg
box3.jpg (53.74 KiB) Viewed 4537 times
box4.jpg
box4.jpg (61.08 KiB) Viewed 4537 times
box5.jpg
box5.jpg (51.47 KiB) Viewed 4537 times
jmaustpc
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Re: Paid FreeCAD work.

Post by jmaustpc »

saul wrote:I've now got to prepare some DXF files for a machinist who refuses to even look at the file in FreeCAD!
Find another machinist, one with a brain! :D .......... But seriously.....
saul wrote:although each of the five sides is actually a regular shape, the fact that there are some 'throughall' holes and some 'blind' holes in four different surfaces of each side will lead to some confusion in the projections.
....that will be difficult to show in a crappy 2d line drawing such as DXF will be.

You could export each plate as a STEP file. That is a industry standard 3d interchange format.
saul
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Joined: Fri Apr 17, 2015 8:53 am

Re: Paid FreeCAD work.

Post by saul »

OK. Thanks for that suggestion. I'll try that but I've spoken to three different companies and they all seem to be pushing for DXF. Maybe they can just feed DXF into there machine and the magic is performed for them with barely any input from the operative, I don't know.
Any other suggestions will also be gratefully received. I'm just wondering if there is something obvious I have missed that someone who's spent a bit of time around a metal workers will spot straight away.
saul
Posts: 11
Joined: Fri Apr 17, 2015 8:53 am

Re: Paid FreeCAD work.

Post by saul »

As I need to try something to make some progress here I've exported one of the five sides of the box to STEP. It saves ok and I can re-open it except that all the pockets went flat upon re-opening. However, after pressing keys (pretty much at random) a separate image could be dragged away from the image which initially appeared. This second image had all the pocket information showing. I'm not sure if I could duplicate the process. Any idea what is going on in this situation?
Thank you.
Walgri
Posts: 32
Joined: Sat May 09, 2015 10:16 pm

Re: Paid FreeCAD work.

Post by Walgri »

Hi,
Maybe they can just feed DXF into there machine and the magic is performed for them with barely any input from the operative, I don't know.
Actually it may be just the opposite: machinists I know would love to see a clean 2d representation, with dimensions and tolerances, but won't even try to explore the entire 3d model, looking and taking note of hole placements, diameters, dephts et cetera. Let alone the freecad file format and the need to learn another application they may have never heard about before.

They would read a clear 2d drawing in minutes and then decide to go cnc or not, and in the first case they may easily decide to program the operations "by hand", or maybe through canned cycles of their cnc control.
triplus
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Re: Paid FreeCAD work.

Post by triplus »

I've now got to prepare some DXF files for a machinist who refuses to even look at the file in FreeCAD!
File -> Export... -> Autodesk DXF

Should do the job. Probably you will need to rotate some parts or set DXF import-export settings accordingly to get correct views for all parts.
jmaustpc
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Re: Paid FreeCAD work.

Post by jmaustpc »

Walgri wrote:Hi,
Maybe they can just feed DXF into there machine and the magic is performed for them with barely any input from the operative, I don't know.
Actually it may be just the opposite: machinists I know would love to see a clean 2d representation, with dimensions and tolerances, but won't even try to explore the entire 3d model, looking and taking note of hole placements, diameters, dephts et cetera. Let alone the freecad file format and the need to learn another application they may have never heard about before.

They would read a clear 2d drawing in minutes and then decide to go cnc or not, and in the first case they may easily decide to program the operations "by hand", or maybe through canned cycles of their cnc control.
For many things it is much easier to just read off a 2d drawing either dxf or paper, and 2.5d CNC may well use the dxf data either directly or convert it to g-code. For something rather complex like this, I think a 3d model as well as the drawing is a good idea to reduce the chances of error by having a good visualisation of the object.
Walgri
Posts: 32
Joined: Sat May 09, 2015 10:16 pm

Re: Paid FreeCAD work.

Post by Walgri »

I fully agree about object visualization: that's the reason why in many workshop drawings there is an isometric view of the part too.

Saul is facing the same difficulties I would encounter in my area: depending on the workshop, the machinist may not be trained to 3d cad, or paid for it, they may not have a CAM operator, or he/she can be too expensive for those plates, or they may even decide to do the job on a manual mill with DROs instead of a cnc mill.

I would go straight to a 2d drawing, with dimensions, tolerances and tapping notes, ready for quoting and for the machinist to read and do the part.
jeno
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Re: Paid FreeCAD work.

Post by jeno »

saul wrote:As I need to try something to make some progress here I've exported one of the five sides of the box to STEP. It saves ok and I can re-open it except that all the pockets went flat upon re-opening. However, after pressing keys (pretty much at random) a separate image could be dragged away from the image which initially appeared. This second image had all the pocket information showing. I'm not sure if I could duplicate the process. Any idea what is going on in this situation?
Thank you.
Hi Saul,
probably you did not exported the last design step of your piece. It's mandatory to choose the last feature you used for the piece you want to export. If you choose a feature before or probably more you may export more than on solid nested in itself.
If you don't mind please post this step-file.
Btw. what size is this box? Do you work with metric or imperial dimensions?
jmaustpc
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Location: Australia

Re: Paid FreeCAD work.

Post by jmaustpc »

saul wrote: ps. I can't attach the FCSTD here as it is 1.25 MB and there's a limit of 0.5MB on the forum. Here are some .jpgs of the project.
If you want to post a file like that and it is too large then you can ...
1)post it to a file sharing site that allows anonymous downloads or
2)another option is to split the project into several files such that each file is small enough to post
3)another option is to make a copy of the file, create Part WB simple copies of the end result then delete all items other than the simple copies. Simple copies are non-parametric solids similar in some ways to a STEP file. Without the construction history your FreeCAD file should be much smaller. In this case the simple copies should be adequate for your purposes as you only want help creating the 2d drawing or DXF export, neither of which require the construction history.
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