FreeCAD Used To Illustrate My New Book

[graycad]

I recently produced a book entitled "Marvelous Magnetic Machines." It's a about building artful and interesting model electric motors from scrap.

In the case of previous books I've written, my illustrations were all hand-drawn. This time around, given the number of parts and the complexity of some of the mechanisms, I decided to bite the bullet and teach myself to use FreeCAD.

This has been quite an experience. The learning curve was stiff, but Youtube tutorials by (the late) "Roland" got me pointed in the right direction. Like any endeavor, you get out of it what you're willing to put in.

In the end, I created hundreds of parts, including a fairly broad selection of generic fastener components like screws, nuts, and washers. Rather than use a simple unthreaded "pin" model for my screws, or more complex models with real helical threads, I modeled my screws with parallel ridges. This visually communicates the idea of threads very well, while keeping the model size reasonable. I think I may have learned that from Roland as well.

I have attached a sample image, but you can visit a photo gallery showing more of my FreeCAD models as well as photos of the real motors here:

http://www.hpfriedrichs.com/mybooks/mmm ... llery1.htm
http://www.hpfriedrichs.com/mybooks/mmm ... llery2.htm

03-xmas-cad-ghost.jpg (84.1 KiB) Viewed 4407 times

[chrisb]

Thanks for sharing and I wish you success with your book!

[free-swallow]

Well it is a bit late to have stumbled over this. I have spent a fair bit of time learning about FreeCAD. Many hours but at 78 years I am now having trouble remembering and this slows me down considerably. I have loved tinkering with FreeCAD though.

With what I have learnt of time it can take, I am very impressed with what I saw in your gallery. I wish I could get to that stage. There must have been many long hours put into this.

[freedman]

That's cool. Please tell me there is a micro-controller and mosfet drivers driving the solenoids on the plane motor.

[marcin86]

Maybe we can use this picture on splash screen 0.20?
https://forum.freecadweb.org/viewtopic. ... 62#p579462

I recently produced a book entitled "Marvelous Magnetic Machines." It's a about building artful and interesting model electric motors from scrap.

In the case of previous books I've written, my illustrations were all hand-drawn. This time around, given the number of parts and the complexity of some of the mechanisms, I decided to bite the bullet and teach myself to use FreeCAD.

This has been quite an experience. The learning curve was stiff, but Youtube tutorials by (the late) "Roland" got me pointed in the right direction. Like any endeavor, you get out of it what you're willing to put in.

In the end, I created hundreds of parts, including a fairly broad selection of generic fastener components like screws, nuts, and washers. Rather than use a simple unthreaded "pin" model for my screws, or more complex models with real helical threads, I modeled my screws with parallel ridges. This visually communicates the idea of threads very well, while keeping the model size reasonable. I think I may have learned that from Roland as well.

I have attached a sample image, but you can visit a photo gallery showing more of my FreeCAD models as well as photos of the real motors here:

http://www.hpfriedrichs.com/mybooks/mmm ... llery1.htm
http://www.hpfriedrichs.com/mybooks/mmm ... llery2.htm

03-xmas-cad-ghost.jpg