Enclosure Tutorial [Solved]

[frcaduser]

Hi everyone,

I am attempting to learn how to create an enclosure for my pcb. I noticed that some of you readers (newbies like myself) are having some difficulty as I am. My method of learning is that I prefer reading at my pace instead of watching videos ... though ironically what I am about to show is based on a video that I came across which I think is pretty informative. The title of the video posted on youtube is titled 'Forum Discussion - Electronic Enclosure Arduino' by Learn FreeCAD. I have only watched up until the 25 minute mark (approximately) of the 65 minute video. I have written a tutorial based on these 25 minutes. At the very end, I ran into a little hiccup. If any one can please answer the question, it would be greatly appreciated.

The error is: Part::Thickness / Thickness: Links go out of the allowed scope.

For those new to freeCAD, I hope this helps on getting started.

I have attached both the project and the tutorial. I will add more as I continue with the video.

Regards,

frcaduser

[Bance]

Use PD thickness not Part thickness.

I believe there is a pdf enclosure tutorial on the forum somewhere, you may search for it, possibly in Tutorials section?

[chrisb]

I cannot see the images in the document, so I have to guess a bit: You have mixed Part and PartDesign workbench. You probably shouldn't switch to Part workbench in step 32. And if you do, you should only take the whole body for further processing, and not something from its inside.

[frcaduser]

Hi Chrisb,

thank you for replying to my post. I wrote the document in LibreOffice. From your end, the images are not viewable in the document and only the text is?

P.S. Cool! Got it! I clicked on the same icon 'Make a thick solid' in the 'Part Design' workbench per your suggestion. This solved the issue. I actually did not see it when I was using the workbench (I think I needed some coffee) that time around.

In any case, you saved the day. Much obliged!

Regards,

frcaduser

[drmacro]

The images in the file are ok for me.

As @chrisb notes you should either use Part or Part Design. I definitely would avoid mixing them, especially for a tutorial.

Having designed many enclosures similar to what your tutorial teaches:

I would recommend NOT even mentioning, or possibly even caution against, the use of Thickness.

In all but the simplest models it will eventually cause problems. Fillets/chamfer and Thickness do not like each other.

That said, to answer your question at the end of the tutorial, you are attempting to use a feature of a body, rather than the body for the Thickness.

Also, your point #32 is wrong:
"Next, we will extrude the 3D object."

You are stating how to use the Thickness tool and describe it as extruding.

[frcaduser]

Hi drmarco,

I will update the tutorial to reflect the proper terminology. Regarding the icon for carving out the object, I think that the name of this icon should be changed. If you reference the icon, it is titled 'Make a thick solid'. Why name it as such (at least that is the text that appears when it is highlighted when hovering the mouse pointer over it)? Maybe the text should state: 'Object cutout' or something similar since that is what the icon is being used for. Even the icon design implies as much.

Regards,

frcaduser

[drmacro]

... I think that the name of this icon should be changed. If you reference the icon, it is titled 'Make a thick solid'....

Agreed, it is confusing, at best.

[chrisb]

I guess this has a historic background. Perhaps in ancient times such objects where created from shells, where thickness is obviously more thick then the shell which has no volume at all. Nowadays it is vice versa that thickness is less thick than its source.
I would second drmacros advice: don't use thickness whenever you can avoid it. It works well on very simple models and fails ever so often on others. A situation which is topped by the topological naming problem, which makes it sometimes very hard to modify an earlier step which completely defeats the idea of parametric modeling.
In short: forget the function and then you can forget the name.

[frcaduser]

Hi,

I am attempting to follow along with the video tutorial but note that the FreeCAD version used in the video is v0.16. I am using v0.19. I got right up until creating the third sketch named 'Sketch002.' When I click on the four Sketch002 perimeter/edge lines, and then click on the 'go to construction mode' icon, I get the following error:

Sketcher::SketchObject / Sketch002: Links go out of the allowed scope

I have attached the tutorial up to this point.

Added: From my interpretation, the Sketch002 sketch is essentially a stencil which is created from the original sketch to create the mounting hole stubs. From the video, it appears that we just want to disable the edges/perimeter from this new active object so that when we 'pad' this new sketch/stencil, the entire area of the sketch/stencil will not be included in the padding but only the holes that are edited for mounting. In FreeCAD, why not just have an edit Sketch/stencil command in the edit menu whereby you can disable/enable different curves/lines/edges, etc. with an option of viewing the resultant sketch prior to accepting. It appears that FreeCAD is making the process a whole lot more complicated than it needs to be. Also, from the video which is based on v0.16, some icons are active in the Part Design workbench that are not active in the v0.19 workbench which is making the porting not as straight forward.

Update: Ok, I have been doing a little research in addition to testing my own simple FreeCAD 'snippet'. I was able to pad a small square within a bigger square (kind of the anti-donut). You can pad an object/sketch so long as it is continuous. FreeCAD currently cannot pad multiple objects (as in four pcb stub stands) that are not continuous. Here is the link to the forum discussion that I came across. This has been a known issue for a couple of years now:

https://github.com/FreeCAD/FreeCAD/pull/1398

In another forum I believe I read something about using the shape binder utility in Part Design as a work around.

Can someone please advise.

Regards,

frcaduser

[edwilliams16]

To save us having to follow through the tutorial step by step, it would be helpful if you also uploaded the state of the FreeCAD file at the point you got stuck.