Essential Training for FreeCAD?

[monkey]

Hi Community.

I'm new here. I'm coming in with some Solidworks experience (yeah, I know - Boooo!) Now, the best thing about Solidworks in my opinion is the availability of Essential Training courses on Udemy and other training platforms. For about $20 you get the equivalent of one of those week long $3,000 courses, minus the crappy hotel room and the awkward teabreak conversations with weird assortment of biscuits and undrinkable coffee.

Has anyone done something similar for (the most recent version of) FreeCAD, other than the Sweedish one on Udemy. If so, I want to buy it. And am happy to pay more than $20! I may even buy the Sweedish one just to see what I can gleen from the visuals.

FreeCAD looks awesome from what I've seen, and may be the prefect fit for my low powered requirements (I don't plan to do fluid dynamics simulations or massive complete engine designs). But the tutorials and How-Tos are littered all around the forums, youtube and so on. That is a killer for me. I just don't have to time to hunt around. I just want to get the whole story in one volume so I can get comfortable and focus my brain on learning it.

Big up on FreeCAD. It's a real achievement!

[bejant]

Hi Community.

I'm new here.

Hi monkey and welcome!

I just want to get the whole story in one volume

I don't know of one all-encompassing book, but that doesn't mean there isn't one. It would probably be helpful if you describe what you'd like to do with FreeCAD so we can offer relevant suggestions.

[NormandC]

Hello,

For about $20 you get the equivalent of one of those week long $3,000 courses

A typical CAD training course is 32 hours. It would easily take 3x, 5x that amount of time to prepare and record such a course - and I'm probably grossly underestimating it! That's a massive time investment. IMO it would likely never be recuperated at $20 a shot. Almost none of us makes a living out of contributing to FreeCAD, this would mostly be a volunteer endeavour.

And what subject should be covered? Product design? Architectural design? FEM? CNC? FreeCAD's scope is huge.

Not to mention that much of the content would become obsolete once a new release of FreeCAD is published.

Besides, did you know that a new FreeCAD book was just released? That might be enough to get you going.

https://forum.freecadweb.org/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=30959

[Jee-Bee]

It are no video but you can try read yourself

https://forum.freecadweb.org/viewtopic.php?t=16534 is from Yorik and is from .16 what is for big parts a good base

The second one is from Sliptonic and is a bit newer see https://forum.freecadweb.org/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=30959

Best is to use both together with this forum and maybe a search engine

[monkey]

Thanks guys for your replies. That's pretty amazing that there's a book! I will grab it off Kobo. Sweet. I totally get that it's a massive ask for a single training course. I think Yorik nailed it when he describes wanting to present a single train of thought that a reader can follow. Sometimes when you know absolutely nothing, the best thing is to put yourself in capable hands and let them take you on a journey. Hunting through forums without at least a foundation is so soul destroying. So, thank you Yorik. Your work is also on my reading list.

My situation is this - I've just set up as a solo IoT product developer. I do electronics, firmware, software and cloud backend design. So, the tools I use have to be simple to use, as I need to switch between them very regularly, and I need to be up and running again in hours (process change overhead is a massive problem). So, if I move on to the mechanical aspect of my design and I end up taking 3 days looking through forums, it will really hurt me. But if you guys reckon FreeCAD can serve me as well (or nearly as well) as Solidworks then it would be a massive score for me, as I'm also not exactly rolling in green right now (see above - "just set up"). Solidworks will cost me something like $5,000 (and I don't know if the features I need are included). For a one man band, that's crazy! Even if it was the only licensed software I needed, which it isn't!!

In terms of what I'm hoping to do with FreeCAD - I need to design a few little enclosures that I'll get made into molds. In solidworks there is a whole plastics whatsit that does everything you can think of (actually considerably more than I could think of). Are there any similar capabilities in FreeCAD, for things like adding draft angles and checking them and compensating for shrinkage, or identifying potential design weaknesses?

The next thing I need to do is design what I can only call a contraption. It will have a motor, some gears and hence forces and motion. I don't know any python. Will I be able to do some motion / stress analysis in FreeCAD. This too will need to be molded in the end.

I really appreciate your advise. And I apologise. I know I could download the Software and have a play and answer my own questions, but as per above, the few days it might take are so precious at this point. If I do come on board, I intend to stay though.

[HarryGeier]

There is a lot of video tutorials out there in the wild.
You should also consider going thru the wiki examples .

chrisb works on a book about the sketcher..you find it here in the forum somewhere.

Whatever you read and/or look at be sure to understand the vast difference between 0.16 and 0.17 and above Versions. We see a lot of questions here which have to do with wrong things learned from older tutorials.

[chrisb]

Sketcher Booklet.

[bejant]

In terms of what I'm hoping to do with FreeCAD - I need to design a few little enclosures that I'll get made into molds.

We've seen other people do this. After you become familiar with using FreeCAD you should be able to create your enclosures pretty quickly.

Are there any similar capabilities in FreeCAD, for things like adding draft angles

Yes, FreeCAD has a tool for adding Draft (it's in the Part Design WB). Here's the link to the wiki page:
https://www.freecadweb.org/wiki/PartDesign_Draft

and checking them and compensating for shrinkage,

Compensating for shrinkage - I don't think so.

or identifying potential design weaknesses?

The next thing I need to do is design what I can only call a contraption. It will have a motor, some gears and hence forces and motion. I don't know any python. Will I be able to do some motion / stress analysis in FreeCAD.

For stress analysis, you could try the FEM Workbench:
https://www.freecadweb.org/wiki/FEM_Module

I know I could download the Software and have a play and answer my own questions, but as per above, the few days it might take are so precious at this point.

Then don't hesitate to ask questions here in the forum because responses usually happen very quickly. The time it might take to learn FreeCAD is precious, but investing in yourself is more precious.

[Jee-Bee]

Sketcher Booklet.

73 pages... you have to much time on your hands

[sgrogan]

Compensating for shrinkage - I don't think so.

Draft Clone, and adjust the scaling parameters.

I really appreciate your advise. And I apologise. I know I could download the Software and have a play and answer my own questions, but as per above, the few days it might take are so precious at this point. If I do come on board, I intend to stay though.

My company uses SW as well, I often use FreeCAD because my group shares some floating licences that are always in high demand. There is definitely a time versus money trade-off. Often it's necessary to cobble together the tools; FreeCAD + addon-wbs +macros. Documentation is tough because we have too few working on it, it gets better everyday, but because FreeCAD gets better too it becomes quickly dated. The Help forum is phenomenal, better than professional support on SW in my experience.

Search freecad-heini's posts on the forum if you have time (some are in German). I think he works in a similar environment as you.

I've tried to be as neutral as possible, but I'm a "FreeCAD cool-aid drinker" so know that.

Anyway, Welcome and thanks for the interest in the project.