New User: Can Freecad be used as a standalone 2D Cad program?

[amt]

Greetings. I'm re-entering the product design and manufacturing business and need to learn to use a Cad program.
I need to be able to create and submit appropriate drawings for small part manufacture. I am admittedly older and
have been doing my drafting manually and still produce sketches and drawings by hand or in MS Paint etc. Can I get away with just using
Freecad for 2D drafting or is moving .dxf to Librecad or Sightdraft necessary? I would like to avoid the learning curve of
two programs at once if possible. Thanks.

[microelly2]

welcome to the forum.

the Part Design (Sketcher) and the Draft Workbench are good starting points for worrk on 2D.

And you can go your first 3D steps whenever you want.

[NormandC]

Hello amt,

To produce drawings out of 2D geometry in FreeCAD, as mentioned by microelly2 you will need to use a combination of Workbenches.

Know that if you use the Sketcher Workbench, it is not possible to extract the dimensional constraints as dimensions on a Drawing page.

The Draft Workbench is lacking many tools for detailing technical drawings. Particularly the Dimension tool is limited. So you will need the Drawing Dimensioning add-on.

So the process will be similar to what you would do with a 3D model:

1. Draw/sketch 2D geometry in the 3D space
2. Create a Drawing page
3. Add projected views
4. Add dimensions and detailing with the Drawing Dimensioning add-on

But you may encounter problems if you need to share your drawings in DXF format. The import/export process is still not perfect.

EDIT: added screenshot

[amt]

The lack of full DXF support was my biggest concern. Ive been lucky in the past and had a great machine shop that
accepted jpg drawings. This was convenient but few big shops want to fool around with this and charge for setup without
a proper CAD file. Changes and modifications are tedious and costly as well.

Are STEP files a viable file format for submission? If a 2D drawing is created in 3D space, and multiply views created so as
to mimic a 2D CAD drawing, would this be an acceptable practice or problematic? And are the issues with DXF conversion minor or require more work than replication in a 2D program?

[Danintheden]

Projections_of_3D.FCStd

(23.51 KiB) Downloaded 28 times

Hi AMT

At the moment I don't use it as a standalone 2d CAD program, but I generate 2D output for further processing in another 2D CAD program.

In my experience fabrication shops want one of three things, depending on their methods of fabrication:
1. A set of fully dimensioned drawing sheets printed to scale (components and cutting sheets, welding requirements and assemblies)
2. A .dxf 2d file or other 2d cad format, typically for plotting work, such as cutting a shape out of a flat sheet.
3. A 3d model, such as a .stp or .stl file for 3d printing, cnc or casting work.

3d models have the advantage of visualising the completed items and assemblies from any angle, and checking ease of assembly, interference with other parts is more realistic to work with than working with lines in 2d.
I find my FreeCAD 3d models are readily understood and I receive quick feedback when we assess and discuss the model while viewing it directly in the program itself. (I just show the workshop what I want us to achieve in FreeCAD directly and specifically ask their input.)
For 2D I found that the 2D projection tools (in the Arch and Draft workbench) gives very good results (front, side and top views, as well as isometric) that can also be exported to .dxf. These projections also updates if you update your model (I mainly base my models on Parametric Part workbench parts.)
Currently I export it into the drafting software I have at work to add dimensions to finalise a new item and I put it on our legacy drawing letterhead.

However you may find that Techdraw is giving good printed on paper drawing sheet result and it is more intuitive to use to get a quick hand fabrication quality look.

Use the section tool in the Arch workbench to create either a section view or a standard view of your selected 3d items, then create a 2d view of this object to be exported.
I found that .step files can be most readily exported precisely in either 2d or 3d to other cad programs.

Projections_of_3Dmodel_for_drafting.png (37.24 KiB) Viewed 1762 times

[Jee-Bee]

Try techdraw. You need at least version 0.17 for that.

[HarryGeier]

Hello,
You can import .dxf

For 2D construction DRAFT is the usable Workbench. Sketcher/Part-Design are not really usable as the lay the base for 3D Objects and are not 2D centric as others also stated before.

Once you have drawn a design in DRAFT , you can create a technical drawing using TECHDRAW Workbench. And you can also export .dxf for processing in a CAM Application.

While you CAN do all of that, FreeCAD is not ment for this . FreeCAD is an entire 3D centric set of CAD Tools and , yes, it has some learning curve.

The far better way is learning the workflow entirely in FreeCAD :

Part Design ( or PART ) to create the Object
TECHDRAW to expose a drawing of it
PATH Workbench to create G-Code for CnC Machines

[freedman]

This can be 2 questions.

1) Can Freecad be used to design a bunch of 2D parts and fit them together, then break them into multiple drawings, like Autocad?
or
2) Can Freecad be used to make simple flat part assemblies?

Answer to #1) I would not use FreeCad to design a system with a bunch of 2D parts that need to be an assembly.

Answer to #2) The drawing tools are very powerful and to design a single or a few flat parts would be fine. Good pattern and array tools.

[NormandC]

Guys, you are all replying to a 18-month old post.

After his initial two posts the same day he registered and created the topic, amt never came back. So I guess, these replies are mostly for anybody else that may find this topic from a search.

[freedman]

We never give up, maybe he's just very polite and patient.