OK, I'm Stuck... Complete Newbie

[chrisb]

As long as you have an active task tab - to be recognized by an edit-pencil - you cannot create a new spreadsheet. Close it first.

[freedman]

I think you have beat yourself up enough, well almost. I'm guessing in the tutorial they created a constraint. The constraint icon and drawing icon are very close in color and representation, I have always wanted a color change between them, maybe later.

[chrisb]

I'm guessing in the tutorial they created a constraint. The constraint icon and drawing icon are very close in color and representation,

See https://owncloud.gwdg.de/index.php/s/HS ... I/download, end of section 2, sections 16 and 20.

I have always wanted a color change between them, maybe later.

No need in 0.19, it got a different icon.

[dave_w]

As long as you have an active task tab - to be recognized by an edit-pencil - you cannot create a new spreadsheet. Close it first.

Darn. And that was so easy. Thanks.

[dave_w]

I think you have beat yourself up enough, well almost. I'm guessing in the tutorial they created a constraint. The constraint icon and drawing icon are very close in color and representation, I have always wanted a color change between them, maybe later.

No, it's really OK to keep bashing me. I deserved it and I keep bashing myself. As I said, I'm a newbie (though I think it's really spelled noobie). I can't tell you how many tools I've learned and I tried to cut corners by intuitive learning rather than R'ingTFM.

Your response was a reply to my "The other is why when I select 2 points at the end of lines then select Create a point, it does not join the 2 points as in the tutorial but just creates a new point." I found a way around this by pulling down on Sketch>Sketcher constraints>Constrain coincident. The key equivalent is a 'C'. Doing the pull down works, though the C does not and the icon doesn't either. At least this gets me moving ahead.

Still a lot more to learn.

Thanks to chrisb and freedman.

Dave

[freedman]

chrisb, per your link to the sketcher doc. Nice work!
Granted it will take me a while to digest all that, is there a description for "sketch using reference mode constraints"? See the attached where a point can be dragged and the dimensions are variable constraints.

I feel many users think they always need to type in dimensions, using reference mode constraints (in blue) allows for dynamic sketch dimensioning.
Thanks

[kisolre]

Reference "Constlaint" is a little misleading. You should think of them more as a measuring tools. Sometimes I use tem to get a range of specific constraint and then select appropriate value in that range.

[dave_w]

Uh, did I just get hijacked?

Getting back to my original post, I still cannot recreate what the tutorial is doing. Using this video, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y97EFZvmnAA, I just don't get the same thing. He uses v0.17 where I have v0.18, but I wouldn't expect such big differences.

Here are excruciating details, if you have time and can comment:

- I can create a new document, but the Part Designer doesn't have an option to "Create a new part and make it active." He then adds a new body. I can create a body without the new part though, and that seems to do almost the same thing.

- About 2:30 into the video, things continue to fall apart. He has the Task tab open, he clicks on the top left corner, the center line, the top right corner and then the "><". That forces the rectangle to center line on the center line. When I do the same thing, it displays "><" on the vertical line, but doesn't move anything. Selecting the top left and bottom left corners is weird. When doing this, the rectangle shifts to center on the vertical line. Another click and the entire rectangle turns green. Eventually the rectangle is centered but I don't have a clue as to how it happened.

- Moving on in the video, I create a new sketch and draw another rectangle. Both are in the same body. I'm in the task view, as he is. But in getting here, neither rectangle is centered on the center lines. ??? I understand using external geometry is more advanced and I can do this manually, but trying to do it the way he does it doesn't work for me. I can't click a point, external geometry, then line. When I click external geometry, the point is no longer selected and a funny 3D box shaped icon appears. I can't seem to do anything with that.

- One more thing before I quit for today. At about 7:25 or so, he starts to constrain the outer edge of the box with the rectangle to remove the inner part of the box, less the wall thickness. Ignoring external geometry, I can't select a new rectangle on the face of the padded box and constrain the width of the wall of the box. I can't get anything he does to work here.

I'll try to get around this roadblock manually in the meantime.

This seems to be a painful approach to learning. I also looked at the FreeCAD documentation but without explicit examples it is very convoluted to a noobie. If tutorials can't be replicated, then learning is difficult. Even an on-line course wouldn't work unless there was exact correspondence between the course materials and the FreeCAD version being used, and that doesn't seem to be the case at least with the several tutorials I've tried.

Dave

[chrisb]

- I can create a new document, but the Part Designer doesn't have an option to "Create a new part and make it active." He then adds a new body. I can create a body without the new part though, and that seems to do almost the same thing.

The Std Part container is useful if you have an assembly of several bodies, especially if they should move together.

- About 2:30 into the video, things continue to fall apart.

The way he uses symmetry now creates a "redundant constraints" message. It was the reason why I created my sketcher tutorial, which is only available as pdf but not as video. The better way to center a rectangle is to select diagonal corners and then the center and create the symmetry.

- I can't click a point, external geometry, then line.

Click the tool first, then the point you want to reference.

- At about 7:25 or so, he starts to constrain the outer edge of the box with the rectangle to remove the inner part of the box, less the wall thickness. Ignoring external geometry, I can't select a new rectangle on the face of the padded box and constrain the width of the wall of the box.

I don't understand this one. He created a new rectangle and uses external geometry as before.

[MSOlsen65]

Dave,

As a fellow newbie I can tell you that you are getting fantastic advice from some MAJOR players on the forum. That said, when using YouTube, take the time to check out the account posting the video. Often the author will have several related videos, some of which may include bits of info assumed in later ones.

As to the specific video by mathcodeprint (mcp) that you cited, while a good video overall, it is not targeted at a novice audience. From watching many of mcp's videos, I would rate most as being for advanced beginners or above. He goes very quickly through his demos, and presume a moderate degree of familiarity and comfort with both Part and Part Design workbenches.

For myself, I found that sliptonic is a very good YouTube author for FreeCAD videos. He has a set of 4 aimed at the true novice. Go to his chanel and review al his videos. You should be able to easily find ones for you level. They should have you comfortable with the Part Design workbench fairly quickly.

Finally, you have run into the same issue I had awhile back -- Part vs. Body. For now, understand that Part Design workbench does not make parts. It makes bodies. Which for most purposes, are what newbies would call parts. Yes there is a separate entity called Part (std_part is its coded name), but it is not what most users mean when speaking about making or drawing a part. The situation is, in my opinion, an extremely confusing and unfortunate naming quirk. That said, I have greatly oversimplified the situation, but it should be enough to get you started in reaching your goals.

Hope this helped. Like I said at the becoming, you already have some excellent people helping you. I'm just another newbie letting you lnow what I found helpful.