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FreeCAD 1.0 released

fixing the toponaming problem, and having a built-in assembly module
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Two big issues they seemed to have solved, that have kept me playing around, but yet to really dig into freecad. I read about this on reddit a couple days ago, and am looking forward to downloading it and giving it a try with some upcoming projects. For the price it's a pretty awesome package. Here's hoping they have renewed interest from developers and can keep the train rolling and refine the package a lot more. Maybe with some better CAM.....

I will never be without my Rhino, but am always looking for a decent cad/assembly modeling package to upgrade from my antiquated Mechanical desktop.
 
FreeCAD really frustrated me. My design history is important, and I frequently change shapes that are used as the basis for future work. But FreeCAD too often forces me to flatten my history before applying some new transformation, which makes edit points you can't go back from.
I'm back to Fusion360.
 
Freecad is a temperamental beast. But it keeps getting better. The workflow is different then other cad software… But I haven’t attempted something in it that it has not been able to accomplish.

And hey, the price is right.

Every time I log into fusion it feels like I’m crawling into bed with Jezebel (autodesk) and that eventually, it will come to bite me as they strangle away the functionality of the program behind a labyrinth of ever growing paywalls.
 
BaitMaster said:
when the company doesn’t want to pay for a mechanical cad licence and you need to whip up a drawing quick to get something manufactured. I’ve used it multiple times and it’s sweet for that.
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That's a sad indictment of Freecad. Basically, what I read into what you just said is that Freecad is good drafting software......

I agree that drafting is very useful in and of itself, especially for specifying a part for manufacturing, but it falls really short of ringing the bell for any modern design needs.
 
BaitMaster said:
strangle away the functionality of the program behind a labyrinth of ever growing paywalls
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On the flip side, software doesn't write itself and the engineers who can effectively work on software of this complexity are *expensive*.
Autodesk's net profit margin is about 17%. That's a low margin for the software space - compare to Adobe who fleece 33% out of their user base, Microsoft at 37%, or Nvidia at 55%.
Discovering that Fusion added circuit design while I wasn't paying attention and that it's available in their "free" version, albeit with their 10 designa limit? I appreciate it.
 
PaulL said:
On the flip side, software doesn't write itself and the engineers who can effectively work on software of this complexity are *expensive*.
Autodesk's net profit margin is about 17%. That's a low margin for the software space - compare to Adobe who fleece 33% out of their user base, Microsoft at 37%, or Nvidia at 55%.
Discovering that Fusion added circuit design while I wasn't paying attention and that it's available in their "free" version, albeit with their 10 designa limit? I appreciate it.
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For business use fusion could easily make sense. Investing time into it as a hobbyist is risky though in my eyes as they jump straight from free to commercial pricing. And they also move features from the free plan to the commercial plan, and from the commercial plan to the “extensions”. And the commercial plan goes up and up and up.

I’m not saying it’s not good software, or that it’s overpriced or anything. But a hobby use case is different from a commercial one.

If I go and learn and invest in learning well a piece of software, I want something constant.
 
Susquatch said:
That's a sad indictment of Freecad. Basically, what I read into what you just said is that Freecad is good drafting software......

I agree that drafting is very useful in and of itself, especially for specifying a part for manufacturing, but it falls really short of ringing the bell for any modern design needs.
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I fight this all the time at the Makerspace. Their IT lead is a big Ubuntu guru. If it isn't open source they hate it. doesn't matter that I can get a 1 year free Edu version of Mastercam for everyone that wants it. They still want to push this FreeCAD. I haven't the time of day to bother with it.. As the zone leader and teacher. I choose the software to be taught. One requirement is simulation with proof before someone with zero time goes and wrecks the router for everyone.. Free will cost them 5 K to buy a new spindle.
 
The dream for FreeCAD is to become as well supported as Blender is. I don't use Blender, but it has a fairly large percentage of its market versus FreeCAD is probably less than 1% market share if I was to guess. That increase in user base would help support development, again in turn making a better tool that more people could use. I'm going to say I'm hopeful that they've started the process of going down that road, by fixing (or at least mostly mitigating) the fundamentally broken things. Now they can focus on the nice to haves: better UI, better workflow, etc. I'm going to start learning FreeCAD in parallel to my Fusion work so that when Fusion eventually screws me I'm not caught totally flat footed.
 
Mike R said:
The dream for FreeCAD is to become as well supported as Blender is. I don't use Blender, but it has a fairly large percentage of its market versus FreeCAD is probably less than 1% market share if I was to guess. That increase in user base would help support development, again in turn making a better tool that more people could use. I'm going to say I'm hopeful that they've started the process of going down that road, by fixing (or at least mostly mitigating) the fundamentally broken things. Now they can focus on the nice to haves: better UI, better workflow, etc. I'm going to start learning FreeCAD in parallel to my Fusion work so that when Fusion eventually screws me I'm not caught totally flat footed.
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That’s my plan as well.
 
I know someone who uses it & he has been through the various, what he called frustrating iterations past 5-ish years. He says its getting better & more stable & more functional with each release. I've watched some of his intro tutorial sessions & (from across the room vantage point &roughly speaking) it has look & feel similar to Solidworks & similar parametric 3D modelers. So I think its more than 'drafting software' but I guess you'd have to define what that means exactly. He is successfully outputting to 3DP (STL conversion?) & his homebrew CNC (via Linux) but I'm not up to speed on details. I haven't really delved into the latest FC releases since I was sniff testing a few years ago so this may be 100% unfair. But some lingering shortcomings (to me) were in the areas of drawing outputs (compared to commercial apps, assemblies (complexity & mates), surface modelling & occasional crashes just for the heck of it. But the devil is in the details. Its hard to know what individuals are trying to do, what kind of processing/GL power they have (or don't have) & how familiar they are with best practice workflow that is kind of universal to any of these tools. Some of the carrots I'm personally interested in simulation workbench. Even if all I used it for was to push parts & assemblies out to get access to those tools, that would be enough to have it loaded on a PC in the background & still use my daily driver. Personally, I hope it gains popularity just to put some heat on the big guys.

FreeCAD actually has a long development history, the table at bottom of link summarizes releases.

en.wikipedia.org

FreeCAD - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org
 
Two releases ago I found bad for crashes. The last release almost never crashed. 1.0 I haven’t had a crash yet.

As far as exporting to CAM software, or 3D printing software, there is no issues for me. You can export profiles and sketches as .DXF files for any plasma, laser, or 2.5d milling. You can export .step or .stl for 3D printing or 3D CNC work.

You can also import .DXF or .step…..

You’ll have to watch some tutorials on how to do things but it’s really not bad. The sheet metal work bench I have found extremely handy for small brackets etc to hold circuit boards and the like. Easily can be output as .DXF with bend lines and layout drawings in tech draw.

Is it as easy to use as fusion? No.

Is it as polished as fusion? No.

Does it have the support that fusion has? No.

Does it cost 1000$ CAD / year? No.

Can you accomplish the vast majority of small scale CAD projects in it given some effort in learning its quirks? Yep.
 
DavidR8 said:
Doesn't it have built-in CAM?
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I’ve never used it lol. I’m not commenting on features I’ve never tried.

I’ve sent drawings to manufacturers made in freecad though, many a time. And 3D printed things myself.

So I can attest to that end of it working. The built in CAM is supposedly there, but completely un-tested by me, I don’t even think I’ve entered the workbench.

If someone else has more experience with freecad CAM they could chime in.
 
BaitMaster said:
I’ve never used it lol. I’m not commenting on features I’ve never tried.

I’ve sent drawings to manufacturers made in freecad though, many a time. And 3D printed things myself.

So I can attest to that end of it working. The built in CAM is supposedly there, but completely un-tested by me, I don’t even think I’ve entered the workbench.

If someone else has more experience with freecad CAM they could chime in.
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I'm going to have to dive in and get my FreeCAD feet wet.
 
BaitMaster said:
My suggestion is to watch some tutorials. It has a different work flow that can be frustrating coming from fusion, solidworks, etc.

The tutorials are very very helpful.
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This is actually encouraging. Maybe it's more intuitive for a plow boy like me!
 
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