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#freecad

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Revised my design to remove the four brass threaded inserts that I was using to bolt the PCB down. Replaced with little plastic snap clips. They were fun to design in #FreeCAD - also the reason for my earlier ChatGPT question about triangle angles. They worked better than I expected. Now I need to make some even smaller ones for a sensor board (these were 2.8mm diameter, the next ones will likely need to be 1.8mm).

Thinking of getting a refurbished Dell or Lenovo laptop to run linux on. Mostly to organise and process photos, but also some light CAD. I'll probably look for a laptop with 32gb ram.

The question is how much I should consider processor generation? Should I avoid laptops that are older than 11th gen intel processors?
Gen 9 and 10 are considerably cheaper, but I would like the computer to last a couple of years.

Continued thread

Why not both‽

  • The #FreeCAD #OpenSCAD workbench lets you mix and match. A friend sent me an OpenSCAD model of a part he wanted me to machine. I used the FreeCAD OpenSCAD workbench to show his model and then used TechDraw to make a drawing to work from.
  • FreeCAD's Part workbench is basically a similar CSG workflow to OpenSCAD, with boolean operations on shapes that take parameters, so a preference for working that way, or problems that fit that model, shouldn't drive a decision either way.
  • Actually, design-as-code works in both OpenSCAD and FreeCAD. FreeCAD has been a Python library and allowed you to write custom code driving basically anything in it in Python forever; I've written custom macros for multiple purposes. And in recent development builds, OpenSCAD added the ability to use Python as well as its bespoke language.

/fin

I started writing a response on reddit to the question "why do you prefer freecad vs openscad?" and wanted to share it here...

A few #FreeCAD advantages that matter to me:

  • Fillets and chamfers. Can be mind-bending to implement in OpenSCAD, and slow when implemented with minkowski sums.
  • TechDraw workbench to make drawings; I am a hobby machinist, and use drawings to make parts I have designed
  • Part Design workbench workflow is often much easier for me to conceptualize
  • Much faster (though the Manifold kernel in OpenSCAD has made a huge difference) even though it's still sometimes slow
  • B-rep kernel (among other things, representing curves as curves)
  • STEP file support, import and export
  • Assemblies (finally are built-in in FreeCAD 1.0)
  • Fastener workbench semi-automatically chooses the right fastener for the hole
  • Availability of many other workbenches, some of which I don't yet know I need
  • More tutorial material in a variety of forms that can guide you through learning lots of specific techniques for solving a wide variety of problems, including many that go beyond what you can do with FreeCAD. (On the other hand, it's really hard to get started without following some!)

1/3

en.wikipedia.orgBoundary representation - Wikipedia

Oh snap! Again I have problems with FreeCAD - it shows a white background when I want to design a part.

Before launching with "QT_QPA_PLATFORM=xcb cura" worked but now it does not work anymore...

Well this is a charming little thing I've been meaning to make for years and finally got around to printing. It's two concentric eccentrics (with little pins so I can adjust the eccentrics) and lets me position the hole at any point within the outer eccentric. I've been meaning to use something like this for microadjusting worms to wormgears. Now I have to figure out how to make it clamp so it doesn't shift in use.
It works quite well. Designed in #freecad printer in PLA.

I especially love #FreeCAD 1.0. It has some really nice defaults, like asking about diameter while you draw the circle (and not radius, cause like, I did not measure that with my trusty Aldi calipers) and immediately asking if you want to type the lengths in (sometimes I do, thanks for checking!)

Continued thread

1: Idee

Die Idee, die Module als Überdachung zu nutzen, kam spontan, weil die Anschlüsse am Dach für mein Setup nicht passten.

Für die Skizzen habe ich #Excalidraw, #Blender, #FreeCAD verwendet und #Nextcloud für die Planung.

Die ersten Diskussionen zu Design, Größe und Material kamen schnell. Eine gute Skizze war dabei hilfreich.

Besonders geholfen hat mir das viele Kommunizieren und das Feedback erfahrener Leute, u. a. hier auf Mastodon!

cc: @excalidraw @nextcloud @FreeCAD @Blender @diy