More FreeCAD

I've been doing more FreeCAD. It works pretty well for me, since I'm making simpler parts. To compare some tools I've used in the past:

• As a beginner, Autodesk was pretty overwhelming, and I felt like I needed hours of tutorials/poking around the interface in order to find the commands/buttons for the simplest features to make simple parts. Large, resource consuming software, only free for me as long as I am a student.
• Sketchup was really easy to pick up but annoying to use for engineering/fabrication stuff because it is not parametric/constraint-based modeling software. I was using it for 3D printed parts and a lot of files would not slice properly for reasons that were very difficult to diagnose or fix. Quickly ran into features I needed that were not in the free version.
• FreeCAD is missing a lot of features I'd like, but so far it has always been possible for me to find a different feature to use in order to achieve the part I want. Free and open-source.

I want to mill some very small boxes out of some scrap pieces of wood, so I designed the box below, which can be easily customized. For a simple piece like this though, it makes more sense to just prepare a set of 2D lines in Inkscape or similar software, which is what I ended up doing afterwards. At the CNC machine, I then use another piece of software to set up all the details of how the machine will cut each vector path depicted in my 2D file.

Hopefully these boxes work out. If so, I'll make a bunch with different designs and embellishments (engraving, marquetry, decoupage, rock inlay, etc). They will make good gifts. I also think they may sell well on Etsy. It would be very practical to use my hackerspace membership to cover my hackerspace membership fees.

FreeCAD tutorial

I discovered the Windows "Snipping Tool" recently. So here's a mini-tutorial to preface the FreeCAD intro tutorial.

• If you have Dropbox enabled to automatically upload screenshots, disable that, as it appears to interfere (did for me on Windows 7)
• Open Snipping Tool and press ESC, so that the text says "Select a snip type from the menu [...]"
• Set up the shot you want, then hit Control + Print Screen
• Select the snip type you want and get the shot. The window you had open before will be frozen so you can move the mouse around now without losing hover text and drop down menus.

Since I discovered this, I've been taking the time to document things I learn to do in various software. The main reason is that often I come back later and can't remember some particular trick or button or whatever, and having a screenshot describing it is really nice.

So, here's a FreeCad tutorial along these lines. This version uses FreeCAD 0.14 (except for the first few screenshots, before I realized I should update my old version). You'll want to click on the images to view them at a more reasonable size. We'll be making a very simple square part with some holes. This tutorial goes through everything in detail and step by step, for those of you who find that kind of thing useful.

Step 0: Get FreeCAD

Get FreeCAD here.

Step 1: Start it up

Start up FreeCAD. Click on the top left button (circled below) to create a new project.