I've been using FreeCAD and I do like it quite a bit. It's very powerful. The two downsides I see:
1) It's currently at version 0.19. It's not polished software. It's definitely usable as is, but I save my work often. It does crash occasionally, usually when I do something stupid but sometimes for no reason that I can discern. 2) Like GIMP, the open source user interface isn't the most intuitive. Engraved text in FreeCAD is a good example. Switch from the Part workbench to the Draft workbench. Select the ShapeString tool. Enter the text, text height and set the path to a TrueType font (it doesn't use the system installed fonts). Switch back to the Part workbench, select the shape string that was just created and then select the Extrude tool to make it into a 3D object. You can then make a union of the 3D text with another 3D object for raised text, or make a cut of the 3D text from another object for engraved text. I've been using FreeCAD to put website addresses on the custom parts I'm designing that are 3D printed on my MSLA resin 3D printer. The resolution is good enough that a simple font would probably be legible in 1mm tall font (not with my old eyes!), although I usually make the text 2mm or 3mm tall. The above FreeCAD disadvantage #1 is helping with disadvantage #2. The less intuitive user interface features are evolving to be more intuitive as the software matures, and that's a good thing. Unfortunately, it introduces a third disadvantage: 3) The FreeCAD demo videos on YouTube are quickly obsolete. Many times, I've found a video that explains some feature I want to use in FreeCAD, but I'm using a later version of FreeCAD so the demo is fairly useless because not only have the buttons all moved, many have disappeared to be replaced by different buttons as a more intuitive method is implemented. Overall, it's moving in the right direction but FreeCAD still has a few growing pains. I'd be a jerk to complain that the completely awesome free open source software isn't perfect, and doesn't work exactly the way I think it should. I currently have three different parts that I designed in FreeCAD, printing on three different 3D printers. I've only scratched the surface of what FreeCAD can do (finite element analysis, anyone?), but I'm definitely a satisfied customer. On 7/31/20 3:09 PM, Todd Zuercher wrote: > Other free Linux based options might be Inkscape with G-code Tools, or > Freecad. But both of them might be more painful to learn/use than what > you're doing now. Of those 2 Freecad is probably the most powerful, but > also the most cumbersome and difficult to use. _______________________________________________ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
