I loved the idea of FreeCAD but having no experience in CAD software at all I always struggled with fundamental basics that were not covered in the tutorials I watched. The huge amount of work benches (some of them 3rd party) did not help since most forum posts or tutorials were based on different or outdated versions.

Having a go with build123d now, trying to model stuff using python. At least the number of available API functions is manageable and everything else is just programming (which I already know).

[–] bluewing@lemm.ee 18 points 5 days ago (2 children)

If you want the best tutorials on FreeCAD, check out mangojelly on youtube. He has a current 1.0 beginner series that starts right from the very beginning. And he goes slow enough to easily follow along.

Ignore the huge number of workbenches. You can even go to the Settings and turn the ones you don't need off so you never see them again. You are only going to use 2 workbenches 90% of the time-- Part Design and Sketcher. And as you get more experience, you might add another couple of workbenches as you go. Most of the third party workbenches are specialty things. For example, I sometimes need to design and make gears or do small sheetmetal work. So I have the Gear and sheetmetal workbenchs installed. You probably would never need it.

Learning CAD, no matter what flavor, does require effort. It's as much about learning how to think as it is about learning how to do.

[–] seth@lemmy.world 2 points 4 days ago

Part, part design, arch, curves, draft, and sketcher for me. Everything I need for 3d print modeling as well as larger scale planning. I recently stumbled on to the spreadsheet/data tab and don't know how I've gone so long without it. Very handy for named dimension references all in one place

[–] Lem453@lemmy.ca 1 points 4 days ago

Also this channel has many new videos with freecad 1.0. Especially for woodworking

https://youtube.com/@deltahedra3d

[–] jagged_circle@feddit.nl 6 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

I find the opposite. There's so many videos on FreeCAD its wonderful. And if you're stuck, ive posted to the forums and within a week someone literally took my file and made a video showing how to do what I couldn't figure out.

Such a fantastic community.

[–] MayonnaiseArch@beehaw.org 1 points 4 days ago

For me it's a bit different - just installing things to get build123d to work is an insurmountable obstacle. Because I'm not a programmer it's rage-inducing. But I guess that's how this stuff goes 😉

[–] captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works 2 points 5 days ago

One of the things I would do if I had control of FreeCAD would be to reduce the number of workbenches it ships with. Why does every copy come with the Robot workbench? Who is A) working with industrial robot arms and B) using FreeCAD to do so? Especially since it's "Currently unmaintained?" there was awhile there where it also came with a "ship" workbench which could generate a container ship hull with one click. For my purposes I end up hiding the BIM, CAM, Draft, FEM, Inspection, Mesh, Points, and Surface workbenches as I never use them, and it declutters things quite nicely.