FreeCAD Blog

FreeCAD
3d printing blog
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(top listing is most recent)
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2024-04-28
- Moved to Beelink mini computer some months ago. Have had no lockups, still using 20.1 appimage
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2022-12-29
- Using FC 20.1 may have helped slightly, but didn't cure the problem - it still locks up. See also Dell Tower Blog.
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2022-12-24
- FreeCAD still locking up. Sometimes locks up the whole computer, other times only the screen locks up with block pattern, but the mouse still responds so I can close FC.
- Have been using 2022-11-07 weekly build. Will get latest and see if it helps.
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2022/11/08:
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2022/05/28:
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2021/03/19:

Things have stabilized, though don't remember what I did to make it so. Have not had a lockup in some time.
Re-doing the servo battery switch project to increase gear ratio. Re-designing the gearbox and attachment to gripper. Printing first revs now, will be some days before I can test them.
Along the way learned how to do an assembly drawing, putting several drawing elements into the same assembly drawing, moving them to correct positions. This allows much better visualization of finished project, as well as allowing checking for clearances, etc.

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2020/09/20:

Back using FC after several weeks off. Doing a case for clock. Lots of constraints, like close to 200 on some sketches. Lockups continue. Must save work often.

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2020/06/22:

Still hammering on the battery switch servo model. Progress, but still a long way to go.
Lock-ups continue. For one thing, I've discovered that if I have a complicated model, with a lot of features, and I want to edit a feature that is not at the bottom of the tree view, it will only work if my edit is only dimension/position changes. Conversely, if I need to add or remove a feature in the middle of the model tree, the model will break, sometimes including lockup.

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2020/05/31:

Program still locking up, like this morning and once yesterday. This morning I was using Part WB, doing a variable chamfer.

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2020/05/24:

Making progress refining the servo case model. Long process. Many iterations.
That said, FC has bombed a few times in the last week, a couple of times requiring full power-down/reboot. Seems it always happens when I'm doing something with constraints. Also, though this is more anecdotal than data, it seems it happens on models that at some time in the past I've had to go in and edit dimensions or elements up in the model tree. Generally when I do such things, I re-pad, etc. through the model, starting at the top, and that seems to restore things, but perhaps not really.

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2020/05/17:

Found a promising forum note suggesting I may have created the feature in the Sketcher workbench rather than in Part Design, and/or that I failed to select the Body before creating the sketch. Will test sometime later ...
- in Part Design, select sketch in model tree
- right-click, then select "move object after another layer"
- click drop-down to select where you want to move the sketch
For now I'm re-creating models as needed ... Still working on the servo case.

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2020/05/13:

Curioser and curioser. When editing a drawing to adjust dimensions of a pad, it happens that pads defined later get messed up, like they get unattached to the faces where they were originally drawn, and moved to some other face, even a face on a different pad. Studying...

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2020/05/11:

Drawing servo case and printing. On third iteration, dialing it in ...
Discovered it is possible to edit a Pad after extruding, even after adding other entities. You do however usually need to re-do constraints...
Computer has crashed, FC locking up, 2 or 3 times during this design process with the servo case. The last two times, however, I was more patient, and when it locked up, I just walked away and waited, and lo eventually it recovered with no need to power down the whole computer.
It does seem to happen during operations with constraints.
Two learnings to capture:
- In model tree: select the sketch you want to check
  In Part Design WB: Part Design tab > Validate Sketch
  opens dialogue box. Under Missing coincidences, click Find
  Under Invalid constraints, click Find
  Click OK after each, Close when done.
  If errors are found, they will be highlighted in the drawing.
  In my (limited) experience it's better to fix them yourself rather than clicking "Fix"
  In Model tree, passing cursor over sketch listings will sometimes show "Error",
  or a block listing redundant constraints
  ("Error" can be due to your sketch not being "closed", even though it may be fully constrained)
- Check each sketch you create with the above method and fix any errors before moving on. If you don't, things can get impossible to fix later.
- I tried using a construction mode point to reference locations of line elements in a sketch, but often had weird missing or redundant coincidence errors, so I abandoned the practice.
  Generally it seemed less error-prone to start a series of connected lines in a sketch with one end of one line locked, then use horizontal and vertical and length constraints for the rest of the lines.

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2020/05/10:

Basically gave up for now on trying to get an stl file imported and editable in FC. Surely may be possible, but process is beyond my current skill level and past the point of diminishing returns to figure it out right now.
Did however manage to create a drawing (and stl/gCode, printing as we speak) of servo motor drive gear blank, with spindle socket for servo motor. That was a process in itself. Learned about using external constraint references. Valuable learning.
Printing successful, and after a couple of iterations have dialed in the dimensions to fit the spindle well.

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2020/05/09:

Checked FC download site and my current version (Dell tower) is still most recent stable version: 16146
making incremental progress. Have loaded stl file, still working through tutorials and forums to figure out how to edit it ...

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2020/05/08:

Back to it. Attempting to get an stl file properly converted so I can import it into FC. So far stuck at first step, as File > import is grey/inactive. Searching for whatever to enable it...

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2019/12/18:

See 3dprinting blog for details of color change printing. Bottom line, all successful. Romeo done.
Installed MeshLab from software manager. Tried to import a .dae file, but nothing. Reading further discovered I need
pyCollada installed. Working on it...

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2019/12/16:

Finished rebuilding romeo. All looks good. Meshed and exported stl file.
Created new drawing for a filament-color-change test. Meshed and exported stl file.

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2019/12/15:

Working to rebuild romeo and cut the corners off:
Selected meshed body in model tree and pressed delete.
Selected chamfer in model tree and pressed delete.
Double-clicked Sketch under first Pad, then for each constraint, selected to make it turn dark green, then pressed delete. Similarly deleted the circles for corner holes.
Fumbled around and think I got it stripped down to where I can now add the corner cuts. Curious however that it seems as if the names of the sketches that display in the model tree have changed with my deletions. Didn't keep close enough log so not sure, will have to watch if I do such things again.

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2019/12/14:

FC does unexpected things when you 'Save-As' a file to the same name.
It overwrites [filename] .FCStd with all changes made to the moment.
But it also creates a new file, [filename] .FCStd1 that is
the orig [filename].FCStd minus any changes made since it was last Saved.
However when you select to Open a file into FC, only the .FCStd options are listed.
Subsequent repeats of save-as to the same name do not create more files,
you still only have the two in the directory, the .FCStd and the .FCStd1 .
Working through, and editing as I go, my page: 3d model with Part Design

noticed that regardless that I selected 10mm grid in Edit Controls, Edit > Preferences > Sketcher still shows 0mm
in any case selected 10mm and Grid Snap in Preferences.
Even so, trying to draw a line, grid snap does not seem to be enabled.
yet going to Draft workbench I see that all snaps are enabled...
Got some things figured out, did a test model, meshed it, exported stl, imported into PrusaSlicer, and lo, it's printing.
Also created a test part with a "berm" around it. Drew complete outline of the berm, then extruded/padded it, and it printed fine too, in spite of the fact that it's not "solid" in a SketchUp sense, since there seems to be no way (nor apparently any need) to remove the lines where the original pad and the berm pad intersect.

Edit > Placement to rotate...
selecting different axes of rotation always still result in part being parallel to X-Z plane, which was the plane of creation. Solution, since Prusa requires part in X-Y plane, is to start there when a new part is created. OTOH it's really trivial to rotate it in PrusaSlicer, so it's kind of moot.
Researching how to create 3d text. Managed to make it work with shapeString, though I was fumbling and not sure what I did or if I could repeat it (and had another full crash in the process...). Still, I managed get a Romeo plaque made, meshed, and sliced, and it's printing.
Trouble getting grid to show on models that I work on, then close, then re-open...
On another issue, it appears from forums that draft snap does not work in Sketcher. No mention if this will be an added feature in future releases...

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2019/12/13:

Progress in FreeCAD. Got through the part Design tutorial. And started re-doing my first romeo sign file.
OTOH in the midst of not sure what I was doing, it crashed again, again requiring complete tower power-down and reboot....
Went back to romeo01 and tried to make changes learned in tutorial, but after fully constraining and closing tasks, and switching (don't think it did it automatically) to Part Design, could not see my part, even after clicking axonometric and fit all.
Starting over with romeo02 (saving after almost every step)

create new document, select part design
click create body, rename it
click create sketch:
"The Combo View now switches to the Tasks tab and displays the Select feature dialog."
select XZ_plane, click-OK
workspace changes to sketcher
in Tasks, Edit controls, select 10mm grid
save-as drawing
draw perimeter lines
make them fully constrained
however, in process of drawing, it crashed again, requiring full power-down reboot
continuing after reboot:
close tasks which returns to Part Design
however axonometric and fit-all again fail to show drawing...
But clicking Pad indeed gave me a default 10mm thickness and showed my drawing. go figure.
clicked reversed and OK
clicked on large front face and create sketch
draw a new line, constrained vertical and 50mm long
click on new line endpoint, click lock
dbl-click constraint dimensions to set to 5mm off perimeter
continued with remaining lines
error said I had redundant constraint #13
Tasks > Constraints, selected 13, deleted. All good now. Close
with sketch001 highlighted: Tasks > Pad
set thickness to 0.2mm, clicked reversed, OK
but it didn't remove any material (like sketchup extrude would have)
In Model, click on body (part01), click view tab at bottom,
scroll down, click transparency, enter "50" then <CR>
didn't work.
did same for sketch001

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2019/12/12:

on 0.18 on tower:
click big "+" to "create new"
click dropdown by 'Start' at top and select "Part Design"
at left, click Start Body, then Create Sketch
Edit > Preferences > Units ... already default to mm
on left, Select Feature, click X-Z plane, click OK
on left, Edit Controls, click all, and set grid to 10mm
drew a random line using Line tool
???at some point realized I was in "Sketcher" mode, but when I went back to Part Design, I no longer had the drawing options.
???I saved as my file, then reopened, but now can't see the line I drew, nor the grid except for a small section in the middle. Tried Draft > Utilities but toggle grid did nothing...
??? but: selected sketcher workbench; then on left, under model-application-romeo01-body, double-click sketch and my line and the grid became visible.
SOLUTION: go to draft workbench, view-tools, draft snap on
Lots of tries and re-tries. Version 0.18 is different enough from 0.17 that much of the tutorials and notes don't apply. However I have been making progress, multiple iterations, baby steps, but will keep at it.
Was playing with the 3d orientation icon in upper right corner, trying to understand how to display different views, and managed to crash. Had to shut down the tower and reboot, and the desktop shortcut was broken and had to be rebuilt when I got it back up.

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2019/12/11:

After countless attempts, finally was successful in downloading newest (0.18) version of FreeCAD onto Dell tower. See my installation page for details.

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