this post was submitted on 19 Nov 2024
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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of work benches (some of them 3rd party) did not help since most forum posts or tutorials were based on different or outdated versions.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).
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.
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