[AR] Re: Open Source Igniter / Rocket
- From: Steve Traugott <stevegt@xxxxxxx>
- To: arocket@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 11 Feb 2015 17:49:09 -0800
On Wed, Feb 11, 2015 at 4:37 AM, Graham Sortino <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> wrote:
> thanks for the suggestion. i think part of my reason for not going with
> the more professional grade CAD tools is that they are extremely expensive
> and thus somewhat out of reach for hobbyists. I know that in many cases
> there are exceptions to get free or discounted licenses but I do feel like
> its not the same as something that is truly open source or even very
> accessible like Eagle CAD.
In case it's not clear to lurkers, all of those I listed (FreeCAD,
OpenSCAD, BRL-CAD, CadQuery, and OpenCASCADE) are free and open source.
It's pretty clear FreeCAD is going after solidworks users -- part tree,
parametric, constraints, even the background color.
I was peripheraly aware of FreeCAD but hadn't looked at it in a while. I'm
> definitely at the limit with regards to what I can do in blender so I will
> certainly check this out.
>
If you've been able to bend blender to your will for doing engineering,
FreeCAD should be a breath of fresh air. ;-)
Youtube has a lot of FreeCAD tutorials. I haven't watched them myself, but
I've heard good things about Bram de Vries' tutorial series:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLVrqzKSVAONHYXc9G9y9wHWus3ManpzUn
> As an asside, do you happen to know if FreeCAD can do machine screw and/or
> tapered threads?
>
Yep. Google shows a bunch of FreeCAD thread libraries, including on
github. If you need something strange, FreeCAD does helical sweeps, lofts,
etc, and for doing even stranger things, you can always drop down into
Python.
I think the thing most folks here will wish for is production-grade sheet
metal and tubing modules -- there are people playing with different ways of
doing those, but nothing in the mainstream code yet afaik. There is a
generic mesh workbench in there though, which might help with sheet metal.
And I just now noticed a FEM workbench in the latest version -- I'm
actually surprised to see that there already.
Steve
*From*:"Steve Traugott" <stevegt@xxxxxxx>
> *Date*:Tue, Feb 10, 2015 at 7:16 PM
> *Subject*:[AR] Re: Open Source Igniter / Rocket
>
> On Sat, Feb 7, 2015 at 6:53 PM, Redacted sender gnsortino@xxxxxxxxx for
> DMARC <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
>> >>Sorry about Blender, I used solidworks and it has a nice helical
>> sweep feature
>> Thanks for the info. I need to get away from Blender but I’ve gotten used
>> to it and can’t seem to kick the habit.
>>
>
> Not to digress (who, us?) but FreeCAD has gotten quite good in recent
> years. It's pretty stable now (you'll still want to save often though) and
> while it's not quite solidworks yet, I now think it's a safe bet that it
> will eventually become a defacto standard -- I just wish they'd change the
> name.
>
> Otherwise, I'm still using OpenSCAD for most things, out of inertia. I
> had high hopes for BRL-CAD a few years ago, but I think FreeCAD has taken
> that space.
>
> For anyone who likes scripting parts like in OpenSCAD, but wants to use
> the more capable OpenCASCADE engine (FreeCAD's backend), there are a few
> options. One is CadQuery, which uses FreeCAD as an IDE or can be run
> standalone with no GUI, such as from a makefile.
>
> Steve
>
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