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I really want to like FreeCAD, but the lack of a native assembly system is the top killer for me. I know that plugins exist, but they have too many steps involv

I really want to like FreeCAD, but the lack of a native assembly system is the top killer for me. I know that plugins exist, but they have too many steps involved. I want to be able to just click on two holes on different bodies and immediately mate them with a rotating joint. Other nits exist, and random crashes are a huge problem for me, but until FreeCAD has better assemblies, I'll sadly be stuck with the extremely user-hostile Fusion360.

angry_moose 4y ago
Yeah, it's unfortunate. At best they're still 20 years behind the major players - I started working in Inventor in 05 and Solidworks in 08 and I'd gladly take those out of date versions over current FreeCAD. Its impressive what they've managed to do (geometry kernels are incredibly difficult) but its got a long way to go. I'm begrudgingly using Solid Edge Community at the moment.
2muchcoffeeman 4y ago
I haven’t had random crashes since 0.19. 0.20.1 and 0.20.2 seem pretty solid so far but I’m not a pro CAD user. Just designing things for my 3D printer. The assembly situation does suck. But I’ve been using Assembly 4 and that seems the easiest to understand. But what’s worse is that as a non-cad person. It’s difficult to get started still. The information is there but I’ve been using FreeCAD for years, and often the best place to look is YouTube for help. I’ve also found the forum a bit hostile because I ask stupid questions since I don’t know how to ask in the right way with the right words. I didn’t even realise why I might need an assembly workbench until very recently and then that changed my perspective on how I structured all my models. I wish there was a higher level explanation of how to use FreeCAD for complete beginners.
- bsder 4y ago
  The topological renumbering/renaming problem is THE killer bug that FreeCAD has got to fix. Until that bug is gone, FreeCAD has no future. Unfortunately, as I understand it, the only way to truly get rid of that is to entirely rewrite the geometry kernel. :(
  - mitthrowaway2 4y ago
    It's been (mostly) solved in this dev branch: https://github.com/realthunder/FreeCAD/releases https://github.com/realthunder/FreeCAD/releases The team is working on a merge, but it's a big merge.
    - app4soft 4y ago
      > It's been (mostly) solved in this dev branch To be clear, it is not a dev branch, but RealThunder's Link branch (FreeCADLink is a fork of FreeCAD). For topology naming, here is dev branch[0,1] [0] https://github.com/FreeCAD/FreeCAD/tree/development/toponaming https://github.com/FreeCAD/FreeCAD/tree/development/toponami... [1] https://github.com/FreeCAD/FreeCAD-Bundle/releases/tag/topo-naming https://github.com/FreeCAD/FreeCAD-Bundle/releases/tag/topo-...
  - bb88 4y ago
    Yeah, that bug is killer. I use F360 now, mostly because I'd make one change and the topology changed, and it wasn't clear how to fix it always. Though the one feature I miss from Fusion 360 is the thread plugin. It's not perfect but the custom thread profiles were way more powerful than F360.
  - 2muchcoffeeman 4y ago
    I guess it will never rival F360 or any professional packages. But if you’re like me and designing relatively simple things for 3D printing, it’s perfectly capable. You just need to be made aware from the beginning and understand how to structure your project.
  - RobotToaster 4y ago
    I hate to say it, but I'm doubtful anything based on openCASCADE will ever have much of a future, it seems to have a lot of fundamental problems. I'm surprised nothing has been done with the BRL-CAD kernel.
- ghostpepper 4y ago
  > I’ve also found the forum a bit hostile because I ask stupid questions since I don’t know how to ask in the right way with the right words. This is a much bigger problem than any missing features or UX issues with the software, and much harder to fix.
- JohnFen 4y ago
  > I’ve also found the forum a bit hostile because I ask stupid questions since I don’t know how to ask in the right way with the right words. Oh, yes, so much this. I dislike the forums, and certainly wouldn't ask any questions on them. When I use them, it's to browse through and hope someone else has already asked the question and received a useful answer.
khimaros 4y ago
I recommend the assembly3 addon, written by one of the developers responsible for solving the hierarchical naming issue. the core of FreeCAD is capable of assembly based workflows, it just isn't a built-in feature/workbench yet.
- mkl 4y ago
  How does that compare to Assembly 4 or A2Plus? I've just started trying to use FreeCAD for woodworking projects, and currently find the designing of separate parts and connecting them to be very difficult to understand.
  - 2muchcoffeeman 4y ago
    I use Assembly 4 because I frankly couldn’t understand how A3 worked. A4 is much more straightforward. Create LCSes. Align LCSes.
  - khimaros 4y ago
    a2plus is the most user friendly of the three. assembly4 has no direct lineage to assembly3 (confusingly). A4 uses local coordinate systems to place parts where A3 uses a constraint solver. there is a good overview here: https://wiki.freecadweb.org/Assembly https://wiki.freecadweb.org/Assembly

angry_moose 4y ago

Yeah, it's unfortunate. At best they're still 20 years behind the major players - I started working in Inventor in 05 and Solidworks in 08 and I'd gladly take those out of date versions over current FreeCAD. Its impressive what they've managed to do (geometry kernels are incredibly difficult) but its got a long way to go. I'm begrudgingly using Solid Edge Community at the moment.

2muchcoffeeman 4y ago

I haven’t had random crashes since 0.19. 0.20.1 and 0.20.2 seem pretty solid so far but I’m not a pro CAD user. Just designing things for my 3D printer. The assembly situation does suck. But I’ve been using Assembly 4 and that seems the easiest to understand. But what’s worse is that as a non-cad person. It’s difficult to get started still. The information is there but I’ve been using FreeCAD for years, and often the best place to look is YouTube for help. I’ve also found the forum a bit hostile because I ask stupid questions since I don’t know how to ask in the right way with the right words. I didn’t even realise why I might need an assembly workbench until very recently and then that changed my perspective on how I structured all my models. I wish there was a higher level explanation of how to use FreeCAD for complete beginners.

bsder 4y ago
The topological renumbering/renaming problem is THE killer bug that FreeCAD has got to fix. Until that bug is gone, FreeCAD has no future. Unfortunately, as I understand it, the only way to truly get rid of that is to entirely rewrite the geometry kernel. :(
- mitthrowaway2 4y ago
  It's been (mostly) solved in this dev branch: https://github.com/realthunder/FreeCAD/releases https://github.com/realthunder/FreeCAD/releases The team is working on a merge, but it's a big merge.
  - app4soft 4y ago
    > It's been (mostly) solved in this dev branch To be clear, it is not a dev branch, but RealThunder's Link branch (FreeCADLink is a fork of FreeCAD). For topology naming, here is dev branch[0,1] [0] https://github.com/FreeCAD/FreeCAD/tree/development/toponaming https://github.com/FreeCAD/FreeCAD/tree/development/toponami... [1] https://github.com/FreeCAD/FreeCAD-Bundle/releases/tag/topo-naming https://github.com/FreeCAD/FreeCAD-Bundle/releases/tag/topo-...
- bb88 4y ago
  Yeah, that bug is killer. I use F360 now, mostly because I'd make one change and the topology changed, and it wasn't clear how to fix it always. Though the one feature I miss from Fusion 360 is the thread plugin. It's not perfect but the custom thread profiles were way more powerful than F360.
- 2muchcoffeeman 4y ago
  I guess it will never rival F360 or any professional packages. But if you’re like me and designing relatively simple things for 3D printing, it’s perfectly capable. You just need to be made aware from the beginning and understand how to structure your project.
- RobotToaster 4y ago
  I hate to say it, but I'm doubtful anything based on openCASCADE will ever have much of a future, it seems to have a lot of fundamental problems. I'm surprised nothing has been done with the BRL-CAD kernel.
ghostpepper 4y ago
> I’ve also found the forum a bit hostile because I ask stupid questions since I don’t know how to ask in the right way with the right words. This is a much bigger problem than any missing features or UX issues with the software, and much harder to fix.
JohnFen 4y ago
> I’ve also found the forum a bit hostile because I ask stupid questions since I don’t know how to ask in the right way with the right words. Oh, yes, so much this. I dislike the forums, and certainly wouldn't ask any questions on them. When I use them, it's to browse through and hope someone else has already asked the question and received a useful answer.

khimaros 4y ago

I recommend the assembly3 addon, written by one of the developers responsible for solving the hierarchical naming issue. the core of FreeCAD is capable of assembly based workflows, it just isn't a built-in feature/workbench yet.

mkl 4y ago
How does that compare to Assembly 4 or A2Plus? I've just started trying to use FreeCAD for woodworking projects, and currently find the designing of separate parts and connecting them to be very difficult to understand.
- 2muchcoffeeman 4y ago
  I use Assembly 4 because I frankly couldn’t understand how A3 worked. A4 is much more straightforward. Create LCSes. Align LCSes.
- khimaros 4y ago
  a2plus is the most user friendly of the three. assembly4 has no direct lineage to assembly3 (confusingly). A4 uses local coordinate systems to place parts where A3 uses a constraint solver. there is a good overview here: https://wiki.freecadweb.org/Assembly https://wiki.freecadweb.org/Assembly