7 dislikes from Autodesk representatives. Thanks for the quick how-to video Brodie.

Fusion 360 exile here. Thanks for the useful intro.

For anyone new to CAD design, don't be fooled: The Hole tool is very useful. The hole tool allows you to define a hole with a radius, counterbore/countersink, and optional tapered point at the bottom. The software will then create a revolved cut with the defined profile shape. This can be later edited as a single feature with a single defined center point, which will reduce the number of sketches and features that you might mess up. Additionally, if you are designing something to be machined from a solid material, properly modeling the taper from the end of the drill bit is important. It allows you to correctly analyze the model, and the machinist doesn't have to call you up and ask how deep the hole should be because flat bottom holes can't be drilled. This is less critical for 3D printing applications, but the ability to create more complex hole geometry in less steps is still helpful.

Another Fusion 360 refugee here - sub'd and waiting for LOTS of content on FreeCad ! Thanks !!!

Fusion are really going to regret their recent move to restrict hobby use. In 5 years time with an army of freeCAD users starting their own businesses, not many are going to want to start shelling out $$$ and embark on a learning curve to switch to Fusion.

This is exactly the video I was searching for! The new license changes prompted me to look for alternatives to Fusion 360, plus I realized it won’t run natively on the Linux workstation I’m building next year. I’m still pretty new to CAD in general so I figured better to switch now than later, but all my experience so far is with Fusion so I was looking for a tutorial just like this to get a jump start on switching. Thanks for taking the time to make this!

Love your narrative style. I'm using FreeCAD for 3D printing and look forward to more guides.

I started learning and using Fusion 360 couple of months ago after getting a bit frustrated with FreeCad, and I was considering paying for subscription when I got better with Fusion 360. But the stunt AutoCad pulled opened my eyes to the fact that I will always be at the mercy of Autocad and they can change the terms any time they like and there's nothing I can do about it. So I am back to learning FreeCad where no one can dictate what I can or can't do, and I will be donating to the project whatever I can when I can.

FreeCAD it's an astonishing achievement

The trim tool was a revelation - thank you sir!

I'm here seeking asylum from the autodesk oppressors.

I have been using FCad v0.18 for about two solid months now. I am nowhere experienced in CAD generally, but I have become very comfortable in using FCad. The only real issue I have now is learning how to get text on my objects. It works sometime and getting the orientation of my text is a little troubling. But I am quite satisfied with its performance and the current tools it has. I still have a lot to learn. Its is an enjoyable application with a nice CAD community involved. Thanks for your input on this application.

I believe the days of over priced sub based app's are nearly over F360, Adobe and the other exorbitant priced app's are just not worth using anymore.

I laughed out loud when you said that hole is something you'll probably never use because that's a specific software feature I'm looking for. In Fusion 360 it's great for easily modeling printable threads and countersunk fasteners.

I’ve reached the max of my editable documents ( only 30) on Fusion 360 and now can’t save new designs , time to move to Freecad , many thanks for a great Tutorial.

Thank you so much for the "Highlight open vertexes " button! That has been a big frustration.

Would be keen to see a section on a key part of my Fusion workflow - jumping back and forth in the timeline and making edits. Not just revising a sketch, but reorganizing the order of things (eg move a fillet command to later in the timeline) or deleting an extrude (pad) operation. Oh and appreciate the moderate pace and even voice over of the video :)

Awesome stuff, thank you! Would love to see an Assembly! Also during the weekend I've now several times come across the recommendation to NOT sketch directly on a face but rather create a datum plane and use that instead, to work around some error that's currently still in FreeCAD. I'd love if you could go into that, maybe with a demonstration of said error so one knows what one wants to avoid. Right now it's all still a bit of a mystery 😅

Exactly what I was looking for. I've been using FreeCAD for years as a viewer but have never had any idea where to start with designing. I have used F360 a few times to design little things for 3D printing but the hobbyist licence keeps eroding. With this, I can make the leap I needed to make. Thanks!

Small tip: when you change settings like you did at the beginning, please do things like that a bit slower, and make sure to do things in the order you say. (You said change the gradient and add anti-aliasing, but you did those things in the order of adding anti-aliasing and then changing to a solid color background.) Great video, thanks for publishing this one!

I started fusion last year and with all their shenanigans and my trial ending, I’m exporting my projects and switching to free cad. This video is godsend

Thanks for not making an hour long video, great and short, straight to the point.

Yes please continue with FreeCAD tuts. Would like a video on G-code creation and possible a simulation starter.

This introduction was just what I needed to get started! Thank you for creating this video!

The best part about the F360 plan restructuring is all of the programming talent also into CAD who will iterate upon FreeCAD and OpenSCAD.

Thanks Brodie!! You are Just the guy we need to get us going in Freecad

Subscribed! I am happy to see tutorial video with subtitles (must required for deaf/foreign community). I was going to use Fusion 360 and learned license policy was recently changed. I finally switch to FreeCAD and Blender that I recently installed. I hope that developers catch up like insanely expensive commercial CAD applications (AutoCAD, SolidWorks, etc.)

You did a fantastic and I mean fantastic job of explaining things. You are a either a natural at this or you have instructed before. In a short time you gave clear information on how Freecad works including things to watch out for! Really hope you do more! Cheers!

freecad will become like blender now

I am just starting 3d design. This stuff is pretty hard. Thanks for explaining it well

From an engineering designers standpoint this seems much intuitive in creating parts. Thanks.

Thank you Brodie. I am a intermediate F360 user mostly for 3d printing and paper templates for cutting materials. I don't spend enough time per year on F360 to warrant a massive yearly subscription. Your video is also exactly what I need and coming in at the first video means I can learn at a pace rather than wading through loads of videos trying to catch up. I'm still not convinced FreeCad is what I need but you have prevented a premature binning of the software. I look forward to your next instalment. Aiden

Nice Introduction Video, Brodie. I like your methodical tutorial approach. Nicely done.

As a Rhino 3D User, this free CAD video tutorial is very useful for me. Thanks. Subbed.

Subbed and Belled. Would be lovely to see "Beginner" "Intermediet" and "Advance" user tutorials. There are a couple of beginner videos out there but I think if you made a complete series from beginner to advanced you would gain alot of subs and many people would benefit from it. Looking forward to see lot's and lot's of videos from you!

I just wanted to chime in and add that the sketch function in FreeCAD is in fact very similar to that in Solidworks (I trained in Solidworks as part of my engineering degree). I think we all got a bit spoilt by how A360 sketches. A360 sketching is really nice, while Solidworks/FreeCAD being a little more 'clunky', but it still works and works well.

Oh i just realized I'm not subbed :O Great tutorial thanks :3 I created my first part in this for my project now :D it was simple and hard to do when you're used to fusion but I already feel better at it! also I'm really happy there's a tutorial for someone who already knows CAD fundamentals but is transitioning!

I've been using Solidworks for nearly 20 years so I would like to see some comparisons to SW. I still have a valid SW license and would be happy to contribute in any way possible to further the open source progress of FreeCad.

I know how to use Fusion quite well and have some very basic skills on FC. This was very good video. I haven't known about that missing vertex option and have bit struggled with boolean operations. This immediately explained what I've been likely doing wrong in couple occasions. Very good job 👍👍

Please note at 3:40 - when the sketch turns green it is “fully defined” - i.e. zero degrees of freedom. This is very important.

This series is helping me so much with designs for projects on my channel. Thank you so much for taking the time to make these videos!!!

Thanks for this video! I appreciate your concise comparisons and demonstrations of basic operations and also pointing out "gotcha"s. The hint about the pocket tool, for example, being unable to cut a body in two is very helpful.

Super good intro! I've been learning FreeCAD for about a week and didn't come across everything you showed here earlier, like: - trim tool - validating sketch Since I got started with 3D modeling only now I can start directly on FreeCAD instead of being tempted by Fusion360 and likely migrate from later 😁 This unclear "10 active documents limit" might get quite the annoyance on their free plan.

So a while back, 2 years ago, i did my cswp solidworks certification. But since that is super expensive haha, i am looking into freecad. I would like to take all the examples from my book and course, then recreate them in freecad. Thanks for the video

I like Freecad alot. I have however stumbled upon Siemens Solid Edge and that thing is a local install with local storage. Definitely a solid 360 contender

Nice and useful video, thank you ! I will link this to my friends who are interested in FreeCAD.

This will be valuable to a lot of people including myself. Thanks for taking the time to do this.

Very timely information for me. I'm looking to start a small business that leverages some 3D modeling. As a result I've been debating the paid or start-up license of 360, because I was overwhelmed trying to understand freecad. Subscribed so that I can learn more!

Excelente explicación, gracias por mostrar y apoyar a Freecad. Saludos desde Chile.

Just ran through this and the other FreeCAD videos you have. Easily the best I have found so far. Subbed and liked, and considering bumping a current patreon cause to contribute to yours if these continue. Promise of this project is high... but good lord does it need some helping hands to climb the curve of that interface and the work flows.

YEP!!! I'm switching!!! Thanks for this it was exactly what I was looking for.

I hope you keep these up! Even just basic videos showing how to design various parts in FreeCAD would be awesome. I'd also love if you could show off some basics of assemblies. I love the joints in Fusion and how intractable they are and have yet to find something in FreeCAD that compares.

Subscribed. What I'd really want to know more about is how to deal with 3d sketching, more specifically on non orthogonal planes and for scaffolding purposes. Thinking of situations where you know a few parameters and need to use the sketch as a construct to find the actual measurements of your parts.

This video is very nicely done. Great info on the similarities and tips on how fusion360 users can find comfortable ways of doing things in FreeCAD. But, it immediately teaches techniques that, while very convenient, wiill almost guarantee the new user will quickly face the topological naming issue. Especially when encouraging the user that sketches can be changed at any time. While ture, there are caveats. Teaching/explaining how to use sketches attached to base planes with offsets, and other techniques, while less convenient, can avoid confusion and frustration. New users have enough to cope with transitioning from Fusion360, no sense adding to the frustration.

Great video, i had almost given up on free cad but in an effort to ditch windows 10 for liunx fusion360 is not a real option. However your vids have given me a good feeling about the move. Now just need to export all my projects. Keep up the good work.

Great tutorials. FC isn't easy to learn. I've used Rhino and Fusion360 and FC is by far the most complicated and non-intuitive. I hope the developers look into simplifying the process like in DesignSpark Mechanical and Space Claim. I am currently using DesignSpark Mechanical (which is a free version of Space Claim and has been for many years without any of the SolidWorks licensing games) and I can believe how intuitive it is and how brilliant the toolset is. I was actually up and running creating complex parts (a guitar necks and bodies) within a couple of hours after viewing a few KZfaq videos. FC developers should take a close look at DesignSpark Mechanical or Space Claim toolsets to get ideas for simplifying the FC interface. The Pull, Combine and move tools are so powerful and such a pleasure to work with. Please FC take a look at DesignSpark. Thanks Brodie for you time and efforts on helping us understand FC better.

The errors with non closed sketches reminds me very much of working with older versions of Solid works.You really had to look very closely to spot the error sometimes. I've just subscribed,this looks like it could get very interesting👍

Thanks, Brodie! This video helped me with a couple of FreeCAD features I was struggling with. Very much appreciate the video!

That's brilliant, extremely useful initiative, well explained and to the point !! thanks a lot for this

Really excellent tutorial and likewise with all the other videos on FreeCAD I have seen of yours. Thank you!

I'd love to see a video on loading reference into freecad and modelling from it? It's something I do quite often in F360, and I'm definitely considering the switch after this latest nerf of the free licence.

FreeCAD is awesome. Maybe there are few bugs but in my job we use FreeCAD to make all designs for manufacturing and using Path module to setup CAM.

I used F360 as a hobbiest for years, then it all went to hell. I have been looking for something for my 3D printer designs. I’ll try this right away.

Thanks for the video! Looking forward to more fusion to freecad vids

Really great video, so many little tips to pick up. I was trying freecad for the first time tonight and I had struggled without knowing how to align to the grid/edges, I know now! The UI also looks much better with your suggestions! The other thing I was struggling with was camera control, the cube in the top right can't be dragged like in fusion and the camera itself seemed to stay in rotation mode until I let go of shift. Maybe a video on that would be good :)

Brodie, thank you for this video. I will seriously consider making the shift fro F360.

Keep going with FreeCAD Brodie. Thank you. Subscribed.

I guess it really comes down to what you need. Sofar it seems to me that for mechanical solid modeling FreeCAD delivers very well. But for product design where you work more with surfaces, blend curves etc it quickly shows missing tools. RealThunder is a pretty god sent for FreeCAD to catch up.

Nice timing..! Hope to see threads in a future video

nice, clear, slow explanations ..... pls keep making such video on freecad. One note though- your theme color screen make it hard to see text and icons on youtube....I think the default is clearer when streaming on youtube

Outstanding and very timely. Please, keep producing these videos as there is keen interest at this time for this content. Thanks, .vp

This came up just great! I'm starting my migration with help from your videos for sure :)

In a way, this Fusion360 shitstorm is a blessing for FreeCAD, i did a lot of training in Siemens SolidEdge, just to be wasted time, so i learned and NEVER EVER waste time again learning how to use a closed source tool. Fuck Autodesk and guys, learn your lesson here. Thanks for the tips at the end!!

I am a SolidWorks CATIA user on a daily basis at work. This would be nice for home projects.

Thanks for making this video.

FreeCAD needs some UI overhaul... the huge number of small icons isn't really good for user experience. Everyone hated Ribbon UI when it was introduced, but in hindsight Ribbon helps with the clutter and legibility way more than people realize. Something similar to FreeCAD woudl be great. Especially when the resolutions of the screens are increasing rapidly, small 16x16 icons are just the evil. Having multiple tabs for different type of editing is also good in reducing clutter. And CAM integration would be almost essential these days. It's not in the style of linux-type software to integrate anything but one thing in a program, but frankly, manufacturing and designing are so integrated that I hope they'll add CAM facilities as well that can update when the model updates :)

Yay! Thanks much!! I absolutely refuse to use Fusion 360. Turned away from AutoCad at R17 and never want to look back. Sketchup Pro V8 has been my home since then (later Sketchups have less features). Curves are terrible in Sketchup for STL file creation though so, gonna check this out. Thanks again!

Fusion 360 seems to be one of the easiest pieces of SW to learn CAD. I made a start with DesignSpark Mechanical, then tried Fusion. Not an expert user but I do feel comfortable using it. My initial attempt with FreeCad was similar to using Solidworks 2013. It feels much more difficult, and was somewhat dissapointed. Willing to try more with FreeCad mainly because it's available for my work laptop, as a 3D Experience licence for designing stuff cannot be justified yet. And I do need occasionally to design something for work. If it wasn't for the cloud based feature of Fusion 360 I would already consider buying a proper licence. Anyway good video.

Exactly what I was looking for...thanks!

Coming from Fusion 360 making stuff in FreeCAD is quite a bit more tedious, I really hope it can get more attention and support.

Fusion 360/Rhino 3d user. Thanks for the tutorial!

It would be great to have more of you guys on FreeCAD Discord channel discord.gg/HrhnvnE

Great video, thanks. Had been using Fusion for a little while, but as it is cloud based, and my connection speed is not so great (retired, and no money) I decided to use FreeCAd. What this did highlight was, my 3D modelling skill. None. I do get confused with bodies, and multiple bodies in the same project, and the relationship when I use, say the sweep tool. FreeCAd is somewhat more bare bones than Fusion, but it is where I am now, for the speed. If you have the time, a lesson on the what is the 'tree' and the rules that would apply to bodies, and how bodies work in the project. regards, David

Really really good tutorial thank you Brodie.

LEAVING FUSION TO BE FREE CAD ADEPT

Great video! I work as a professional using CREO... and I am not happy with Fusion for my home applications. FreeCAD seems to be more like Creo than Fusion.... I will try it.

Thank you Brodie . I like how you explained things to get started . I have been fusion 360 for the last year between changing the user terrace to the recent changes in the free liscense fusion has alienated some of those I am mentoring . I still subscribe to the fusion 360 as there are more training videos like yours in fusion 360 than free cad . As just a comment I liked how you took the time to make the display the same .it took me several tries as it was don3 very quickly and there may be som3 difference between the apple an windows menu options . In apple the preferences tab was located in the free cad icon not the edit drop down menu. I am going to create a video today for my student using your model in a zoom meeting . The newbies have a lot to learn and the video is a little too fast for them but was perfect for me . So I am creating one that is for beginners I can send to you if you would like to see it . I know you are busy and I really appreciate your time . Do you have a Patron account ? Kind regards Dave Outlaw

This is so cool! You helped me decide to do the jump!

A significant difference seems to be in FreeCAD each sketch can only have one shape. In Fusion, I'm used to a sketch having many shapes, and then extruding those shapes to different heights, and even starting at different offsets. But it seems in FreeCAD, that's not the way. So many more sketches. Do I understand it right? (Edit: The first sketch can only have one shape, but sketches on the body later can have multiple so long as they don't overlap, but it seems they all get padded the same)

Like to see all those UI tweeks you and others do just be a standard part of 0.19+. It does need wholesome redesign of some UI features. All the 'under the hood' stuff is pretty rock solid. Perhaps see what can be borrowed from Blender's UI

I've actually never used either of them. For the small amount of CAD I do I use MoI. But the Fusion news made me look into FreeCad. I opened the program and didn't have the foggiest idea what to do. I couldn't even find any tools.

Wow, everything I heard about it was either outdated or wrong. Er, why do I need F360 now exactly?

Excellent. Thank you. More please.

This is a great video (but your audio was off a little). I'm a 360 user, and I am thinking about FreeCAD now, but after this video, I don't think I will. Not being able to split an existing body into multiple parts is a big deal for me. If I have an enclosure I'm building with a hole cut out on the side and some mounting holes on the bottom, I'll cut that part out of the existing body, export it to STL, then undo the cutting out. That gives me a much smaller piece to print and verify the fit. Mostly it's time I'm concerned with. It might take an hour to print that section of the bottom and side, but four or five to print the whole thing. I use this method on almost every project I work on, because most of my projects are mounting various electronics in enclosures for my projects. I don't want to give this up. But I think there are tools out there that I can do this with anyway. Maybe even my slicer (PrusaSlicer) can do that. I'll have to look at that, because if my slicer can do it, it's not a big deal to not be able to do it in my CAD tool.

Many thanks for this video. Keep going!

I am looking forward to you videos.

Excellent video. Thank you.

FreeCAD is very promising. Though I wish it were more stable on Mac OS. It would be nice to ditch the PC that I only use for CAD work.

Trying to learn 3D CAD. Tried Fusion 360. Couldn't save. Couldn't connect to anything online. Couldn't export stl. Laggy and buggy on my pretty beefy system. Fusion 360 wanted a lot of money. Fusion 360 is making FreeCAD look amazing.

Beautiful. Thank you so much for this