How To Make A Part Drawing In Freecad

Update 29 April 2016: Updated Ulrich Brammer'south Unfolding tool to ver 17. Thank you Ulrich!

Every bit office of doing home made projects one needs some kind of CAD software to pattern mechanical parts. Equally a fan of open source software I utilise FreeCAD which is a keen alternative to the market'due south highly expensive Solid CAD software.

One thing I use a lot, is designing Sheet Metallic parts. As there is no special support for it in FreeCAD, it tends to take time to design Sheet Metallic parts, as I need to manually add sketches, extrude walls, and add together fillets. Furthermore, If I found something to be wrong in the base part, I take to go over the entire procedure to fix it.

This is where open up source software shines. If I demand a new feature, I can just become alee and add it. Turns out FreeCAD is very friendly to extensions. So I decided to add together a sheet metallic extension and share it with others. One thing worth mentioning: there is this guy who is working on a canvas metallic extension which will probably be far ameliorate then mine, but until he releases it, my extension can aid speed up role blueprint.

Installing the extension

Starting from Frecad 0.17, The installation is simple and done using FreeCad'due south Add-on manager (Under 'Tools' menu)

For older versions:
To use the sail metal extension, first yous need to install the latest version of FreeCAD (0.16 at the time of writing) if yo dont have it already.
At present go ahead and download the extension: SheetMetal_V0.0.xviii
Extract this zip file into the Mod directory nether the FreeCAD installation path. (on Windows it's something like "C:\Program Files\FreeCAD 0.16\Mod")
Y'all should at present see a new directory under Mod: SheetMetal.
That's all for installation.

Working with the Sheet Metal extension

To simply understand how to piece of work with the Sheet Metal extension, here is a sample workflow:

Start with thin layer solid shape, either by extruding a sketch, or creating a thin Box. From the workbench drib-down select "Canvas Metal". Now select one of the side faces of your objects:

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The Sheet Metallic workbench shows 2 control icons:

Curve: Add bended extension

Extrude: Add a strait extrusion of the face

Click the Bend tool:

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A xc degrees bended extension with default values will be added. You can now play with the bend parameters by selecting the Curve part in the model tree, and then the Data tab underneath. In the parameters table, change the length to 7mm and add a 2mm gap on both sides:

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Let'south extend the bended flap sideways. Select both side faces of the new wall. (Press and agree Control to select multiple faces). Now click the Extrude tool:

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Shape the outcome: In the parameters panel, ready length to 5mm and gap2 to 1mm:

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Now permit'southward add more bended extensions. This time select two side faces of the base to make ii symmetric bends. Click Bend. Set the length to 7mm:

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That's it, you tin can continue now and add more bends and extrusions until you become you lot desired final part. The nice thing nigh it all that the final part is fully parametric. This means that any change in a parent part will immediately propagate to the dependent parts, without the need to redo them. Click the gray "Cube" part from the model tree, and modify the Length to 60mm. See how all the bends adjusts accordingly:

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The parameters of the Curve give you lots of flexibility. You can for instance add merely the bend, by setting the Length to zero, or even simply add the relief cuts, by setting the bend angle to zero too:

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Upon completion of the sheet metal part, you can select the OpenScad workbench and employ the Refine () tool to cleanup the geometry.

Hither is a sample part made with several symmetric bends:

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That's all! Hope information technology helps someone. Over time I will try to add some more features and go along the above SheetMetal.zip updated. You are welcome to go out comments and suggestions.

Update 13 Jun 2015: Ulrich Brammer's Unfolding tool Added. Thank you Ulrich!

Ulrich Brammer'southward not bad unfolding tool is now integrated into the workbench. Many thanks for the developer. To employ it, but select any i of the faces of the folded sheet metallic and press the Unfold () icon