Bait Chopper Frame

[Nic_dEntremont]

Hey everyone I'm Nick, a welder fabricator from Nova Scotia; I took an AutoCAD course in school and had the chance to design some projects to cut on their CNC plasma table.

I recently started my own welding business and since AutoCAD has a bit of a price tag on it I decided to look for alternatives. I always liked open source software; I already use other open source programs for my business so I decided to try FreeCAD. It's a little tricky compared to the big brand name programs but seems like it should be able to do everything that I would ever need to do and much more.

I like drawing my creations out on CAD just to be able to save them for future reference and print nice blueprints whenever needed. I got tired of the horrible drawings I would get at my old shop done on ripped up boxes and pieces of plywood. On top of that, when clients ask me to build something, sending them 3D renderings of what I plan on making makes me seem cool

Anyway, I tried to draw the frame for one of the products I plan on selling, a bait chopper. The frame would be made of 1-1/2" x 1-1/2" x 3/16" Aluminum angle. Anyway Here's some screenshots of what I came up with after a bit of messing around. It's still a wireframe but I'll figure out how to make it solid soon enough.

Code: Select all

OS: Windows 10 Version 2009
Word size of FreeCAD: 64-bit
Version: 0.20.2.29603 (Git)
Build type: Release
Branch: releases/FreeCAD-0-20
Hash: 930dd9a76203a3260b1e6256c70c1c3cad8c5cb8
Python 3.8.10, Qt 5.15.2, Coin 4.0.1, Vtk 8.2.0, OCC 7.6.3
Locale: English/Canada (en_CA)

[chrisb]

Hi Nick, welcome to the forum, nice to see another professional use of FreeCAD!

I would like recommend to model with solids right away: it's much easier and better to control if changes are needed. Using e.g. PartDesign, you can draw the sections in Sketcher and pad them which gives you directly a beam or a plate.

[Nic_dEntremont]

Hi Nick, welcome to the forum, nice to see another professional use of FreeCAD!

I would like recommend to model with solids right away: it's much easier and better to control if changes are needed. Using e.g. PartDesign, you can draw the sections in Sketcher and pad them which gives you directly a beam or a plate.

Thanks for the help, I'll try that next time. I'm still getting used to where everything is and the slightly different names for the functions.

[Shalmeneser]

Can you provide a file ?

[Nic_dEntremont]

Can you provide a file ?

Sure.

FYI, I know I messed something up when I mirrored one of the pieces and it's giving me an error.

[Shalmeneser]

Oh, a lot of independent L-frames all the same dimensions.
It's not my kind of work.

Should use a Binder or clone of the 1st frame.

[Nic_dEntremont]

Oh, a lot of independent L-frames all the same dimensions.
It's not my kind of work.

Should use a Binder or clone of the 1st frame.

I wouldn't expect it to be anyone's kind of work honestly. I started following the FreeCAD manual and the first practical lesson is making a table with metal angle style legs. The method the manual uses to make those takes a fraction of the time that my attempt did.

[rmn_hr]

Hi Nic,

tried your Bait Chopper Frame in ASM4.

L-shapes designed as a single PartDesign-Components each

Two L's (9.5") paired as Subassembly - used than left and right on the 'middle-frame'

Bait Chopper_asm.JPG (29.56 KiB) Viewed 20440 times

Structure of assembly in ComboView looks like this:

Bait Chopper_ComboView.JPG (41.42 KiB) Viewed 20440 times

ComboView shows structure of the frame very good and it was done pretty fast

[Nic_dEntremont]

Hi Nic,

tried your Bait Chopper Frame in ASM4.

L-shapes designed as a single PartDesign-Components each

Two L's (9.5") paired as Subassembly - used than left and right on the 'middle-frame'

Bait Chopper_asm.JPG


Structure of assembly in ComboView looks like this:

Bait Chopper_ComboView.JPG

ComboView shows structure of the frame very good and it was done pretty fast

That looks nice.

I'm going to keep following the FreeCAD Manual and attempt another model once I'm done with that. It's been very informative so far, maybe even more so that my CAD teacher at welding school.

[Nic_dEntremont]

I've been spending a little bit at the end of each day going over the FreeCAD manual. It's very informative.

I rebuilt my bait chopper frame and added the blade to it. I did some messing around with the TechDraw workbench and made a quick blueprint. I kept the pieces separate, I would like the option of making an exploded view on the bigger things I make that separate all the parts individually. I also attached a picture of the real one I built yesterday so you can see how they work.