freecad tutor

[zegonix]

i need to make a case for my keyboard (https://github.com/zegonix/qua-ken) and want to do it with freecad, because it runs on linux natively.
but i really struggle to get started.
so is there someone who would be willing to explain the basics to me?

[Leslieann]

Youtube has tutorials on Freecad.

Be prepared for a long road, it only gets more difficult (and expensive) from here.

[zegonix]

yes, i know. i already watched a bunch of videos. usually i learn much easier, if i can ask my questions right away, that why i hoped for someone to help me, but i will probably have to take the long and bumpy road and try to learn from youtube.

[Leslieann]

yes, i know. i already watched a bunch of videos. usually i learn much easier, if i can ask my questions right away, that why i hoped for someone to help me, but i will probably have to take the long and bumpy road and try to learn from youtube.

It's better if you think of CAD as a language.
There is no 5 minute learning CAD, that's why they have years long classes in schools for it.

[vvp]

Well, OpenScad is more like a language. FreeCad is more of a drawing tool. One draws sketches, annotates them with dimensions, then extrudes them. Almost all of it is strictly drawing sans using the "spread sheet" or the python console feature to compute parameters using formulas or directly controlling FreeCad engine respectively. FreeCad is quite similar to commercial Alibre (which is similar to SolidWorks and others). The main difference is that FreeCad is more buggy especially when replaying history after some parameter change. The limited Alibre Atom3D is not that expensive (around $300).

@zegonix: If you are struck and do not know how to do something with FreeCad you can always ask an AI. It gives correct answers often enough to be useful. Moreover it is not critical when your AI hallucinates garbage since you will verify the responses when trying to do it in FreeCad. So the high error rate of AIs does not matter much.
You do not need a paid AI. You can try a free versions e.g. on duckduckgo:
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=DuckDuckGo+AI+Chat&ia=chat&duckai=1

[zegonix]

don't get me wrong, i knew it was going to take time. it is just helpful to me, if someone can give me kickstart to get me invested enough to not stop on the first obstacle

@vvp thanks for the advice. i think i will stick with freecad for the time being, seems to be good enough for my purposes. the first draft will just be a fixture to be able to use my keyboard.