Awesome Gears in FreeCAD

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Download FreeCAD: www.freecadweb.org/index.php
FreeCAD Wiki: wiki.freecadweb.org/Main_Page
FCGear Add-on: github.com/looooo/freecad.gears
Add-on installation path: "C:\Users\your-pc-name\AppData\Roaming\FreeCAD\Mod"
In this video I teach you how to design advanced gears in FreeCAD. This time I show you how to use an add-on called FCGear. FCGear can be downloaded from GitHub via the link above. Using FCGear anyone can very easily design spur gears, helical gears, dual helical gears, herringbone gears, worm gears, and much more! Enjoy!
00:00 Intro
00:37 What are FreeCAD add-ons?
01:03 How to install add-ons through FreeCAD
01:58 How to install add-ons manually
03:48 Gear Workbench
04:36 Creating a Spur Gear
06:48 Creating a Helical Gear
07:17 Creating a Herringbone Gear
08:24 Weight Reduction Holes
10:47 Creating a Worm Gear
11:55 Outro
12:14 Kindly Consider Supporting Me
#FreeCAD #CAD #gears
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[@thehardwareguy]

To learn more about meshing two gears properly, check out this video: kzbin.info/www/bejne/f5nGfYauZ9Wji7s

[@rklauco]

Btw, the membership page does not work... The problem does not seem to be on my end... Seems to either not work at all or, after refresh, responds VERY slowly. Just FYI.

[@Helz777]

You know, I thought this was all beyond me. You're a brillant teacher.

[@williamna5800]

This series is pure gold. New to 3D printing and FreeCAD so it's a godsend.

[@bigbronx]

Thank you for the video, I am sure it will be helpful at some point. So far I managed to design and print a couple relatively simple parts for an anemometer with FreeCAD and your videos have been awesome!

[@CarlinComm]

Wow, thanks so much for sharing this! I love how open this community is! One step closer to the robot uprising :)

[@rklauco]

Thanks, really valuable. Especially your comments about 3D printability with basic nozzle.

[@johnhindle3325]

Many thanks for a great video,but a simpler method for those who are just starting with FreeCAD or just want to make a gear without being a part of something else, is open in Part Design Workbench -New- Add Body,switch to Gear Workbench -Make gear- switch back to Part Design Workbench-select face of gear and make sketch for holes etc.Hope this helps.

[@jens-digitalwoodwork9852]

Great, tried and successfully get my first gears with the addon! Thank you

[@phrozenwun]

Been wanting to get started playing with freecad, yours is the best intro I have found - very straightforward, just the right amount of explanation. TY

[@adolphbot]

This channel is phenomenal. Thank you so much for all your work!

[@ashers_workshop]

Wow! Thanks! Before i couldn't find very good FreeCAD Tutorials, but now i found it! Keep up the good work!

[@tocodelray]

Free open source software that can do THIS, plus easily accessible youtube tutorials... what a time to be alive! Thanks a lot! You're a great teacher.

[@ExtantFrodo2]

Another W&B fan?

[@tocodelray]

@@ExtantFrodo2 I'm not sure, what's WB?

[@ExtantFrodo2]

@@tocodelray weights and biases? 2 minute papers? His goto phrase is "What a time to be alive!" I sensed a kindred spirit.

[@WayneSA85]

To the point! Learnt plenty and thoroughly enjoyed the video.

[@jungoogie]

Enjoyed this series of tutorials thus far.

[@rklauco]

Love the tutorial. Just used it, it's perfect! Thanks!

[@Zakaria-if2ld]

I watched some other freecad videos, but when I watched yours I got a good understanding of model building. So watch and practice all your videos. thanks

[@samuelwhipp7129]

Excellent job brother! My cousin and I have been learning a lot from your FreeCAD videos.

[@juliermearaujo]

I subscribed to your channel for watching you using FreeCAD. Excellent software. Congratulations for the initiative.

[@pgwargamer]

Incredible tutorial as usual!!

[@BIackMirror]

Hi, I'm just starting to learn 3D modelling. Just for making these tutorials,you already helped me so much with them.

[@AakaarLab]

Thanks for explanation and tell that easy way to design gears

[@shinku4521]

Excellent guide, I started FreeCAD by watching the beginner series from you and it helps me so much in understanding the software. It would be great if you could teach us how to use the Assembly 4 add-on in a video.

[@SomeGuyInSandy]

I was hoping they would add this in 0.19! I just installed it a few days ago, and haven't been through it all yet! Excellent!

[@savior727]

Great tutorial! I am using version 0.20.1 and there is a new step required to resolve the "Cannot use selected object" issue. after creating the sketch you must create a datum plane and select the gear face. then you can create your pocket on that datum plane. Although I seem to have ran into a bug where, after using the "PolarPattern" tool, only about half of the pockets go all the way through. To correct this issue, instead of using the pocket tool, I use the hole tool and that seems to work flawlessly. Thanks for the tutorial. Keep em coming!

[@chriseilbeck261]

Thanks, just what I was looking for

[@MechLeander]

Great tutorials. Thank you for the effort. Subscribed 👍

[@bobrowles43]

Thank you, very powerful and helpful. Much appreciated.

[@philippe_tardif]

Thanks a lot! Very helpful vid.

[@ProGamer2017]

Thanks, I will be using this technique in our school project

[@kazjoi]

amazing video man! congratulations from Brazil

[@jimmym2719]

Thanks bro for sharing 💕. You done a good job.

[@Jose-tw9bl]

Thank you very much for the video! Super intresting that this kind of tools are freely available nowadays

[@braddixon3338]

That is so friggen cool! Way easier than your last video for the spur gears.

[@caslor2002]

subscribed , very good work !!

[@dickjohnson9582]

The highest praises to you sir 🙌

[@flex-ranger2]

Really appreciate the video its come in handy to learn how to use the add-on - Cheers

[@user-ry8uk7nh9p]

Great video Gareth! I'm using these gears on a robot project. Cheers buddy.

[@fritzair]

Awesome video thank you so much.

[@jwatkins672012]

Efn awesome. Thanks!

[@RPrice_OG]

Great video.

[@johnlladron735]

Brilliant video, thank you very much for an informative and really well-explained video. Excellent presentation style too.

[@70ruRandoMan]

FreeCAD is my best modelling friend for a couple of years. But you've just inspired me to move from version 0.16 (which is very simple and straightforward in learning) to latest version with objects and body approach. Sure, 0.16 can also run FCGears, but I feel that I have to evolve.

[@topper5133]

Thanks!

[@DonQuichotteLiberia]

Quality content, thank you for sharing!

[@thehardwareguy]

Much appreciated! thanks for watching

[@stcreativ9090]

wooooooooooooooooooooooow! my mind blew up! thank you for thiiiiiiis!

[@VorpalForceField]

Excellent..!! Concise and knowledgeable .. Top Tier Content .. Thank You For Sharing .. Cheers :)

[@buscseik]

Thank you

[@kurogiza]

Thanks for this, I've used OpenSCAD in the past, but creating complex gears is a pain in the butt. Will definitely give FreeCAD another chance!

[@RichardBronosky]

Same! I've used OpenSCAD for lots of things over the years, but Fusion360 for more complex stuff. Now that I've switched from Mac to Linux I need something that works there. Haven't done any Fusion360 in about 4 years ago learning FreeCAD is like starting over. If OpenSCAD had just a few more things like fillets, I'd use it for everything.

[@nunopenaspt]

thank you so much for sharing your knowledge with us (for free)😄

[@lukebiller1747]

Your tutorials are great. Who knew Jon Snow was so good at CAD!

[@thamghoul5719]

Excellent video, thank you.

[@thehardwareguy]

You are welcome!

[@cesarmuttio506]

muchas gracias!!

[@ronm6585]

Thanks.

[@fozbstudios]

Great video! Wish they’d add inner gears

[@robbiesawyer7967]

Great content!! Thanks for taking the time to make this! How would you create an inside gear? e.g., a ring with teeth on the inside, that can be driven from inside by another gear?

[@glabifrons]

To answer your request (at 3:17): On Linux, the path to unzip the workbenches is $HOME/.FreeCAD/Mod/. I would expect Mac to be similar, but I don't have one.

[@abdulaziza]

Prefect print, thanks a lot, can you help with worm wheel? Worm generation was perfect

[@DanChokola]

Great tutorial, thanks! I went ahead and printed the spur gear from your Raptor 2 files and it had 8 holes rather than the 7 shown here. Was the 8 holes version what you actually printed for the project? Has it been sufficiently strong so far?

[@JasonRobards2]

Thanks, I was stuck trying to make a low pitch helix in part design. For some reason FreeCAD does not cope well with those. I will try this Gear workbench out.

[@rneal63]

That's great! Fusion 360 keeps telling me my licenses has expired, tried to see if my system is compatible with Solidworks for makers, they require a Windows workstation with specific hardware, so I started trying to learn FreeCad and am glad there is something to make gears. I have some hobby CNC machines and if I add a 4th axis to the mill I may be able to do a machined finish on the 3D printed gears if needed.

[@xiaoshizi131]

Great tutorial! Wondering if you can point me to the way to get inside gear correct. Inside gear like the harmonic drive stuff. The teeth should match the gt2 belt profile. Looking forward to how you'll get that done in FreeCad😉

[@joemirror2731]

So, ok, in order to select a single start thread on the worm gear, you have to first drag the newly created icon into the body/part icon. Then the operators for adjusting the worm shows up in the lower part of the combo view box.

[@jmk-mx3ln]

Great Video. I didn't know anything about cad before I watched it. I made a 1 piece gt2 gear with a small set screw after watching this video but I need another that has to be split. How would one go about making a split or two piece gear like a timing gear that is held together with small screws? Thanks and keep up the good work. jmk

[@vogesdg]

How do you create an inner and outer involute gear?

[@skyline1skyline115]

Can this do imperial DP gears or just metric module ones

[@eduardomurphyperez717]

Thanks for the videos, love FreeCAD. One question, though, Why do you need a part for your bodies? I have been using FreeCAD, doing lots of stuff, and I don't remember ever using a part... just different bodies.

[@imyourocd]

how can I add slots into the gear teeth?

[@bobingridshaw5361]

Great tutorial, but at 4.16 into the tutorial, your Gear workbench contains the yellow create tool. Mine (using 0.19) does not. I've hit this missing tools problem on other workbenches too. Can you explain how to add a set of tools to a workbench please? I am quite new to FreeCAD admittedly.

[@makewithmegma]

I did the same thing but its not add in my freecad, what should i do?,❤👌🔥👍

[@terventar]

Danke!

[@thehardwareguy]

Thank you for the donation, very kind of you!

[@user-bs2nm4gl5z]

can you show me how to make a accurate lego axle ? i need a gear with lego cross hole

[@terrylembke8100]

Hi , Just wanted you to know your an awesome teacher , and your videos are great . would you consider making a video on how to make different threads in freecad ? I don,t know how to do a square and acme thread that i want to do interenaly on a part i want to print . Thank you very muck mr Gareth .

[@ExtantFrodo2]

I have been making my gears with Blender. I will have to try freeCad to compare them.

[@KyrychenkoAnton]

Hi, thanks for great tutorial! Just wonder - I see you using 0.19 - not realthunder branch, right? But you don't create offset plane when creating sketches on a plane - so is it safe to do so, I red that topological naming bug gonna destroy your model if you going to change sketch, no?

[@lesrehklau1965]

Great tutorial and exposure to another great add-on, makes creating gears easy, however you can't specify a diameter which is not good if your trying to recreate or follow specs from a drawing

[@thehardwareguy]

Diameter is always determined by the module value and the number of teeth

[@ricardo-iw9sq]

Sorry to sound dumb but where is the best place to down load free cad, before i go down the route of buying a printer i want to design my product and slice it and work out print weight and time to see if its cost effective, im a toolmaker and used to making prototypes in metal but 3d printing blows my mind.

[@munsken]

Hi, i have started watching your vidz to get a hang of this program. I am as noob as it comes. I was wondering if you can make or link to a vid that can help me make a new base for my Elgato stream deck XL. i have come as far as making a cube with a hole in it. Super vidz so far. Learing aton each episode.

[@joemirror2731]

The worm gear is a three start thread. Irr... is there a single threaded worm gear. Also unable to change the diameter or generate the matching gear.

[@andreastucchi6191]

ok, but how to set others parameters like diameter, pitch ecc? they goes under "computed" and seems locked....

[@calvinhenshaw2147]

love the software but cant get it insalled and working on my macbook 😞

[@RichardBronosky]

Wow! Subscribed. ☮️❤️🌈🧘🏽🕉️

[@renderuthis]

I have many troubles. If I make it 48 teeth it will not do the undercut. If i put my shape setting first it will not let me do 48 teeth. If i do the beta/skew/twist and or the helix, it will not do the boloean... Im thinking in the printer it will shrink so having a cad might not be for me as i will just guesstimate the size any way. I need a 5mm hole so Ill go maybe 5.5?

[@NC700_68]

for some reason, "create body" is not listed inside the tasks tab. i had to manually click on the blue "step" icon to create a new body. not complaining, but it is different than what happens in this video which could be very confusing for new users. i am using version 0.19.4

[@en2oh]

can you (anyone?) recommend a tutorial on designing multiple part that fit together ie as completed system. I hope they exist somewhere - but if not, it would be much appreciated! Thanks

[@tomr9113]

Great Video, thanks but...once I create a gear with an axis hole (pocket) and polar pattern holes (pockets), I would like to be able to then make a copy of the file and change the number of teeth from 18 to 22 or something like that and have the part rebuild. The Involute Gear doesn't change when I change the number of teeth. The only solution I have found is to delete the pockets and sketches, modify the Involute Gear and then add the pockets back in. Any ideas? Thanks.

[@tomr9113]

Follow up - If I use the Part Design dropdown to create the gears, it works the way I would expect.

[@GlassonDesignStudio]

Nice explanation. Why didn't you use the "Through All" option of the Pocket tool at ~9:29?

[@thehardwareguy]

It's better practice to specify exactly what you are cutting

[@GlassonDesignStudio]

@@thehardwareguy thanks

[@Schnell9390]

Hello, can you teach us how to do animation in freecad, thank you so much :)

[@mikeklele3377]

Great tutorial but...... I have ver .2 and have followed step by step creating a timing gear and all goes well until I try to insert a pocket. I keep getting "Cannot use selected object. Selected object must belong to the active body. Consider using Shapefinder or a Basefeature to reference an external geometry in a body." I am lost and would be grateful for any suggestions.

[@mikeklele3377]

Not sure how but I got it to work. Thanks

[@kevingpearce]

All was OK following this tutorial until placing the holes sketch onto the gear. It did not appear, even though I tried rotating my view. There appears to be too many steps involved (changing between gears add-on, sketcher, part design, etc, ) to logically follow. Can you please slow it down a little bit, and give reasons for changing the workbenches, and EXACTLY WHEN to do so. I'm getting confused by the frequent workbench changes. Otherwise, excellent work - keep it up.

[@andreaskokkas4418]

On Mac, the path to unzip the workbenches is: Applications > FreeCAD > Contents > Mod

[@Oleksandr2005]

conic gears?

[@k.b.bezdicek9137]

Greetings! I was trying to pocket the face of that gear and the program says I cannot use a selected object must belong to an active body. It said to consider using a shape binder or base feature to reference external geometry in a body. Can you tell me what I'm looking at here as I have recently done your other one with a pocket in a cube and that worked fine! Thanks in advance for all your help!

[@thehardwareguy]

Hello! On your part tree on the left, double click on a body to make it active. You'll know when it's active because the name of the body will turn bold.

[@davescorneroftheworld1147]

This is a GREAT video for GEARS, I need to make SPROCKETS. Gears use other gears, Sprockets use chain. Do you have any thoughts? Anything would be GREAT! Thank you for your time.

[@thehardwareguy]

Hi Dave, I've never experimented with sprockets personally. Although, I probably wouldn't recommend 3D printing a sprocket and using it with a metal chain as the plastic would get torn to pieces. The only way it could be practical is if you 3D printed the sprocket in metal to use with a real chain or you 3D print a sprocket and chain in plastic (depending how much force is involved).

[@davescorneroftheworld1147]

@@thehardwareguy I would NOT 3D print. I need a 2D image that I can put in a plasma cutter. This is what I THOUGHT would be a good program to do that in. I will never have a 3D printer. I just need to make the 2D images. Thank you again for your time.

[@thehardwareguy]

I'll have a look into Sprockets for you Dave. I'll add that to my tutorial list. Hope the project goes well!

[@kizz.Commented]

Jan 15 2022, followed you all the way to timestamp @09:29 and I get an error message. I click 'ok' on the message and I get a crash, pale screen and blue circle cursor. The message was relating to part selection. unable to follow from that point and I have to restart FreeCad and do over. Ctrl-Alt-Del is a painful way to follow you . The error message is: "Cannot use selected Object. Selected Object must belong to the active body. Consider using a ShapeBinder or a BaseFeature to reference external geometry in a body. " The only option is to click the 'OK' button. Frustrating when your excellent video fails to address options and errors leaving me half way through and no way forward.

[@ednadeau7384]

T.Y. T.Y. T. Y. for showing your FreeCad "technique" Freecad has me koo koo . But your description of stacking in the tree, putting things in order cleared a HUGE confusion

[@TheGg6422]

I'm trying to make an involuterack using this Gear workbench and I don't find a way to change its length? Also is there a way then to add this rack to another part to make an assembly that could move back and forth?

[@joemirror2731]

I am just starting out as well in fc. So to change the length of the rack, first after the rack is created with default settings a icon will appear in the combo view box. You have to click and drag the rack icon over the body icon and the original rack icon will turn gray. I then go to parts design workbench, and click on the rack icon and the lower dialog property box will be active so you can change stuff around. Of course changing the length will mean adding more teeth. Other wise you can start a new sketch on the end of the rack to make in longer with out adding more teeth.

[@ModelLights]

This may have changed since 10 months ago, but simply add more teeth. There's no length because it's calculated just from the teeth. If you set the beta angle and double helix to true for a herringbone, the ends are chevron, and height controls the teeth width. You can always make the gear a bit longer than needed and cut the ends off square once you bring it in to the rest of the design.

[@karlsangree4679]

I'm confused about the whole concept of Part vs Body vs Sketch. I understand that in your project you can have multiple parts, and within the part you can have multiple bodies, and within the body you can have multiple sketches. Is there some documentation somewhere where I can read about when to add a new body or when to have multiple sketches in one body and so on? I'm not looking for an explanation (unless it's deceptively simple), just a place where I can go to learn the best practices. TIA

[@karlsangree4679]

BTW, I have been engineering software for over 37 years, but I am admittedly a total 3D printer/CAD noob so please be gentle.

[@ElectricGears]

forum.freecadweb.org/viewtopic.php?t=43501 A body is required and must be a single continuous object. You can start with a primitive or a padded sketch inside a body. Within the same body, you can add more sketches based off existing faces or external datum planes. These sketches can support pads or pockets but they must result in one single object. All the sketches in a single body can import geometry from each other. You can have multiple bodies in a Model(file). Parts are optional and basically one level up. They can contain multiple Bodies and you can have multiple Parts in one Model (file). You would use them in lieu of one of the assembly workbenches which were designed to allow you to position multiple Models together. Parts are nice because you can design your device and reference geometry from one part to another (through Shape Binders). If you were designing a reduction gear box, you could have several compound gears(small gear and large gear on the same shaft). Each compound gear would be a Part. The Parts would consist of 3 bodies: small gear, large gear, shaft. The housing would be another Part, as would a cover plate.

[@bigbronx]

I do still have the same doubt. And also making sure that the part/body is active, that is really confusing. I feel like I always do it wrong.

[@supernova6553]

How good of a replacement is FreeCAD to Fusion? My main issue with it for now is not being able to extrude multiface sketches and some stability issues. It can crash unexpectedly. Are there parameters like in Fusion where you can set one measurement as a variable and use it?

[@thehardwareguy]

FreeCAD doesn't come close to Fusion 360 in my opinion. I personally find FreeCAD very frustrating to use. Each to their own though, we're just lucky to have so many options to choose from!

[@supernova6553]

@@thehardwareguy yeah I tried it yesterday once again and yes I agree.

[@bandk2000]

I'm hoping I can get an answer before tearing out my hair. I have followd this step by step, but each time I get to clicking the pocket I get the message "Cannot use the selected object.Selected object must belong to active body" The only difference I can see is in the combo menu where you have part highlighted, I have both part and body highlighted in pale blue, not a darker grey like yours.................Sorted it, for whatever reason I am still trying to work out, the body doesn't stay highlighted, therefore the face sketch ends up outside of the body. All I did was drag and dropped the sketch into the body and it then allowed me to pocket the gear as per your demo. So another aspect learned (almost) Your Freecad demo's are by far the easiest to follow for a newcomer.

[@thehardwareguy]

Hi Brian, to make a body active you must double click on it in the component tree. This should allow you to do what you want👍🏻 Thanks for watching, glad I could help

[@wantafastz28]

Maybe it is just me, but I'm struggling to make holes in a combination spur gear. Can you maybe go more in depth with constraints for holes? There is something all the opencad youtube videos seem to be missing.

[@thehardwareguy]

Watch my FreeCAD for Beginners series, there is a playlist on my channel. That will teach you everything you need to know!

[@wantafastz28]

@@thehardwareguy I must of missed it when I looked, will do and thanks for the reply.