FreeCAD: I Want To Move It, Move It... but I can't ? Yes you can!

[@Appregator]

FreeCad is such a tricky program. Its a real pity it does not work like TinkerCad. Move, align, duplicate hole and group of solid and group. I find I designed things in the past in FreeCad and can't remember how I did it as it is not intuitive. Various versions also do things really differently too. But I still appreciate that FreeCad exists. Thanks to the developers. But hopefully will make it a bit more intuitive in future.

[@deathhog]

Huge help mate, I wasn't even aware the tool existed. It's such a new concept for me to have to go between different work benches like this to manipulate objects. But I'm gettin' a little better every day I work with this.

[@MangoJellySolutions]

Glad to help. Yeh I came from other CAD programs and it took me a while to get used to how FreeCAD works. Stick with it, the first few months with this program is the hardest, it gets better after you get your first couple of projects under your belt

[@mctan1222]

Your video really saved me a lot of time. Trying to move a body but it kept moving back to original position. Watched your video and now it is fixed. Thanks.

[@cycleistic1365]

I've learned a few bits of freecad here and there over the past few years. Able to create simple sketches, pad/pocket them and fillet the edges to some extent of my liking, often exporting parts as STL to import and combine them in Tinkercad. Yesterday I was able to create a body, duplicated it and wanted to move the two identical bodies apart from one another a certain distance. Went to draft, chose move for the other body, but nothing moves. Seems like it's not easy for even an experienced user, let alone occasional dabbler. Frustration is on very high level, unable to grasp the workflows of even very fundamental, basic functionalities. Wish freecad could find a bunch of prominent supporters to make it the next 'blender', the potential is there. Currently using v.0.21.2.

[@johnpekkala6941]

This saved my day! I try making some Jack Daniels coasters on my 3D printer for a friend as birthday present and I had the logo extruded and also had added his name under it using the curved text macro with matching font and then as last thing I used the pad function to make an oval baseplate that attaches to the logo to make the complete coaster. I however then ran into this very issue when i wanted to put them together as one complete object. Now its fixed and ready to be made into g code and hopefully some nice coasters will come off my machine!

[@MangoJellySolutions]

Really pleased that the video has solved your problems. And thanks for sharing your project. It's really great to hear what people are working on.

[@AerialLensVideo]

All these "workbenches" ! Takes some real getting used to. Do you happen to have a video which explains the workbench idea to beginners like me? I've just installed Version 1.0, coming from Rhino3D and Fusion360. REALLY want to make sense of of FreeCAD -- seems to be a very different, pretty complex approach, but certainly has a MANY fans, especially the .22 and 1.0.0 versions. Thank you!

[@MangoJellySolutions]

Great to see a fellow Rhino3D user, I migrate from Rhino along with 3D Studio Max a long time ago to freeCAD. I used to love Rhino. Most workbenches are a number of tools grouped together but the confusion starts when you have dedicated workbenches that are specialized to certain workflows. In the Beginners version 1 series I do have a small video that can help understand the differences between the part wb vs part design kzbin.info/www/bejne/Z56qemysm9h2eaM

[@AerialLensVideo]

@@MangoJellySolutions PERFECT - Thank you so much! Your videos are the Gold Standard.

[@onehandwashes]

50 seconds in "you cant actually move it without being in draft" 58 seconds in, moves and rotates object freehand... is there a video or something anywhere that explains how to do that? 58 seconds, the curser turns into the rotate icon then he rotates the object... HOW?!?! someone please help

[@invendelirium]

Unfortunately, this video is quite incorrect. You could not move the thing at the beginning not because "it's not a compound object", but because you were trying to move a Pad feature, and it is specifically coded to reject any movement (as most PartDesign *features* are). What you should do is move the body! Select Body, then use Draft Move. Or, right-click Body, pick "Transform". Creating a compound from Pad is just making a mess. BTW, you can also Draft Clone it for the same effect, but i highly recommend to clone the body, not Pad.

[@revvilo]

This. This. If you think about it there was no logical reason to make a compound object. What should have been done was to focus the "body" object on the left before clicking the move tool.

[@revvilo]

As another comment pointed out, this isn't what compound objects are for. Part Design is for working with features that make up a body, and most other workbenches work with the *resulting body*. Draft was trying to move the Pad feature within the body, which is not allowed, and thus failing. The Body should have been selected before clicking move within Draft. The reason compounding enabled the movement of the object was because it created an isolated object from the pad feature, thus meaning that the move tool selected the object, instead of a feature.

[@MangoJellySolutions]

Hi this is an old video, it was a quick hack at the time to get around the issue.

[@revvilo]

@@MangoJellySolutions Sweet as. I found it in searching for freecad stuff so I figured others would too.

[@TheRainHarvester]

Is there a document that explains the overall design method that should be used in freecad? There are so many hiccups/ bad ways of doing things. It seems rather piecemeal with no consistent pattern.

[@TheRainHarvester]

I move something in the sketch, and it doesn't move in draft. I move it in draft and it doesn't move in the path. I can't get the origin of the path to start where my workpiece is. If I want to cut out of another piece of my workpiece, I can't figure out how to make the stock so that the part is cut on a different spot in my workpiece. Nothing moves where i need it. Its just so wierd. Also, moves from long ago appear for no apparent reason and I can't get rid of them.

[@basilwatson1]

absolutely , it IS getting better ( you should have sen it a few years ago) , but move should JUST move !

[@MangoJellySolutions]

Not what I know of, it would be great if someone from higher up the chain (developers) could put something together explaining the preferred workflows. FreeCAD is so flexible that it's very easy to go down the wrong road. Then again it allows people to experiment and find their own way.

[@kannanaiyar5291]

Around 50 seconds in your video, you say "let me just flip this....". I started watching this video just to see how you do that, but you have not explained the step. I am at the very beginning of my learning curve. I have created a 3-D object. Now I want to pick it up with my mouse and turn it this way and that to look at it. How?

[@MangoJellySolutions]

Hi, In the bottom right of your screen you have control options. Depending on your control you have selected you can use the keyboard and mouse to rotate your view. If you hover the mouse over the control icon then you will see a pop up explaining what keys to press.

[@Appregator]

Try going to preferences and select how to move objects with the mouse. I personally like to use the TinkerCad mouse choice. Its quite intuitive.

[@br.engineeringmysore75]

Thanks

[@ElPollutosan]

Thank you!!

[@MangoJellySolutions]

No problems

[@onemandiy]

Thanks a lot man! This is not too intuitive for new users.

[@MangoJellySolutions]

Glad you found it useful. Stick with it, freecad has a learning curve and I felt the same pain as yourself. It's even worse if your used to the industry leading packages but after working with Freecad for a short time things become so much better and you will never look back. The draft move tool in the draft workbench is also a very good friend for moving bodies.

[@onemandiy]

@@MangoJellySolutions Thanks! I am used to Sketchup and most of my models are for wood working. So i have a problem understanding the Freecad hierarchy. Example I would model a table, 4 individual legs and a table top. I can use simple shapes, make one leg, copy it 4 times and move them where i need to... FreeCad make that no so intuitive. Also I don't get making edits on the Padded structure AFTER I've made it into a compound. I guess I need more experience to understand the sequence logic.

[@hernanlagarde3246]

thanks