FreeCAD: Easily Add Text / Numbers to Faces in Part Design. Beginners Dungeon Masters Dice

[@timorsl]

The one video actually teaching the basics of applying a font to a surface in FreeCAD. Thanks a lot!

[@MangoJellySolutions]

Glad it was helpful, I am always trying to find the basic to cover in an easy to follow way.

[@bobmarren6527]

Thank you so much mate. Your video of how to pad or pocket text is so much easier than all the other videos I have seen

[@Karaon]

that is top tier, free lesson. just what we all need on youtube. thanks a lot man, you help out thousands of people

[@bandk2000]

I can't believe this, I have been drawing up a part only yesterday (yep, all I have learned has come from MangoJelly) and wanted to add text to it. Then you pop up the next day to show me how to do it! Thanks again for a great channel.

[@MangoJellySolutions]

Great to hear, thanks for the comments, glad the channel is really helping people. Your not the first one to say I popped up the next day and solved their issue, it's starting to get a bit spooky 😂😂😂😂

[@terrylembke8100]

@@MangoJellySolutions Not spooky , You are becoming one with the freecad universe . May the farce be with you . ( from the movie space balls ) Always wanted to say that LOL

[@MangoJellySolutions]

@@terrylembke8100 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

[@mboulton372]

BRILLIANT. I've been trying to figure out how to attach and then pad or pocket for 4 days now. Found this video. Happy Dance. I will watch more.

[@MangoJellySolutions]

Great to hear, glad it helped

[@viccergom3774]

Cristal clear and accurate explanation. Thanks. Great job

[@carlsant1]

You just helped me make my first D6 in FreeCAD at 2am in the morning! Thank you so much for being so clear and easy to follow. Now on to make the rest of my DnD set!

[@MangoJellySolutions]

Fantastic 😊😊 Great to hear. Good luck with your quest 😁😁

[@The22v10]

"Like Everything in Life", No truer words my brother... Great Video's😉

[@xankersmith9194]

Drafting workbench is the most under rated workbench in all of freecad imo

[@MangoJellySolutions]

Totally agree, I am looking forward to using this in more depth with future projects :)

[@rifraf105]

I find your videos the most easy to follow, Thankyou. Others just go off on useless tangents and i find them really hard to follow along with and learn from! Direct to the job in hand.

[@MangoJellySolutions]

Thank you, great to hear. I take some time editing them and take out any useless stuff that's is not needed. Glad your enjoying them.

[@paulwood5870]

I second all the below emotions. Very clear, well done. Thanks

[@MangoJellySolutions]

Thank you for the kind comment.

[@jimw1266]

As usual... Clear concise fantastic presentation!!!

[@MangoJellySolutions]

Thank you kindly!

[@siwatson]

Brilliant ! Excellent video, with everything well explained ! Thanks for sharing !

[@martinzieikjenogeenkeer8620]

I wanted to make a triangular keychain with our names on each side. I couldn't get the text right on the sides. But through your explanation AND the unusual angles of your dice, it became clear to me how I should actually place my text on it. Your explanation helped me tremendously.

[@MangoJellySolutions]

That is great news. So glad you was able to adapt the videos to your needs. I was trying to find a real world object with off plane angled faces to allow for the video to be used for multiple applications and looks like the choice was a good one for many. Thank you so much for the feedback.

[@Snowshooterjj]

Mango Jellys videos are the best, its a great reference to have when using FreeCad, I've learned a lot from these videos :D

[@StatMnd]

This helped me, make stack-able cups for my son with the numbers on the bottom, thanks for this video!!!!

[@MangoJellySolutions]

Thanks for sharing what you used this for. Glad it helped.

[@brucewilliams6292]

This is so much easier than the other videos I have seen! This is fantastic. Thank you so very much!

[@MangoJellySolutions]

Great to hear, thank you 👍👍

[@GJ_Arcade]

YES!!!! YES!!!! I finally got it... thank you very much, i never realise how easy is to move the grid from one face o another.

[@MangoJellySolutions]

Great to see it answers your questions. Only easy when you know how 😁😁👍

[@miked877]

Like others have said, many other videos make it complicated and you made it simple, Kudos and Thanks.

[@MangoJellySolutions]

Thank you for the kind comment, glad it's making life a bit more easier for everyone

[@virtualbum7199]

Super clear and easy. Thank you again!

[@MangoJellySolutions]

You're very welcome 😊

[@jamesofalltrades479]

Great video! You explained how to do this perfectly. Thanks!

[@streakeryake]

Thank you! Learned a lot from this video :)

[@MangoJellySolutions]

Glad it helped :)

[@grinselbub]

Well explained. Thanks.

[@MangoJellySolutions]

Glad it was helpful!

[@truesetian01]

Thanks for the information. Was just about the work on a part that required this feature. Love your channel and keep up the good work. I have personally learned a lot from your videos.

[@MangoJellySolutions]

Superb, glad it's helped. Thanks for the kind comments. Lots more videos to come.

[@johns4247]

Absolutely brilliant - thank you so much!

[@MangoJellySolutions]

Glad you enjoyed 😊

[@peterf46]

Thankyou so much. I am going to try this out in a minute.👍

[@specialservicesequipment393]

Thank you, I appreciate it. This helps allot, I was not aware of the "select plane function"

[@MangoJellySolutions]

Great to hear. Yes it's not a obvious feature when your working in the part and part design most of the time.

[@MarkFraserWeather]

Just in case you didn't know. When rotating in the draft workbench, you can hold shift down to restrict your angle to 0, 90 etc.

[@MangoJellySolutions]

Nice tip 👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍

[@txrascal]

Thank you for the information

[@tevans910]

Excellent! Easy to follow!

[@wesak777]

hi, love it ! i learn something today ! thanks

[@stuartcollins4473]

Brilliant informative video, ❤

[@zk_6312]

Worked great.

[@rainsburysb]

Perfect thanks

[@sjn8099]

Learn so much. Thank You :)

[@MangoJellySolutions]

Great to hear 😁

[@tanveergani7659]

I stumbled my way through this recently but this explanation is clear and a much better way to do what I needed. Many thanks @MangoJelly

[@ThalassTKynn]

I really wish the draft workbench had a more intuitive font selection system. Also I learned a lot about the snapping functions with this. Didn't know they were there 😅 Thanks!

[@MangoJellySolutions]

I feel your pain with the fonts. Glad you found the video useful 👍😁

[@jonathanrodriguez8219]

Hooray!! Nice one!

[@FilterYT]

Thanks, well done!

[@zl0cimir]

Do you have any idea how to snap center of a string? And maybe keep center of a string (or a letter) attached if we change the size or the string/letter itself. I tried many settings but nothing seems like a solution. Thanks for your answer and all the videos - they are priceless!

[@MangoJellySolutions]

I do have a video regarding using a sketch and attaching the text to the sketch to act as a way of alignment. It's a bit of a work around but it works. kzbin.info/www/bejne/i52ZYYidZ6iFjM0

[@ericcvt]

Wonderful

[@jespero94]

Trying to do this with text "A93 Pro" but it does not work.. workd great with numbers but with text not so much. Any solution? It says recompute failed

[@contra_plano]

The tip to drag ShapeString to the Body, made much more easier, it cuts me in 3 steps, from previous method that i used to

[@rafaelfdezs.9364]

fantastic, as always

[@plumetube5297]

Hello, first of all, your videos have been EXTREMELY helpful in my first steps to learning how to use freeCAD to design. Thank you SO much for doing them. One day in the very near future I will be sending you a donation, just really strapped at the moment. Part of why I traded my guitar for a 3d printer, to expand my business I just had to restart 2 months ago. Anyway, I have run into a problem after I add text my model using the methods you have shown. I watched your video on how to look for intersecting lines, which is my issue according to the check geo check. I still can't seem to figure out the issue. I even rebuilt the whole model from scratch a 2nd time, doing a check each time I add a feature. For some reason, adding the strings breaks my model. The face on the front turns black when I export to STL and I am unable to properly slice and prep it to print. Any suggestions?

[@plumetube5297]

Actually, I think I figured it out. I went back and started from the start and went step by step. Realized I didn't have the "symmetric to plane" clicked

[@davidanthonybatten9150]

Thanks

[@GermanMic]

Super tutorials brother!

[@MangoJellySolutions]

Thanks 😁👍

[@ckat609]

Easy solution, thank you! I was wondering...What if you have several shapestrings on a single plane and you want to pocket all of them? Do you have to pocket each one individually or can you group them before pocketing? If so, how do you do that? I tried doing one by one and after 4 or 5, freecad crapped out.

[@MangoJellySolutions]

You can use the sub shape binder. So select all shape strings on the same plane, create a sub shape binder and then pocket / pad that. It basically groups then together.

[@MangoJellySolutions]

You can create a sub shape binder with all 3. You will be able to then pocket / pad the sub shape binder. It will group all three together so should be what your looking for 😊

[@ckat609]

@@MangoJellySolutions ah! Worked like a charm, thank you!!!

[@williambassett8040]

This video helped me understand adding text to a part. I did the pocket lettering however, when I save it then transfer it to print with my Ankermake M5 printer the text doesn't show on the part. What am I doing wrong?

[@alptolga9982]

Thanks a lot!

[@MangoJellySolutions]

You're welcome!

[@harrysas08]

Amazing video my guy

[@MangoJellySolutions]

Thank you 😁👍

[@freedom_aint_free]

I did: Part -> Cube (default 1.00 side cube) -> Chamfer -> "Select Face" -> Selected top and bottom -> Chamfer size of 4.99mm (5.00 mm crashes and I still don't quite know from were this number come from) -> Bob's your Uncle: An Octahedron I've tried your method also, and both have flaws: both methods of constructing the octahedron, leaves the final solid with a band of 20 microns tall in its middle and both top and bottom tips, some funkiness going on deeply in FreeCAD floating point operations ?

[@MangoJellySolutions]

Thanks for the comment. You can make the shape a number of different way so using chamfers is one option or you can use a loft or a extrude with taper. There is an external add on pyramid workbench which allows a number of different shapes that can be configured extending the base shapes of freeCAD all of which are potential base shapes which could be ideal if your into your dice design.

[@rburke7211]

Using FreeCAD 0.21.2. I followed this great tutorial to create some text and position it onto a surface. Then I padded the text. Because I want to print this, I tried to fillet the edges of the text. The length of the pad is 2 mm and the radius of the fillet is 0.1 mm. I selected "Use all edges" and clicked OK. FC works for a few seconds and pops up an Input Error dialog box with "Failed to create fillet". I tried different values for the radius and got the same result. Am I doing something wrong/impossible, or is this a bug in Part Design? If there is a better way to do this I am open to trying it. Thanks!

[@specialservicesequipment393]

Hello again. I built a dodecahedron 30mm in dia. and used shapestring to draw the numbers on the faces using the utilities menu to align the grid to each face. When I pocketed the numbers into the surface only about 5 of them actually pocketed. When you rotate the die the others still look like shape strings, when you switch to hidden geometry you can see all the pockets are there, but when I make an .stl export and view it in blender, the first 5 faces are pocketed, the rest are completely blank. Is this a free cad glitch, or is there something else going on?

[@specialservicesequipment393]

I think I found the problem, I uninstalled and reinstalled Freecad and it's working now.

[@specialservicesequipment393]

I was wanting to use the POLYHEDRON workbench to create my dice, and engrave the numbers into the face surfaces. Since I can't POCKET sketches into those sort of objects, I tried to BOOLEAN DIFFERENCE them but more than one boolean operation per face seems to cause a ton of issues. Is there a way to do this?

[@MangoJellySolutions]

Just had a quick look ( I have never seen this workbench before). So when you create your shape what you then need to do is create a new part design body and drag and drop the shape into that body. This will create something called a 'base feature'. You can then sketch on any of the paces, pad, pocket etc. You can then follow the exact same process as in the video with the base feature. And this workbench is exactly what I need for a ring that someone wants me to design. I just spent a good half an our chamfering a cube down to make a gem stone and was dreading doing the next 2. Glad you posted that comment :)

[@specialservicesequipment393]

@@MangoJellySolutions ok, I'll give it a try. Thank you

[@specialservicesequipment393]

Ok, yes that worked. I was not aware you could combine workbench objects that way using "MAKE BODY".

[@abhijithmadhu4542]

Is it possible to simulate 6 axis robot in freeCAD other than kukka robot. Can you help me to do it?

[@knucklehead83]

So, how do you get it so that you don't have to find your font folder and select a font every time you use this? I thought you mentioned that you knew a way that we could save the font.

[@beautiful_upgrades]

What version of FreeCAD are you using? I have .19 and it is not giving me the option of using a Shapestring as a sketch to pad or pocket. Thanks for the video BTW!

[@MangoJellySolutions]

Glad you liked the video. I'm using the same version. Have you dropped the shape string into the body of the part design body?

[@beautiful_upgrades]

@@MangoJellySolutions I right clicked and used the move to another body command.

[@MangoJellySolutions]

@@beautiful_upgrades at that point is it inside your body in the treeview so when you collapse the body in the treeview the shape string doesn't appear outside? I didn't use the right click, move to body I dragged it into there so not sure if that's the source of the problem.

[@beautiful_upgrades]

@@MangoJellySolutions Dragging worked! Weird since they should be the same action. Thanks!

[@terrylembke8100]

Hi , you had asked me what system I was running with free ad. It's windows 10

[@MangoJellySolutions]

I dropped you a link to the video on the previous comment regarding the bevel text. I am picking up my windows laptop today

[@VetbossOfficial]

when I select the move the grid moves away from the current posision

[@terrylembke8100]

Hi , How are you today , Another great video . Thanks for sharing . i would like to know how to combine all the little line segments into one line around each letter ? I would like to bevel the lines back to the base so it's easier to sandcast . like a sharp edged text, is this possible ? how do you add font files to freecad ? If you could show me how to do this I would appreciate this ? Thank you , Have a great day Kindest Regards Terry Lembke

[@MangoJellySolutions]

Just finishing up a video regarding creating text that is bevelled or drafted to base. It is possible but you have to go about it in a way that is not obvious. The trouble is is that there is a degree setting for the chamfer in the part design but that will not go to the base of the object so you have to take a different approach. I will be releasing that for the next video. For the fonts what operating systems are you using? Mac, Windows or Linux?

[@terrylembke8100]

@@MangoJellySolutions I have windows that freecad is running on now , Thank You . I really appreciate your timely responses to my questions . I really feel you care about your subscribers . Take care and stay safe Terry Lembke

[@MangoJellySolutions]

@@terrylembke8100 thanks for that. I am not on Windows at home but I will bring home my work laptop tomorrow so I can check the fonts option on a windows machine. I am just rendering the video and doing the final checks so hopefully that will be up on my channel tomorrow. Thanks for the kind comments. I believe that my channel wouldn't be where it is without subscribers and I have had such kind feedback from everyone that I try to fulfil each request. I get alot so I am forever playing catch up. Some videos are easier to make than others and if I can make those in an evening I tend to jump on them sooner rather than later. Others could take sometimes up to a couple of weeks as I need to research. It's a never ending task but I enjoy it 😊

[@MangoJellySolutions]

I have uploaded the video and here is a link so you can have a look. kzbin.info/www/bejne/iZe0fIlvi6tsiMU

[@ecwskier4500]

When i drag my shapestring into the body all the text becomes offset from the pad. what do i do?

[@nicomartfr]

same here...

[@Berghiker]

How do I print out a drawing without the points that join the lines together? I don't want the connecting points showing on the printout.

[@300werks6]

..When I click to pocket said numbers, I get an error message and it won't pocket them. Why? It pads them fine, but I want numbers to go through the plate/block.. Anyone can help please?

[@MangoJellySolutions]

The pocket may be travelling in the reverse direction rather than forward. Try the reverse option on the pocket options. Also check to see that the text is positioned on the face. If it's floating above then your pocket has to be deep enough in length to span the blank space.

[@300werks6]

@@MangoJellySolutions Thank you for the reply. It can only pocket text so deep but not all the way through. Numbers won't pockets at all.

[@VladekR]

👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍

[@channelcadfree]

👍👏

[@abdumuid]

HOW DO YOU CONVERT IT TO A STL FILE FOR 3D PRINTING

[@MangoJellySolutions]

Go up to the file menu and then export and you will be able to export to what ever format you want. For higher quality output you can change the deviation settings on the view tab after you selected the object. ope that helps.

[@sd4dfg2]

On a typical die all the opposite face pairs add to the same value. Nine in this case - the one and eight need to be on opposite faces from each other.

[@terrylembke8100]

Thanks , Mango . What is your first name if it's polite to ask ?

[@MangoJellySolutions]

Darren :) BTW: Here is the video link. It's unlisted at the moment but will release it public soon, but you can still view it here. kzbin.info/www/bejne/sILHgZyabdeHnqc

[@zombieno1]

when you're following the tutorial and go to activate the grid and it doesn't how up... then "no.. it can't be.. *looks under the model* THERE IT IS!" After 10 minutes of trying to figure it out.

[@mickyr171]

Not sure whats happening but cant seem to even create the text in 0.20.1

[@mickyr171]

Figured it out, didnt realise it didnt have a default font, you HAVE to choose one lol

[@dlhanse]

Pocket will not work in 0.21.1. You can pad but not pocket.

[@robt7785]

Unfortunately, V0.20 doesn't work this way. You cannot pad or pocket shape strings anymore because it can't deal with multiple solids.

[@MangoJellySolutions]

This was done in 0.20. Make sure you use the align plane with face

[@robt7785]

@@MangoJellySolutions Thank you, but I have 0.20.1 and it apparently does not support pocketed shape strings or the newest version has a bug. I miswrote before; I can pad it.

[@peterbailes5806]

I have had the same problem, but I found that if I ensured the grid was toggled off, it worked perfectly, if the exact same set up was either pocketed or padded with the grid visible, it disappeared into a blank screen.

[@chriswf]

@@peterbailes5806 I'm on 21.2 and I disabled the grid and I'm still having a problem. But good to know people have found ways around it in older versions. I'm going to downgrade.

[@Giblet535]

Excellent instructions. This won't work on Linux Mint 21 (now) because the PPA version of FreeCAD throws an exception on the Draft workbench and does nothing, and the flatpack version is too broken to use. I'm building the Py3/Qt5 version from source, but I'm skeptical that it will work. BUILDING Py3/Qt5 FROM SOURCE FIXES NEARLY EVERYTHING. Python, like Java, is great for prototyping, proof-of-concept, or dog+pony shows to wow investors, but isn't suited for production code because there are too many newbs who have fried their brains on caffeine, and with witless abandon they're breaking dependency chains as fast as they can. Using any Python code that isn't built in, say, via pip, is like herding brain-damaged cats.

[@MangoJellySolutions]

Thanks for the heads up, I will submit as a question over to the freeCAD Developers. Hmm feel your pain, I spent today trying to use javascript node build tools to build a unrelated project in a CI/CD pipeline. The computer nearly went out the window!

[@davidanthonybatten9150]

you take too long explaning too much mate....peope just want to know the one method of how to do it!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[@jojeemojee4471]

It’s easy to do if you know how like everything in a life! (C) MangoJelly

[@MangoJellySolutions]

lol :) :) :)