FreeCAD: Wire Not Closed ! How to Avoid and Fix the Issue | Part and Part Design

A very common freeCAD error which will catch out beginners and pro's alike. We explain what a wire is, when it becomes open / closed, the common scenarios that cause the issue and the tools and techniques you can employ to avoid or fix the issue.
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[@paulrjohnson58]

Good info, I have fallen foul of wires hidden under other wires before and pulled the last of what hair I had left out trying to find the issue. The biggest thing that drove me to distraction was then trying to select the little &*£% to delete it!

[@royw2]

Totally agree. I think what might be causing these little “gems” is a combination of using construction elements and the trim tool… I’d love a function to rotate the z ordering of stacked elements or the ability to hide the top elements… Thank you for another informative video!

[@TheScotsalan]

Very informative 👍. I have been building up a collection of extruded aluminium sections as a library to practice FC. My method to avoid open wire has been to sketch the basic outline, and pad it. Then edit the sketch to add more features. Making sure to save before changing the original sketch.

[@spheretical3609]

I'm now over the years, able to ferret out broken wire issues fairly quickly. But i have never realized that there are the sketcher symmetry or validate sketch tools! Thank you! 😊

[@MangoJellySolutions]

Glad I was able to share something new for someone who has used freecad for years. After all these years iI am still learning in birth freecad and 3D design so know the feeling when you watch a video and all of a sudden 'where on earth has that been all this time" opens up a new world 😁

[@JoanMendoza]

Awsome info, thanks!! I've always wondered what exactly a wire was.

[@brucewilliams6292]

Thank you! Just ran into the double line problem and it took me going back a revision to fix.

[@wernicki]

Bardzo dziękuję za Twój film. Pomogłeś mi rozwiązać problem błędu w geometrii szkicu.

[@davidapp3730]

Thank you for those tips. I will go back to my drawing and see if I can apply those lessons.

[@FEVR_Dreamachine]

I 100% know and accept that this is going to come off as unbelievably stupid, and want to make everyone aware in advance that I'm going to (happily?) go figure this out for myself....BUT: For the final example, with the line and its points directly overlapping (my particular issue)...That was literally the only example you didn't show how to fix. No hate, promise. Your videos are a completely radical lifesaver, and I sincerely appreciate it. I just have to go back now and hope that highlighting over each point and constraining them coincident helps...Because there doesn't appear to be any way of zooming in infinitely in order to find where they separate....because they don't.

[@MangoJellySolutions]

No this is a very good question so no offense taken. There is no real easy way to find the problem where you have a line behind a line with points coincident. Thinking about it you could us the elements list and roll over each of the elements and that will highlight where they are but I would love to find a way to identify this easily. I have encountered this problems when trimming geometry in sketches. If anyone does have any ideas to easily find these as the validate sketch can't find them it would be great to hear.

[@wildflowers465]

Saved me yet again! These videos are so important and helpful for the community.

[@MangoJellySolutions]

Glad to help!, thank you for the kind comment.

[@communicationiskey-]

Excellent Thank you

[@MangoJellySolutions]

Most welcome

[@davidbawden6567]

Just love the way you show & present the video's...

[@MangoJellySolutions]

Thank you so much 😀

[@billm2158]

Very good information. Thank you.

[@davidanthonybatten9150]

what version of freecad is this...mine is 21.2 and these icon commands do not appear?

[@niallsommerville9813]

Very helpful, thank you.

[@mattw7949]

Another great video. Thank you for doing this.

[@MangoJellySolutions]

Glad you enjoyed it! It's great to share this information and thank you.

[@masondawson4061]

Extremely comprehensive. So much great info I had no idea about delivered understandably on a seemingly simple topic. Thank you! I've been trying to figure out how to edit primitives'. For example: Let's say my part calls for a bolt to be part of the model. Let's then pretend I need to make a hole through the bolt perpendicular to it's length for perhaps a lock wire. I know how to use the helix tools, and the hole tool to do this all in the Part Design Workbench, but it would be so much easier, and faster to grab the appropriate bolt size from the Fasteners Workbench to incorporate into my model. The same goes for primitives' from the Part Workbench. Is this done by changing something in the View tab? Also I was trying to do this yesterday by using a cylinder from the Part Workbench to create an angled hole through a part. While I was using Transform on the cylinder to move it into position the origin separated from the part, and ended up quite far away. Eventually I gave up, and put the model into Meshmixer to do the boolean operation. Prusaslicer really doesn't like when I use MM.

[@cryora]

Helpful thanks.

[@BrainDeadEngineering]

I went through living hell ! I was close to drinking a glass of bleach ! 😣 nothing worked! know what it was 2 hours later ? A line hidden under a line in the sketch ! FC will biatch its not closed 🤢 Thanks Bro !

[@MangoJellySolutions]

Been there, done that, got the T-shirt. Yep can be a complete pain. You get this in other CAD packages as well. Great to hear you got it sorted.👍👍

[@tonyb.3159]

thank you!

[@timinwsac]

As always another great tutorial.

[@MangoJellySolutions]

Thank you 😊

[@BillyJ57]

Great help Thanks so much.

[@MangoJellySolutions]

You're welcome!

[@HansBaier]

Very good!

[@shinkansen4521]

wow, thanks!

[@noanyobiseniss7462]

First time I ran into this is drove me insane!

[@MangoJellySolutions]

I remember those days. Been using Dfx and svg files alot lately and I run into these issues alot

[@noanyobiseniss7462]

@@MangoJellySolutions My Father spent years porting over those old and some proprietary formats from the sgi systems at Balfour by hand in the 90's. LOL, poor bastard. :)

[@Dartheomus]

Arggh... I was trying to figure out why one of my sketches kept saying it was an open wire even though everything was constrained and everything was coincident. So I had one of the lines toggled as "Construction Geometry." It showed up as green instead of blue since it was constrained. That's so annoying!

[@MangoJellySolutions]

Yeh, been there before. I feel your pain.

[@Timbodacious]

i am on video 13 of your freecad for beginners series and for the life of me i can not complete this drawing haha. just found out through some forums that there is a bug that pops up about wires not being connected even though they are fully connected.

[@opendstudio7141]

I think my over zealous use of rounded off dimensions my be a contributing factor. Perhaps there is some type of ranking system on constraints I’m not aware of.

[@luciaregina6137]

Hi, Darren! I was brought to your video in a search for how to extrude just the contour of a svg, and at some point (06:50') you made what I need. But my svg isn't open as your wire was. Can you please tell me how to make just the "shell", but still solid, from a closed svg?

[@gordonandrews8343]

Maybe because I'm running 21.2 BUt I can follow along until around 7:36 where the task is looking at and changing line width. After 45 minutes of looking and trying I reached a point of total frustration. No doubr I'm doing something terribly wrong! Anyone?

[@dantheman1998]

Hello. Im ultra mega stuck on what should be a simple issue. Im desperate for help. I became a patreon and just need a little help on a project. Is there any way I can submit a question or a video of my issue?

[@davidcooper3871]

A constant struggle

[@calmarcalmar]

🥰

[@user-qh5kb7rv7o]

How to resolve the issue of drawings created in FreeCAD, exported as DXF files, and run on CNC machines that report the drawings are not connected.

[@opendstudio7141]

Being a newbie at FC 21.1 and not certain of this hypothesis. Suspect that my use of rounded down dimensioning may be pulling things like hard dimensioned arcs and curves apart. You will have to test it yourself.

[@lillllill1il1l]

can I call you as Father of freecad tutorial

[@MangoJellySolutions]

😂😂😂😊👍

[@quinteastwood8752]

turns out I forgot to turn off the construction geometry. That will keep your wire open!

[@MangoJellySolutions]

Been there before, three hours later I realised what I did, there was a few blue words after, and the cat decided he had enough and left swiftly via the cat flap lol

[@kamiu9312]

?????

[@nameismetatoo4591]

One of the reasons FreeCAD isn't really free-it costs you your sanity. Don't get me wrong, I'm grateful for the hard work of the devs for making a powerful CAD program that's free to use. But man, does it have its flaws.

[@thespacecowboy420]

oh great the video is 20 minutes

[@MangoJellySolutions]

Glad you like