A7er

I've been playing with the new cad programme Solidcraft (SC from now on). It isn't really fit for use at the moment. I tried my hand at designing a nameplate for 3D printing. The flat plate and the rim are two separate pieces, I couldn't get them to join. Likewise the lettering. I could extrude it down to the plate with a 5deg draft, but only some of the characters would join with the plate. I decided it would be easier to print all the parts separately and glue them together. I got SC to export everything at once expecting the STL file to have multiple bodies. It exported the whole thing as one STL body. Is that normal?

This is a pic of the whole thing. There are 26 bodies not 29 because 3 got deleted.


Selecting the bodies for export.


Imported into Prusa slicer to see if it had any faults, it didn't.


If it's just lettering you need just hide the bits you don't want. I hid the plate and rim.


I will keep checking the daily updated, but at the moment it is very flaky. But if I only use it for nameplates I'll be happy.
Lee

You can download a version for Linux.

I'm trying a free programme called SolidCraft. It was recently released and gets updated each day. Lots of bugs at this time, but it should get better. If it delivers all it promises, it could be a major pain for some other software companies. IF.

The latest version of FreeCad is very good, some bugs, but getting better. I still mainly use DesignSpark Mechanical and SolidEdge.

I installed Freecad version 1.1 to see if I could get on with it. I have used Freecad a lot in the past but now mainly use Design spark or Solid edge.
I started to design a single cylinder simple IC engine. 25mm bore and stroke with some fillets to soften some of the edges. After drawing the cylinder I decided to section it by drawing a 26mm square on top of the cylinder and pocketing it through the cylinder to create a sectioned view. Several attempts later I realised Freecad still had problems with fillets, so I deleted them. I could then section the engine to examine the interior of the cylinder. I then pressed CTR Z to undo the section to restore the cylinder, deleted the now not needed drawing of the section square, and this happened. (see attached image).

Each time I tried to delete or alter the drawing of the square Freecad turned my round engine into a square one.

A square cylinder might just about work, but a square crankshaft? or a cam with square lobes?

Thanks for the replies. the engine is finished and don't look too bad! Still drawing the radial.....