FreeCAD Blog By MangoJelly Solutions

This project gives some background and resources to the project to create a fully parametric toy brick that can be configured to make any size of brick with the minimum size of 2 x 2. Driven by a spreadsheet and using FreeCAD the designer can change the parameters in the spreadsheet resulting in the brick changing to the desired size and the studs, nubs and tubes dynamically reconfigure to create a new brick. Both parts of the tutorial can be found on my channel at PART 1 PART 2 The technical drawing is below: Design Log First tests with the part design workbench though successful had the following flaws: 1. Unable to shrink this down to a 2 x 2 brick which has four studs and one tube. The linear pattern in the multi-transform requires more than one feature otherwise it errors. This only allowed for bricks that had no smaller than two tubes on the base. 2. The speed of calculations and rendering was reduced because the the pattern features not being optimised as say the draft array to...

A helix whether 2D or 3D, can be used as scaffold geometry.  By using such operations as a sweep we can create such objects a internal and external threads, compression springs, Archimedes screws, circular spiral stair cases, the list goes on.  The process of creating these models is more or less the same in all CAD packages.  This tutorial will concentrate on repeating a part across a helix path.  For this we will be using the workbench known as Lattice 2, with it's powerful array and placement tools it should make the process of creating such structures     First of all you will need the lattice2 WB installed which can be found in the add on manager.  The add on manager consists of a number of external workbenches that can be installed into FreeCAD.  To install Lattice 2 go to the top menu > tools > add on manager and install the WB. Jump to the Part WB. Select the top menu > part > create primitives ... A new panel will appear...