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FreeCAD Advantages over other CAD Software I FreeCAD _ FreeCAD Advantages _
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May 17, 2025
#freecad #freecadmodler #FreeCADsoftware In this video I have explained FreeCAD Advantages over other CAD Software. ▶️ Visit my website for more info on FreeCAD-: https://mechnexus.com/ ▶️ Get my FreeCAD Crash Course for beginner-: https://www.udemy.com/course/freecad-course-for-beginner/?referralCode=3BA9B526A12F96295D44 ▶️ Download Source File of Tutorial-: https://mechnexus.com/mechnexus-youtu... ▶️ Buy Me a Coffee I am very grateful that you watch my videos and I am constantly trying to improve the quality of the videos on this channel. If you'd like to help me do this, please consider supporting me so that I can to continue to produce content for your enjoyment. 👉 Help support this channel by buying me a coffee: https://ko-fi.com/mechnexus All donations will be used to purchase equipment to improve my productivity and increase the quality of the content that I produce. Your kind support will help to grow this channel. Even if it's just enough to buy me a coffee every little helps and this will be repaid in full through my sharing of knowledge.
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and in this lecture we will learn introduction to the free cad and what are the benefit of using
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free cad over the other 3d software available in the market at the end of the sessions you will
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understand the power of free cad and how it is benefited for students and small scale industries
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you can also visit my website macnexus.com where i write articles and tutorials on a free cad
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and you can also download my tutorial source file from here which i make on free cad
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as i believe that free cad is an open source and it is very helpful for the small scale
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organizations to reduce their operating cost because for small scale industries purchasing
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the license of a paid software is very challenging. So come back to our slide where we will review
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the one by one feature of a free CAD and why we use free CAD. So first one is that free CAD is an
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open source and free which means that anybody can modify distribute without any license fee
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This means that you can extend the functionality of FreeCAD with the help of Python programming
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You can create your own add-ons and workbenches which we will learn in upcoming lectures
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you can visit to the website freecad.org and you can see that how freecad is capable
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and how it can compete with a modern 3d software like solidworks and autodesk inventor
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now come back to the second feature of a freecad is that it is a cross-platform compatibility
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free cad is open source which means that it is available for everyone to use as we have seen in
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our first slide and this is a cost effective solution for the individual students and small
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businesses as i have already said that and a cross-platform compatibility if you go to the
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free cad official website and if you go to the download sections so you can see that free cad
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is available for all major operating systems Windows, Mac and Linux. These are the three
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operating system which are widely used around the globe. Let's come back to the third feature
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of FreeCAD which is the parametric design. When we do our part modeling tutorials then
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you can understand what is the parametric design but here in this
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lectures I will give very short introduction of a parametric design so
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parametric means that when you create the model that are driven by the
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parameters and constraint and making it is making it easy to modify and
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update the design by simply changing the parameters so here I have a open-end
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model on a free CAD so our first feature is this extrude and then I created this
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pocket which means that if I go to my first features and if I change this dimension suppose that I make it from 41 to 35 and I close it so this
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cut is already got modified with respect to my height change and if I again make this
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height 41 so you can see that this slot got bigger here so this is the parametric design
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which is are the driven by the parameter and constraints so what we have changed here the
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dimension and constraint are the nothing but the parameters so this is the parametric nature
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of a free CAD. Now the fourth feature of a free CAD is that modularity of the free CAD
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FreeCAD is designed with a modular architecture allowing user to customize and extend its
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functionality through plugins and modules and this make it versatile and adaptable to
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the various design workflow. So let's understand this in a free CAD. If we go to the free CAD
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and if you go to the tools and add-on manager then here you will get lots of work benches
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which you can use as per your requirement for example in a for the assembly in free cad we
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have the multiple work benches like a2 plus assembly 4 whereas if you go to the any paid
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software like Solidworks and Inventor there you will have the only options to
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use the assembly constraint which comes with software installations but in free
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kit it is not like that you can choose an assembly workbench as per your choice
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you can use multiple modeling method of a part like you can use part design part
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workbench or draft workbench which we will see in our upcoming lectures so I'm
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not going to much more in a depth but modularity of the free CAD that it is
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provide the extended functionality which you can use it customize it as per your
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requirement now the fifth feature is that 3d parametric modeling so parametric
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design we have understand in our slide 3 same way 3d parametric modeling which I
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have shown you with this model free get support the creation of a complex 3d
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model using the parametric modeling technique this make suitable for designing mechanical parts and assembly so whatever I have show you this is
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nothing but the parameters once you change your first features your second
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feature automatically get modified if you modify the second feature third will
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get automatically at up depth updated so this is how the parametric modeling
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works now the sixth feature is that assembly design free CAD assembly work
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benches allow user to create and manipulate assemblies of a free CAD
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part enabling the design of complex mechanism and structure so here I will
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show you one example of the assembly design so here is an assembly of a
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crankshaft which I have a made with the help of assembly for workbench and we
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will see this tutorial in our course but here you can make the same assembly with a a2 plus or assembly 3 as per your choice that why free cad assembly design is a very flexible you can use the assembly workbench which you
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are more comfortable next is the mesh modeling mesh modeling is basically used
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for the 3d printing and in free CAD you can edit an STL file like if you go to
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the in free CAD and if I wanted to open my this part then we have the dedicated
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work benches where you can use tools like 3d printing tools to convert your
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design into the reality. Next feature is that Python scripting. FreeCAD is
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scriptable with the help of a Python programming languages which allow users
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to automate tasks, create custom tool and extend the software capabilities. In
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FreeCAD when you launch the FreeCAD then you will have the options to enable the
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Python scripting after the installation you can directly click on the Python
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console and you can run the Python scripting right from here that's why
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Python is a very powerful language as we know that and as per my point of view
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freecad is only parametric modeler which is available open source and powered by
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the Python programming languages so we can do so many things with the help of
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a Python scripting like we can create an animations we can create our custom tool
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with the help of a Python scripting so ads it is a very deep topic and it is not
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recommended for the beginner user once you complete my course then you can learn
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the Python scripting and you can do some advanced things with the free CAD next
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one is the community and support as free cad is open source and free cad having
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the very strong community of free cad users for example if you go to the reddit
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page of a free cad and if you put your questions definitely you will get the
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reply here on the free cad website you can get the various community supports of a free cad like
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reddit twitter facebook linkedin you can approach to the community members and definitely community
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member will help you so that is the one of the awesome feature of a free cad second feature of
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free cad is that free cad support variety of the file format
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for example if you go to the file and if you go to the export option
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here i select my body and i will go to the export options
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then you can see that free cad support all the major file format like step
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IGS and STL which are most common file format used by any software
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For example you can export your file into the STIP or IGS and you can open this file into the others 3D software like Autodesk Inventor or Solidworks so that is the main benefit of a free CAD it supports all file format for the 3d printing to the
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surface file format like IGS and solid format like step file. Education value
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if you see that free CAD is open source even though many software's
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charges the fee for the students a nominal fees to get the license of their software
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but in free CAD there is no such limitations college or university student just download
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the free CAD and do their college projects on a free CAD
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next feature of a free CAD is that continuous improvements as you
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go to the freecad official websites then you can find that freecad having the long
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history of the developments it is a not a software which is just
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invented two to three years back it is a very long you can go to the official website of
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freecad and wikipedia page and you can study more about the freecad history
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free cad is in improving day by day and we will come to the conclusion while free card offer many advantages
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and its improvements not like any other software it has its own learning curve let me clarify one thing is here
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free cad is not like very easy like solidworks but once you learn the
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free CAD once you understood the power of a free CAD then you are going to
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definitely love the free CAD because it is a very robust and it provides lots of
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flexibility to customize it with the help of a Python programming languages if
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you have a seen the softwares or you have used the software like SolidWorks
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and Autodesk Inventor you may have experienced that you cannot customize it
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as per your requirement and in a free CAD you do not have to purchase
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different versions like if I explain in simple words if you are using Solidworks
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and if you are not to do the ysis then you have to pay some extra money for
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the ysis feature or cam feature but in free cat there is no such limitations you can do
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modeling you can do finance ysis you can do cam works you can do CFD in a single software
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you do not have to depend on the multiple module of a software as we seen in the market so free cat
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is not only for the mechanical engineers it is also a software for the civil engineering work or
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architectural work because it has so many work benches which you can use so
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this is all about our first lecture introduction to free CAD and in the next
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lecture we will learn how to install free CAD and we will understand the user
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interface of the free CAD I hope you have liked this sessions thank you for
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watching and thank you for your valuable time
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