Hi Everyone!
<center>![sqvza6xqi1.png](https://img.esteem.ws/sqvza6xqi1.png)</center>
<center><sub>Screenshot taken by me and this shows the Start Center of FreeCAD.</sub></center>
Today, I started my self-training for the open source software known as **FreeCAD** whose field of specialization is in 3D CAD modeling and designing. 3D CAD Modeling is nothing new to mechanical engineers, in college either being taught by using Autodesk Investor or Solidworks, as for me, I was taught using the Autodesk Investor for which I was so happy to know that there is a student's version back then and availed it for free with a three years license and if my memory serves me right, that was in the late 2013. When I had an on-the-job training (OJT), I was luckily selected as among the first batch of OJT's to be accepted and trained by Lear Corporation's Electromechanical Department, and it was a team composed of design engineers and CAD designers. The software they were using are Siemens NX (we call this one as UG) and CATIA V5. During that time, we were taught to use Siemens NX 7.5 (if my memory serves me right), the very reason for that is the user friendliness of Unigraphics (which was the previous name of NX) compared to CATIA V5. Well, to make the story short, when I had my license as a mechanical engineer here in Philippines, I became a mechanical design engineer in Lear Corporation for around 15 months and it was very unfortunate that most of my workloads are using Siemens NX 9.0. I had a training with CATIA V5 but I weren't able to practice in work. So last April, I downloaded **FreeCAD**, which I discovered while searching some open source projects to translate and contribute in Utopian-io. I did run the application and was a bit saddened to know that it has a user interface that is close to CATIA, such as the commands "Pocket" and "Pad". And it took me a while to have a formal self-training.

Today, I started with "**Sketcher Tutorial**", and it would be difficult if I have no guide, what I did was to follow the [documentation](https://www.freecadweb.org/wiki/Sketcher_tutorial) found in FreeCAD website. And looking at the sample sketch being shown in the documentation, it's pretty easy to make it using Siemens NX, well, there are many ways to make it, as for me, I will just make one small circle having a radius of 8 millimeters and use the **circular pattern** and then polish it with the addition of fillets. 

But when I made the sample sketch using FreeCAD, it was way different, it needs lots of constraints and is done in **Sketcher Workbench**. It took me an hour to have my first successful sketch of the sample sketch, the delay was due to the fact that I missed some constraints and at the same time, when I'm done with the dirty sketch (no constraints sketch), the moment I proceeded in applying ```Tangent```constraints, my sketch won't arrived to the one shown in the tutorial. And as an engineer, I spend time thinking on where did I go wrong and instead I didn't follow the arrangement of the instruction found in the documentation and thought of a method that I found out to be the easiest way. And was so happy to have my first sketch using FreeCAD, as seen in the screenshot below.
<center>![vcx5jqj8qz.png](https://img.esteem.ws/vcx5jqj8qz.png)</center> 
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Well, the good thing about FreeCAD and CATIA is that this CAD softwares are very particular with **constraints** which is good to ensure the stability of your sketch by locking the degree of freedom both x and y axis. And FreeCAD software also notifies the designer that the sketch is under-constrained or having redundant constraints and fully constrained sketch if all constraints had been applied to the curves being found in the sketch. And if the **Solver messages** tab of the software indicates that there is "*redundant constaints*" it displays the *constraint number* found in the *Constraints* tab and it should be deleted or the recent constraint must be cancelled; whereas for "*under-constrained sketch*" that's the trickiest part for the new users since you need to inspect your sketch on the curves that you've missed applying constraints. For my first sketch, here is the screenshot of what it is like to have a fully constrained sketch and additionally I added red rectangles to highlight both the **Solver messages** and **Constraints** tabs.
<center>![os06m96i9l.png](https://img.esteem.ws/os06m96i9l.png)</center>

It was a very fulfilling to have my first successful sketch using FreeCAD software and it is a very good start to ignite me once again when it comes to CAD modeling, for which when I was an OJT we were given 17 sample drawings and the initial plan of the assigned design engineer that would mentor us was to complete the modeling of those sketches in 4 weeks and to make the story short, I managed to complete the models for those sketches in a matter of 3 days. Much for that, my future plans in learning FreeCAD is to know all the functions, work on each workbenches (part design, assembly and drafting). And when I have fully absorbed this software, I will surely tackle
 drafting topics such as **Geometric Dimensioning & Tolerancing** and **Stack-up Analysis**.

Well, that's all and I'm hoping that I will find any CATIA or FreeCAD user and perhaps a Siemens NX user too, who is a Steemian at the same time, it would be a lot of fun and a very great help too.



Thank you for spending your time reading this blog of mine.

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Much love and respect.


<br>

Ace | @josephace135
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Reference(s):

1. [Sketcher Tutorial](https://www.freecadweb.org/wiki/Sketcher_tutorial)