Freecad Multiple Pads Problems

Hello,
I’m very not good at this program as I haven’t had any time to teach myself but I know there must be an easy solution to my problem - I have read tutorials and briefly got it to work many moons ago but now the same thing isn’t working for me. Can anyone explain the process for this? I want to cut a shape out of acrylic (which we do all the time) but this time I want to have shapes cut out of the inside of that specific shapes, but since they are all individual shapes, I can’t pad each one to make a cut without getting an error message
I’m still using version .18, just downloaded the new one but haven’t explored it yet.
I’m including screenshots of my design I want to cut (the outer square would be fully cut through the acrylic) with the outlines of the shapes cut about half way down. I remember merging sketches but it doesn’t seem to allow me to create a body other then on the outer shape / pad them.

if anyone knows thank you so much! This would greatly improve my life ha.



Screen Shot 2021-07-21 at 1.45.07 PM

If I understand correctly, you should be able to do this in Part Design Workbench with a reverse pad and then create second sketch on the face with you inside shapes and do a pocket.

FreeCad
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Thank you for the video! I’m not sure why in my program whenever I try to create the pocket it says my sketch isn’t part of the other body. I’m importing .svg from Illustrator which each object it’s its own path. I scale it, move it, and then make the drafts into sketches. From there I can make a body and reverse pad the outer square but anything I try to do with the inner shapes it won’t let me. I’ll attach some of the error messages. I’ve combined the sketches into one and attached them to the face of the “square body” but it’s still separate. When I tried your pocket way it gave me some error messages I will attach here. Does it have something to do with the .svg? I think it’s something to do with multi sketches. Totally at a loss but my knowledge of the program is really usually the first part which is just creating a shape and then contour cutting it. I think i’m missing something simple :confused:





I was able to do it with an SVG imported from Inkscape into the draft workbench, did a convert draft objects to sketches, and then delete the imported paths.

I then switched to Part Design workbench, started a new Part, create a new body, create a new sketch. Draw the rectangle and then reverse pad. In the model tree I then drag the sketch created in draft to the active body and while it is selected click on Pocket icon.

FreeCad-svg

Let me know if this helps.

Thank you! Will give that a try, have been wondering if I should try inkscape myself…

I got the pocket to work! Thanks so much, I had to individually click on each one to get them to pocket but still great. My next problem is I need to cut everything out. I created a job and a contour around the rectangle image, but I don’t want to create a pocket job because I want to cut around the outside of the pocket, but when I try face or edge profiles, it will let me put in the heights but when I apply I can tell that nothing happens because there’s no green cut lines showing up. Is there some trick to cutting around the edge of a pocket? It’s just weird it will let me set everything up and then doesn’t seem to apply the face/edge profile…
Thanks again for all your help, I know i’m very new at this!

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@tatiana, I am having a hard time visualizing what you are trying do do with the pockets. But it kind of makes sense you are cutting on the outside of the shapes, since a round endmill will not be able to make sharp inside corners like that.

Here is more or less how I do setup in the Path Workbench. I actually created a Job Template that sets up a lot of the parameters for me when creating a new Path job…

  • Starting in the Path workbench
  • Create a job
  • Extend the bounding box to show stock on the sides of the model
  • Optionally set the origin point to the left corner of the model
  • The path workbench creates a clone of your model. Hide the part you created in the Part Workbench and make the Path Model visible.
  • Select a tool from the tool menu
  • With the model selected, click on the Profile operation icon
  • Check and edit your feeds and speeds.

FreeCad-path
Also you want to add holding tags from the Path Dressup menu.

I got it to work! It was just removing my depth when I put it into the face profile for some reason so as long as I did it twice it set up the cut. Thank you so much for all your help!

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