Free Cad Files For 3d Printing

In the case of 3D printers, the G-Code is the actual file that the 3D printer reads. The G-Code file contains the instructions for the 3D printer to build the object layer by layer (starting point, the direction and the speed of the nozzle, etc.). It is possible to generate G-Code files from STL files or other formats using a slicer software. The Computer-Aided Design ('CAD') files and all associated content posted to this website are created, uploaded, managed and owned by third party users. Each CAD and any associated text, image or data is in no way sponsored by or affiliated with any company, organization or real-world item, product, or good it may purport to portray.

1. Free Cad Files For 3d Printing Free
2. Free Cad Files For 3d Printing Software

• Discovering FreeCAD
  • Installing
  • The FreeCAD interface
  • Navigating in the 3D view
• Working with FreeCAD
  • Preparing models for 3D printing
  • Using spreadsheets
• Python scripting
  • A gentle introduction

One of the main uses of FreeCAD is to produce real-world objects. These can be designed in FreeCAD, and then made real in different ways, such as communicated to other people who will then build them, or, more and more frequently, sent directly to a 3D printer or a CNC mill. This chapter will show you how to get your models ready to send to these machines.

If you have been cautious while modeling, most of the difficulty you might encounter when printing your model in 3D has already been avoided. This involves basically:

• Making sure that your 3D objects are solid. Real-world objects are solid, the 3D model must be solid too. We saw in earlier chapters that FreeCAD helps you a lot in that regard, and that the PartDesign Workbench will notify you if you do an operation that prevents your model to stay solid. The Part Workbench also contains a Check Geometry tool that is handy to check further for possible defects.
• Making sure about the dimensions of your objects. One millimeter will be one millimeter in real-life. Every dimension matters.
• Controlling the degradation. No 3D printing or CNC milling system can take FreeCAD files directly. Most of them will only understand a machine language called G-Code. G-code has dozens of different dialects, each machine or vendor usually has its own. The conversion of your models into G-Code can be easy and automatic, but you can also do it manually, with total control over the output. In any case, some loss of quality of your model will unavoidably occur during the process. When printing in 3D, you must always make sure this loss of quality stays below your minimum requirements.

Below, we will assume that the first two criteria are met, and that by now you are able to produce solid objects with correct dimensions. We will now see how to address the third point.

Exporting to slicers

This is the technique most commonly used for 3D printing. The 3D object is exported to another program (the slicer) which will generate the G-code from the object, by slicing it into thin layers (hence the name), which will reproduce the movements that the 3D printer will do. Since many of those printers are home-built, there are often small differences from one to the other. These programs usually offer advanced configuration possibilities that allow you to tailor the output exactly for the features of your 3D printer.

Actual 3D printing, however, is too vast a subject for this manual. But we will see how to export and use these slicers to check that the output is correct.

Converting objects to meshes

None of the slicers will, at this time, directly take the solid geometry as we produce in FreeCAD. So we will need to convert any object we want to 3D print into a mesh first, that the slicer can open. Fortunately, as much as converting a mesh to a solid is a complicated operation, the contrary, converting a solid to a mesh, is very straightforward. All we need to be careful about, is that it is here that the degradation we mentioned above will occur. We need to check that the degradation stays within acceptable limits. Animal crossing wild world guide book pdf.

All the mesh handling, in FreeCAD, is done by another specific workbench, the Mesh Workbench. This workbench contains, in addition to the most important tools that convert between Part and Mesh objects, several utilities meant to analyze and repair meshes. Although working with meshes is not the focus of FreeCAD, when working with 3D modeling, you often need to deal with mesh objects, since their use is very widespread among other applications. This workbench allows you to handle them fully in FreeCAD.

• Let's convert one of the objects we modelled in the previous chapters, such as the lego piece (which can be downloaded from the end of the previous chapter).
• Open the FreeCAD file containing the lego piece.
• Switch to the Mesh Workbench
• Select the lego brick
• Select menu Meshes -> Create Mesh from Shape
• A task panel will open with several options. Some additional meshing algorithms (Mefisto or Netgen) might not be available, depending on how your version of FreeCAD was compiled. The Standard meshing algorithm will always be present. It offers less possibilities than the two others, but is totally sufficient for small objects that fit into the maximum print size of a 3D printer.

• Select the Standard mesher, and leave the deviation value to the default value of 0.10. Press Ok.
• A mesh object will be created, exactly on top of our solid object. Either hide the solid, or move one of the objects aside, so you can compare both.
• Change the View -> Display Mode property of the new mesh object to Flat Lines, in order to see how the triangulation occurred.
• If you are not happy, and think that the result is too coarse, you can repeat the operation, lowering the deviation value. In the example below, the left mesh used the default value of 0.10, while the right one uses 0.01:

In most cases, though, the default values will give a satisfying result.

• We can now export our mesh to a mesh format, such as STL, which is currently the most widely used format in 3D printing, by using menu File -> Export and choosing the STL file format.

If you don't own a 3D printer, it is usually very easy to find commercial services that will print and send you the printed objects by mail. Among the famous ones are Shapeways and Sculpteo, but you will usually find many others in your own city. In all major cities, you will nowadays find Fab labs, which are workshops equipped with a range of 3D manufacturing machines, almost always including at least one 3D printer. Fab labs are usually community spaces, that will let you use their machines, for a fee or for free depending on the Fab lab, but also teach you how to use them, and promote other activities around 3D manufacturing.

Using Slic3r

Slic3r is an application that converts STL objects into G-code that can be sent directly to 3D printers. Like FreeCAD, it is free, open source and runs on Windows, Mac OS and Linux. Correctly configuring things for 3D printing is a complicated process, where you must have a good knowledge of your 3D printer, so it is not very useful to generate G-code before actually going to print (your G-code file might not work well on another printer), but it is useful for us anyway, to check that our STL file will be printable without problems.

This is our exported STL file opened in Slic3r. By using the preview tab, and moving the right slider, we can visualize the path that the 3D printer head will follow to construct our object.

Using the Cura addon

Cura is another free and open source slicer application for Windows, Mac and Linux, maintained by the 3D printer maker Ultimaker. Some FreeCAD users have created a Cura Workbench that uses cura internally. The Cura Workbench is available from the FreeCAD addons repository. To use the Cura Workbench, you also need to install Cura itself, which is not included in the workbench.

Once you have installed both Cura and the Cura Workbench, you will be able to use it to produce the G-code file directly from Part objects, without the need to convert them to meshes, and without the need to open an external application. Producing another G-code file from our Lego brick, using the Cura Workbench this time, is done as follows:

• Load the file containing our Lego brick (it can be downloaded at the end of the previous chapter)
• Switch to the Cura Workbench
• Setup the printer space by choosing menu 3D printing -> Create a 3D printer definition. Since we aren't going to print for real, we can leave the settings as they are. The geometry of the printing bed and available space will be shown in the 3D view.
• Move the Lego brick to a suitable location, such as the center of the printing bed. Remember that PartDesign objects cannot be moved directly, so you need either to move its very first sketch (the first rectangle), or to move (and print) a copy, which can be made with the Part -> Create Simple Copy tool. The copy can be moved, for example with Draft -> Move.
• Select the object to be printed, and select menu 3D printing -> Slice with Cura Engine.
• In the task panel that will open, make sure the path to the Cura executable is correctly set. Since we are not going to really print, we can leave all other options as they are. Press Ok. Two files will be generated in the same directory as your FreeCAD file, an STL file and a G-code file.

• The generated G-code can also be re-imported into FreeCAD (using the slic3r preprocessor) for checking.

Generating G-code

FreeCAD also offers more advanced ways to generate G-code directly. This is often much more complicated than using automatic tools as we saw above, but has the advantage to let you fully control the output. This is usually not needed when using 3D printers, but becomes very important when dealing with CNC milling, as the machines are much more complex.

G-code path generation in FreeCAD is done with the Path Workbench. It features tools that generate full machine paths and others that generate only parts of a G-code project, that can then be assembled to form a whole milling operation.

Generating CNC milling paths is another subject that is much too vast to fit in this manual, so we are going to show how to build a simple Path project, without caring much about most of the details of real CNC machining.

• Load the file containing our lego piece, and switch to the Path Workbench.
• Since the final piece doesn't contain anymore a rectangular top face, hide the final lego piece, and show the first cubic pad that we did, which has a rectangular top face.
• Select the top face and press the Profile button.
• Set its Offset property to 1mm.

• Then, let's duplicate this first loop a couple of times, so the tool will carve out the whole block. Select the Profile path, and press the Array button.
• Set the Copies property of the array to 8, and its Offset to -2mm in the Z direction, and move the placement of the array by 2mm in the Z direction, so the cutting will start a bit above the pad, and include the height of the dots too.

• Now we have defined a path that, when followed by the milling machine, will carve a rectangular volume out of a block of material. We now need to carve out the space between the dots, in order to reveal them. Hide the Pad, and show the final piece again, so we can select the face that lies between the dots.
• Select the top face, and press the Pocket Shape button. Set the Offset property to 1mm, and the retraction height to 20mm. That is the height to where the cutter will travel when switching from one loop to another. Otherwise, the cutter might cut right through one of our dots:

• Once again, make an array. Select the Pocket object, and press the Array button. Set the Copies number to 1 and the offset to -2mm in the Z direction. Move the placement of the array by 2mm in the Z direction. Our two operations are now done:

• Now all that is left to do is to join these two operations into one. This can be done with a Path Compound or a Path Job. Since we will need nothing more and will be ready to export already, we will use the job. Press the Job button.
• Set the Use Placements property of the project is to True, because we changed the placement of the arrays, and we want that to be taken into account in the project.
• In the tree view, drag and drop the two arrays into the project. You can reorder the arrays inside the project if needed, by double-clicking it.
• The project can now be exported to G-code, by selecting it, choosing menu File -> Export, selecting the G-code format, and in the pop-up dialog that will open, selecting a post-processing script according to your machine.

There are many applications available to simulate the real cutting, one of them that is also multi-platform and open source, like FreeCAD, is Camotics.

Downloads

• The STL file generated in this exercise: https://github.com/yorikvanhavre/FreeCAD-manual/blob/master/files/lego.stl
• The file generated during this exercise: https://github.com/yorikvanhavre/FreeCAD-manual/blob/master/files/path.FCStd
• The G-code file generated in this exercise: https://github.com/yorikvanhavre/FreeCAD-manual/blob/master/files/lego.gcode

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Jan 25, 2016 | By Kira

As 3D printing goes mainstream in 2016, more and more users will be looking for new and fun projects they can 3D print at home. To 3D point them in the right direction, we've rounded up some of the best websites to download free STL files for 3D printing.

In a way, STL files, and the 3D model repositories that hold them, are what make the 3D printing world go round—you can't start 3D printing without a workable 3D model (preferably in STL, the most widely used format for 3D printing), and no matter what it is you are looking for, chances are you will find it on one of these top-rated 3D content websites. Better yet, they're almost all entirely free!

With hundreds to thousands of free 3D printable STL files to choose from, these 3D model repositories are the perfect place to start on your next at-home 3D printing project. If you happen to be a 3D designer yourself, many will also allow you to upload, share, and sometimes sell your custom 3D printing designs, while giving you direct access to the global 3D printing community.

Mavis beacon teaches typing 20 for schools. In no particular order, here are the best websites to download free STL files for 3D printing so far in 2016:

1. Free STL Files Download Site for 3D Printing: Thingiverse

Let's start off with the single biggest 3D content repository of them all: MakerBot's Thingiverse. Launched in 2008 for the burgeoning and still quite exclusive maker community, Thingiverse has since grown into one of the most important 3D design communities in the world, allowing users of all levels to upload, share and download 3D printable files absolutely free of cost.

In late 2015, Thingiverse reached a mega-milestone, having surpassed one million uploads and 200 million downloads. The site is also well-known for hosting various 3D printing design challenges. Whether you are an educator, professional engineer, artist, or casual hobbyist, chances are you'll find exactly what you are looking for on Thingiverse.

Featured STL file: 3D printed ‘Mouth Operated Mouse'.

2. Free STL Files Download Site for 3D Printing: YouMagine

Though significantly smaller than Thingiverse, YouMagine is also powered by a large 3D printer company—in this case, Ultimaker. The 3D content repository features a couple hundred free STL files for 3D printing, ranging from Ultimaker 2 upgrades to toys and household items. What makes YouMagine stand out is their commitment to protecting their 3D designers. In 2015, the company released a new open source license specifically for 3D printed objects, known as 3DPL.

In addition, the YouMagine recently tapped into its 500+ member community to conduct a desktop 3D printing survey and gain some insight into what consumers really want.

Featured STL model: Simple 3D printed Circuit Board

3. Free STL Files Download Site for 3D Printing: Pinshape

Pinshape is another giant in the 3D content world. This 3D community marketplace consists of over 55,000 makers and 3D designers and offers both ‘premium' (paid) STL files and free STL files for 3D printing. In addition to giving 3D designers the option to sell or share their 3D designs, Pinshape also has a ‘streaming' option, powered by 3DPrinterOS, that allows users to edit, slice and print a design from the Pinshape platform without actually downloading the design file. This allows designers to protect their source file while still giving fellow makers access to the design.

On top of STL, Pinshape supports OBJ files and ZIP files containing those types. Since it is not owned by a 3D printer manufacturer, the site is also ‘hardware neutral' in terms of support.

Featured STL model: Fully 3D printable OpenRC F1 Race Car

4. Free STL Files Download Site for 3D Printing: My Mini Factory

MyMiniFactory markets itself as 'the world's largest curated 3D object download platform.' The key word here is curated—that's because every 3D model uploaded to their repository is carefully selected and then tested by members of the community. If it's not ‘guaranteed 3D printable', you won't find it on My Mini Factory.

The well organized and feature-heavy website offers free access to thousands of 3D printable STL files, and if you can't find what you are looking for, you can request it from a professional 3D designer. My Mini Factory is managed by iMakr, an online store that sells 3D printers and accessories, and the largest 3D printing store in Central London.

Featured STL model: 3D printed Tricky Bricks

5. Free STL Files Download Site for 3D Printing: Cults

Cults3D is probably the biggest French online 3D printing marketplaces that offers both paid and free high quality STL files for 3D printing—but don't worry, you won't need to learn the language of love to find what you're looking for. The entire website is available in English, French and even Spanish! Beyond just being a 3D model repository, however, Cults sees itself as a 3D printing community, offering a kind of social network for 3D print enthusiasts where they can find and follow new designers, connect with other modelers, save their favorite 3D models, and more.

Featured STL model: Maison & Objet 3D printed Paris-inspired home accessories

6.Free STL Files Download Site for 3D Printing: GrabCAD

GrabCAD is more than just a generic 3D content site—rather than focusing on household items, decorations or doodads, GrabCAD is a 3D printing community by mechanical engineers, for mechanical engineers, helping them access well-designed parts to help them build their products faster, without having to ‘reinvent the wheel'. Owned by Stratasys since 2014, GrabCAD boasts a community of over 1 million engineers, and over 1,130,000 free CAD models (some are available in STL, others can be converted).

However, that's not to say GrabCAD isn't useful for us non-engineering folk. The 3D model library contains everything from jewelry to furniture to Star Wars goods and more.

Featured STL model: 3D printed Jet Engine Bracket, available on GrabCAD here

7. Free STL Files Download Site for 3D Printing: Autodesk 123D

Undoubtedly one of the biggest names in CAD design software, Autodesk not only launched their own 3D modeling site, with over 10,000 free 3D STL models for 3D printing, it also released an entire suite of free 3D modeling apps for those who want to get started with 3D modeling themselves, regardless of their current skill levels.

Autodesk 123D allows users to browse through a library of 3D models, download or edit them, and upload their own creations. And Autodesk 123D's apps include 123D Design, 123D Sculpt+, TinkerCAD, 123D Catch and many more. Not sure where to start? Here is a tutorial for 123D Design, a beginner's 3D creation and editing tool that supports several 3D printers.

Featured STL model: 3D Printed Night Light

8. Free STL Files Download Site for 3D Printing: 3Dagogo

Owned by a small team of hackers, designers and ‘hustlers' that are clearly very passionate about the subject of 3D printing, California-based 3Dagogo is another site that allows users to buy and sell 3D models, while also offering a large selection of completely free STL files for 3D printing. What makes 3Dagogo so great is that every single 3D design uploaded to the site is 'proven-to-print,' and each one even includes a picture of the finished 3D printed model included for non-believers.

3Dagogo is also the developer behind AstroPrint, a suite of cloud-based 3D printing software and services, and, as of last year, the company partnered with Airwolf to support the development of the HD-R 3D printer and develop a Wi-Fi upgrade kit called WofWare, based on the AstroPrint platform.

Featured STL model: 3D printed custom Harley Davidson by Maurizio Casella

9. Free STL Files Download Site for 3D Printing: 3DShook

3DShook's marketplace model is a little different from some of the other websites on our list because, while there is a Free Trial Gallery, they actually offer a subscription print-on-demand service for users who find themselves frequently 3D printing new items and want to get the most bang for their buck. 3DShook offers package deals, ranging from $10-$50, as well as monthly, educational, yearly and commercial subscriptions. With a catalogue of over 1000 ready-to-3D-print STL models sorted into more than 40 categories, 3Dshook will let you find everything from tools to toys, with a focus on items that are useful and functional.

10. Free STL Files Download Site for 3D Printing: Instructables

Instructables is much more than a mere 3D model repository, however we had to include it since it is a trusted and fantastic maker resource, featuring thousands of user-created, richly detailed, step-by-step DIY projects, in everything from woodworking to cooking to electronics. There is also a massive channel dedicated to 3D printing, where users will upload detailed instructions for intricate 3D printed projects, and more often than not provide downloads for their free STL files. Today's maker community would not be what it is if it weren't for Instructables, and we definitely recommend you check it out.

Free Cad Files For 3d Printing Free

Featured STL model: 3D printed Six-Flask Cold Coffee Brewer

The above are just our picks for the top 10 best sites to download free STL files for 3D printing, however there are many, many more to choose from—even after 3D Systems announced that it would be closing its Cubify 3D printing marketplace for good. Alongside a host of 3D model search engines, there is Repables, Threeding, 3DVIA, and many sites that focus more on paid 3D content, such as TurboSquid or CGTrader. There is no shortage of excellent, high quality and totally free 3D printable content online—you just have to find it and start your 3D printing adventures.

What are your favorite sites for free 3D printing STL downloads? Let us know if we missed one of yours in the comments, Facebook or on Twitter.

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