Introduction to Mechanical Design Using FreeCAD

The design of solid parts has progressed from the manual generation of “blueprints” to the computerized generation of 3D drawings which can display the part in a variety of views, including isometric. There are numerous commercially available CAD programs and a few open-source ones. [FreeCAD](https://www.freecadweb.org/) is a full-featured open-source program which can be freely downloaded from the FreeCAD web site. In this presentation the features of FreeCAD that make it attractive will be described, and a step-by-step procedure for generating a drawing of a moderate complexity part will be presented. The file of the designed object generated by FreeCAD will be suitable for fabrication using CNC machining or 3D printing. Some of the nuances and pitfalls of CNC machining will also be discussed.

George Vella-Coleirois a retired Physicist who spent most of his career (1967 – 2001) at Bell Laboratories working on a variety of projects, including Magnetic Bubble Memories, Superconducting Josephson devices, GaAs MESFETs and ICs, Integrated Optoelectronic Devices, and a fiber-optic Microcell for cellular communications. From 2001 to 2019 he was with Commscope developing Digital Predistortion for the linearization of RF power amplifiers, a GPS interferometer for determining the azimuth of Cellular Base Station antennas, and a 5G microcell using mm-Waves.

Co-sponsored by: IEEE Consultants’ Network of Northern New Jersey

Speaker(s): George Vella-Coleiro,

Agenda:
Introductions

Speaker presentation

Audience questions welcomed

Networking

Virtual: https://events.vtools.ieee.org/m/323653