FreeCAD for Electronic Applications

Embedding a vintage component, creating a professional looking home for a circuit board, or even designing a complex apparatus complete with a chassis – these and many other challenges turn into a stimulating pleasure with FreeCAD. Once you have internalized the basic processes, there are virtually no limits to your imagination.



Starting to use a new software is never straightforward – especially with a tool as versatile as FreeCAD. Manageable, but at the same time easily usable individual components provide the starting point in this book. Putting these components together later results in assemblies.



In the FreeCAD universe, a workable trajectory is demonstrated. The described procedure is illustrative so the examples are easily applied to custom tasks. The devices were made by the author and illustrated with photos.



Creating a 3D design is requiring some effort but the initial investment pays off soon. Besides the impressive spatial representation of the projects, the extracted drawings yield a solid base for documentation and production. Extended FreeCAD capabilities like the unfolding of sheet metal parts enormously add to efficiency and pushes models forward into practical assembly.



Soon you will definitely not want to do without FreeCAD!



Thomas Duden studied Physics in Clausthal-Zellerfeld, where he also received his PhD. For research purposes, the experiments required the design of many instruments. These developments also included electronics (mainly stable high voltage and current sources), programming of PCs and microcontrollers plus the calculation of electron-optical components with their aberrations. Meanwhile, mechanical designs covered ultrahigh vacuum systems, components for electron microscopy and diffraction instruments, often in combination with spin-polarized electron beams. Longer work phases abroad took place at the IBM Almaden Research Center (San Jose), at Arizona State University, and at the National Center for Electron Microscopy of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Thomas Duden obtained his ham radio license at the age of 16 and currently operates a consulting service for the development of scientific instruments.