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I am trying to create a mechanism with moving parts, and would like to see how it works (whether it even works) before printing it.

For example, there's a servo with a bracket, and I would like to see how far can the bracket move before colliding with other objects.

enter image description here

Unfortunately I cannot find any information on how to set pivot points and rotate objects around these points in FreeCAD. Is this even possible?

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  • $\begingroup$ If the user manual doesn't mention it, it's probably not a feature available in FreeCAD. You may have to consider some more powerful (not free) tool. $\endgroup$
    – Carl Witthoft
    Oct 9, 2018 at 15:28
  • $\begingroup$ Fusian 360 is free for most use cases and includes moving joints as well as animations of those joints. $\endgroup$
    – towe
    Jul 10, 2019 at 9:40

2 Answers 2

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freeCad has a draft rotate function in DRAFT workbench:

  1. Select an object;
  2. Press the Draft Rotate button, then;
  3. Click to set the rotating point and rotate.

You will get used to that after a few trails.

There is a step by step guide on freeCad site.

There is also a short demo of the function here.

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    $\begingroup$ Because... links die, but content typed in here will be archived and searchable. $\endgroup$
    – Davo
    Oct 10, 2018 at 11:27
  • $\begingroup$ I suppose that's as far as I can get with FreeCAD... Not as comfortable as in Blender, but kinda solves the task : $\endgroup$
    – Art
    Oct 10, 2018 at 15:52
  • $\begingroup$ The link says that three different clicks are required (center point, reference point and rotation point - 5 steps in all). Whilst you do give the main overview, I think that (maybe in this case), a full reproduction of the five steps could be more useful :-) Admittedly, the video may be harder to explain in text (but it probably is doable) $\endgroup$
    – Greenonline ♦
    Oct 11, 2018 at 18:14
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I would also like to take a look at the A2plus Workbench (Freecad Addon). There you can define constraints which can help with this problem. As far as I know, parts cannot be moved with the mouse pointer, but angle parameters can be entered.

https://freecadweb.org/wiki/A2plus_Workbench

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