2D designs with FreeCAD and Estlcam

I like to use FreeCAD’s sketcher for creating drawings for export to Estlcam. However, FreeCAD doesn’t like ‘broken faces’ in its sketches. I understand why these errors occur, and for a sketch for further processing in CAD broken faces are a problem, but for export to Estlcam, they are not. However, FreeCAD’s dxf export does not work properly as long as the broken face errors are there. Is there a solution for this?

I saw a neat solution for finding where a face is broken (I think on the OnShape forum) which was to add a line that cuts the face in two. Assuming that there’s only one break, one half of the face will now be complete and the other will still be open, which tells you that the break is in the open half.

Then undo that line and add another one that cuts the half with the problem in two. Keep going until you’ve isolated the open vertex, then zoom in and fix it.

If adding a line didn’t complete half of the face, you have more than one break. Keep the line, and solve each half separately.

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Thanks, yes, I understand that you can use this method to find where the sketch is broken. I am looking for something different, though. Basically I am looking for a way to to export ‘broken face’ sketches. I don’t care about being able to extrude the sketches because I just want to export to dxf and import into Estlcam. I still would like to use all the constraining and dimensioning features that FreeCAD’s sketcher offers, it’s a great tool for this. It may be that this is not possible, though, but maybe there is an alternative?

I know what you mean, now I use fusion 360 and rarely have issues. make a sketch and export sketch as .dxf for opening in Estlcam. works fine for me.

Yes, thanks, exactly what I’ve been doing for a few weeks now. It works, although for some reason the dxf conversions always take forever on my machine.

Maybe I’ll switch to Fusion360 for that reason, although I like the freeware idea a lot. Pity.