Visualize bend zone on sheet metal

gkuhns

I often find that one of the main considerations when designing sheet metal parts is the minimum flange length. This is determined by the pressbrake tooling chosen to bend it. What I am proposing is a very simple and visual way for a designer to know where the edges of the tooling are.

The implementation in Onshape could be simple. An optional field to enter or select the width of the die in the sheet metal properties window would be perfect. The output would be a visual representation of the bend zone on the flat pattern view within the part studio. 

This idea comes from using Bystronic Bysoft to program parts for the pressbrake. The picture below is snipped from that software. The yellow shows the edges of the die and the blue is the bend radius area calculated from the punch selected and the thickness of the metal.

You can see from this visualization of this part that the slots should have been moved ever so slightly away from the bend line to ensure there is no improper material deformation. Also, notice that the different dashed lines denote positive/negative bends.

For comparison, here is the same part in Onshape.

pmd

The point about different bend line representation is already solved at the drawing level as you can set a different style for up and down bends but it would be good if this was also done in the flat pattern view within the part studio.

lougallo

@gkuhns I am not sure this is something that we should be doing directly in our product but if we should have a partner product where you would select things like the the punch etc.  What typical selections are you making besides providing the flat pattern?

gkuhns

I don't really understand your question. Among other things, we select which specific tooling we want to use when we import the part to Bysoft.

The programming software provided by Bystronic calculates bend deductions based on the chosen punch/die combination and the material type/strength/thickness. I would absolutely love if that could all be calculated directly in Onshape, along with a dynamic/real-time cost estimator. I know that that is dreaming so that isn't my request for now.

The only thing I am requesting is to be able in Onshape to set the width of the die to make it easy to see the minimum flange length for whatever die I want to use. I have a bend chart that makes that choice easy for me and I don't need Onshape to calculate the bend deduction based on the tooling.

From a design perspective, the die width is somewhat independent from all the other inputs. I may be wrong about this for other users, but for me, this would be very valuable. Here are a couple snips from Bysoft so you can see what we see.




 

lougallo

@gkuhns This is not something we would be adding to our sheet metal product but we would rely on a partner who can provide those industry specific selection like the punch. die etc.

lana

@gkuhns
Different style for UP and DOWN bend lines is a brilliant idea. Thank you for bringing it up.

gkuhns

@lougallo are you saying the whole idea or just the highlight? All I am asking for is the ability to highlight a given width centered on the bend line.

This request does NOT involve punches, bend radii, backgauges or fancy math.

Cris_Bowers

I think a fairly simple solution to this is to draw a sketch on the flat pattern and use the slot command to offset the bend lines equal to the width of the die. Might be able to be automated a bit by creating a feature script.

gkuhns

yeah, that is easy to sketch but not what I am looking for. It adds an unnecessary feature in the tree unless you delete it.

I wish I had the time to learn FeatureScript. I doubt it would take long at all to add such a simple feature.

bryan_lagrange

I have this on my wish list as well. A sensor setup that would notify the user that a flange length is too small.