sheet metal loft

bryan_lagrange

Looking forward to having loft command in sheet metal.

This has been my work around today to get a flat pattern going from a square (with "round corners") to a "circle" loft.

I use quotes for round corners and circle because I am using a multisided polygon to create it.

This method does give transition lines for bending.

Does anyone else have a work around for lofting sheet metal parts and getting a flat pattern?

konstantin_shiriazdanov

This is not a sheet metal specific, so you don't get any corrections for k factor, but kinda workaroud.

https://cad.onshape.com/documents/0bb13c1b6ed6d4a6dd75cf99/w/b4493d47a45c27ce485c84b9/e/ed6b6d717c56f565f9481793

bryan_lagrange

Thank you @konstantin_shiriazdanov. How well does it work going from diffent shapes (square/ rectangles to circles)?

Here is another shot with a polygon with more sides to mimic a circle/radius.

bryan_lagrange

I also did a test with the circle offset from center.

konstantin_shiriazdanov

it works untill your shape is a generalized cone, that means you need a top vertex and vertex for spherical section, so it doesn't suits for arbitary ruled surface. I beleve somebody made a feature for this type of multiple bend segments. It is easy to make a segmented underlying surface with FS, but I'm not familiar with sheet metal subset of FS. possibly @MBartlett_EDU could help me with it

bryan_lagrange

Thank you @konstantin_shiriazdanov

konstantin_shiriazdanov

so here is the feature which makes underlying surface for your kind of shape, based on the pairs of entities

https://cad.onshape.com/documents/51b2c9ee60d78d9f27118b90/w/6b41eb019eb71fbb58073cc5/e/d74d14c27c0f262d62d40dfd

And this approach on four sided segments seems to be still not reliable enough, as they are not necessary planar, what is needed is triangular segments. I'll try it later

john_mcclary

https://forum.onshape.com/discussion/9297/loft-sheet-metal

Add your vote to this request 

bryan_lagrange

Its got my vote @john_mcclary

The only work around I have been able to make a cone and or loft from square to circle and get a flat pattern is to try and make the cicrle/radius into a multisided polygon.

Here is the link to the Onshape document:

https://cad.onshape.com/documents/b61553ca7c0d34c686ac170f/w/29eed6f7cd27da738910e958/e/2551a6836ebdb7081c42cbaf

A true sheet metal loft is what we need.

kent_henderson

I emphatically second the motion that we need sheet metal lofting. So much of what we do requires a sheet metal loft. We at least need the ability to create  a flat, faceted lofts consistent with standard bending practices, that can be then be converted to a sheet metal part. Our work around consists of exporting an Onshape solid loft as a .step, opening the .step in Inventor, select "lofted sheet metal part", and selecting each end of the loft. WE NEED A SHEET METAL LOFT. (yes, I'm shouting)

kent_henderson

https://cad.onshape.com/documents/073c595becba3be3d8eae0dd/w/896b18d3830b23c2c6ea9e03/e/14d90d477a54957304b96634

Don't laugh at the work around. Had to loft solid and shell just for illustration purposes. Bend lines shown are not consistent with normal bending practices. Just for looks. The time it would take to turn this into a good formable part from Onshape would take too long. See the "Inventor export" part that s.m. lofts easily in Inventor. Sheet metal loft for me in Onshape, please. 

kent_henderson

OMG! We need sheet metal lofts. I've been working on this simple transition most of the afternoon in Onshape. Finally got something close, but it would need to be welded instead of formed. I got a working flat pattern in Inventor in 5 minutes. ONSHAPE NEEDS SHEET METAL LOFTS! This should be the easiest thing, not the most frustrating thing. This is as close as I can get with Onshape and would still need to weld the blue to the gray instead of having a simple 3 degree crack bend. 5 lines should loft to 5 lines in a "sheet metal loft"  command that adds corner crack bends where surfaces aren't truly planar. Onshape's sheet metal is otherwise amazing. Why can't we have SM lofts to complete the suite of SM tools? I can't bring more engineers onboard to Onshape without it. We're a metal fabricators and this is the missing feature that prevents us from moving to Onshape solely.
https://cad.onshape.com/documents/a128d0cb19db5cf98e7ac43f/w/fba540e7cce846bd1a9c1ee7/e/fce4073da1adce45ec4d8000?renderMode=0&uiState=61e1faabbff717140b21aa04

bryan_lagrange

Are you looking to something like this @kent_henderson

kent_henderson

Yes. Do you still have this document to share so I can see what you've done? (sorry, I'm just now seeing this)

bryan_lagrange

Here you go:

https://cad.onshape.com/documents/61105e150a76bb15e192e55e/w/b8ee15ba2986a1b9f7bb5918/e/7f11e44d6fcc2efffb4f39d5