question regarding flange bend options

Ulrich_Hanisch

I have created some sheet metal plate (100x100x3 thick) and would like to add some flange. In the feature options I can choose if ...

1) the flange is completely (flange's thickness + bend area) inside of the given plate size (makes sense, if the plate's intial size corresponds to the max space for the part)
2) the flange's thickness is outside and the bend radius is inside of the initial plate size (makes sense, if the flange should embrace another part which has the size of the initial plate)
3) half of the flange's thickness is outside and the other half as well as the bend radius is inside of the initial plate size

Does anybody out there have some idea for a real usecase of the last bend option? 

And: does anybody out there miss some bend option, that the flange's thickness + the bend radius is outside of the initial plate size? That's my usecase and unfortunately, I'm forced to use a workaround by adding some move face feature to expand the end face of the initial plate exactly with that value of the bend radius ... 

mfalkensteiner

Well, there are Use Cases out there. In my engineering life, I used this option sometimes. (Even at the moment I can't remember of a good example :-))


There is a nice custom feature for your last question, I recommend to have a look a this:
https://cad.onshape.com/documents/602655eff016f183fc184978/v/19fb13a6756bd7dc18c44d58/e/19d0707305639254781cb5d0 

Ulrich_Hanisch

I know, Featurescript is a powerfull thing in Onshape, and indeed, this custom feature is a good workaround for sketched (sic!) flanges. So I have to sketch the flange contour instead of expand the base part :-)

eric_pesty

I agree the "mid" option does't seem very useful... It also seems inconsistent when you consider the rest of the sheet metal tools don't offer a "midplane" option (thicken would be the most obvious spot for it but extrude and even convert could also use that option. At least you could design based on the centerline and build from there.

One option I miss quite often would be for the flange AND bend to be entirely outside: i.e. so the original edge of the flat part remains in the same spot, that's actually pretty common and and annoying not to have that option!