Using Onshape for foldable 3D Prints

l_m724

Hi Community

As many of you may know, the part that is touching the heatbed of a 3D-Printer is quite strong, almost the strength of injection molded parts, while the area where the layers meet is usually by far the weakest. Therefore i'm currently designing an FPV Drone frame (I know it's a bad idea, i'm just doing it for fun), where the arms are printed flat on the bed and are then folded into a triangular shape and melted together using a soldering iron.

Since i want to integrate a mount for the motors in this foldable part, i need to edit it in its folded state. Unfortunately, i can't figure out a good workflow to work on the folded state of the arms while also being able to easily unfold the model when i need to export it for printing. I've learned that there is a bend-tool for sheet metal, but i can't get it to work on my part, since i can't select any surface for "sheet metal face to bend", probably because of the concave geometry.

https://cad.onshape.com/documents/10b256b039fb9fadde61f96f/w/7044ed40e3460f6768627386/e/6cfa13c29c9ce8f09a397705?renderMode=0&uiState=686be0c34c43d50e904d9923

Help is greatly appreciated!

EvanReese

ooh! tricky challenge!

Sheet metal can't handle the various thicknesses you've got and even if it did, would likely bog down with the hexagons in it. One way is using sheet metal just for the folding (set the sheet metal thickness to match the living hinge thickness for your print) then model on top of it. If you want to simulate the model in a folded and flat state you can do it with a bit of setup. There's a Flat Pattern Copy custom feature you can use to get the pattern, then model either in the folded state or flat state, and use the transform tool to move the other modeled parts between them, like this. This is a rough pass to get you started, but the workflow can be streamlined a lot more. There's even possibly an opportunity for a new custom feature here to automate all of the transforms between the models if this became a common need.

https://cad.onshape.com/documents/3ad6aa09c11d05124649cb1d/w/ff4a83a6525ca4204f9f263f/e/976c244a36a8b50456bb03f6

l_m724

https://forum.onshape.com/discussion/comment/118715#Comment_118715

Wow, thanks for the great advice! I'm still new to Onshape so it will take some time for me to grasp that answer, but i'm sure it will be a great skill for crazy robust 3D-Prints. Have a nice day! :)

EvanReese

The techniques I'm using are a bit on the intermediate to advanced side of things, and the workflow itself needs refinement, but I think the direction is promising. Good luck!