SHEET METAL

andrew_troup

A surface flatten tool which worked for compound curved surfaces would be even more awesome!

@billy: Could you put more clarity and detail around your plea for "trimmed surface from sketch"?

brucebartlett

Spot on @billy, this is what we need. I use to use UG back around 2002 and remember doing flat patterns which came out as a closed ploylines/spline, was very handy until I moved over to SolidWorks and have done sheetmetal here ever since. I think a simple flatten tool would be a good start.Hence my request here: 
https://onshape.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/205069037-Flatten-Part-Good-Start-for-Sheet-Metal

@Labern Gave me a good little challenge last week with a flatten using solidworks, can't wait to do this with Onshape. https://forum.onshape.com/discussion/1338/help-with-flatten-sheetmetal#latest

caroline_read

+1 for Sheet Metal

billy2

2015-08-07 8:38am created

I did this in SW many moons ago.

original message

So I want to create a sheet metal bracket between the highlighted green faces:


So I create a planar surface in SW (this is really a trimmed surface, geometrically speaking):


I create another planar surface:


Add a small radius:


Thicken surfaces:


Soften the corner, I hate sheet metal parts that can cut you. I could have added this to my sketch, but I believe in more features and less sketch entities (old school habit):


Flatten out, send to waterjet, break it and you have a part:



OS is real close to having this capability, maybe not the unfold part, but the create part. If I had a trimmed surface (geometrically speaking) I could design any sheet metal part. What OS calls it, and where they put it, I don't care.

This is a different way to model because it belongs to the surfacing family. Everyone I talk to says they want to learn surfacing, so here's an intro surfacing pattern to make sheet metal parts.

Do you want to learn surfacing? Vote this one up.

dennis_20

@billy, That is pretty interesting and I can see how it would work for you.  A lot of sheet metal requires bending with an inside bend radius less than 1.5 * material thickness.  I think you have to be somewhere around 3 * thickness to have a neutral axis in the middle of the part.  This would be necessary for the flattening of the bent section, where the flattening radius would be in the middle of the thickness, as in your example.  With a true sheet metal function this bend allowance is easily handled with bend deductions or k-factors resulting in dead-on flat patterns.  Many bends are done with the inside bend radius less than the material thickness and a k-factor of less than .35.

I agree the surfacing functions are needed in OS, but we will still need a set of true sheet metal capabilities.

I vote yes for the surfacing, but another yes for the sheet metal capability.

billy2

Dennis you're absolutely right, it's better to use the unfold algorithm to add the fillets. I typically don't add the fillets:



The convert sheet metal feature in SW added a larger radius:


We tried making this part out of aluminum which kept cracking in the corners so we switched to 316 SS. The part is much thinner now and has a tighter radius.

We also need to add notches to show where the bend goes:


So this is probably a more accurate part:


The irony about all of this is that I fixed this layout to show you the updated bracket and how it's really made. I'm working on a local copy of the database and the master is located at the company on a NAS drive. I probably won't take the time to thread this back into the master layout. Everything I did will be deleted.

If this was Onshape, I would have done all this work in the only, single, master database and the master layout would be in a better state. I think this illustrates the beauty of one database and one place to get things done.

X3msnake

+1 For sheet metal and Unfold

matthew_powers

Absolutely will need sheet metal.  +1 from me.

derek_ward

+1 for sheet metal!  A must need feature.  

peter_hall

brucebartlett said:

+1 for me with sheet metal. I absolutely need this and would like to think it's on Onshape's list of additions. However at the moment I think there are higher priorities. If sheet metal is 1-2 years away not sure what I am going to do to fill the gap while waiting.  

Well you said that in March 2015 , so what did you do to fill the Gap while waiting? I know it is not Onshape to give any dates for improvements, however maybe on Sheet Metal they could make an exception. After all it is something which is of fundamental importance for most design engineers worldwide.

john_mceleney

@peter_hall  wrt sheet metal: stay tuned. We'll have something to share with you soon.

joseph_la_rocque

+1 for us at Words and Robotics. We need the sheet metal capability for designing robot chassis.

seth_rosko

Flatten/ Fold is a must- really hoping for this!

ross_desilva

Would really like to have sheet metal on OS. We make a lot of agricultural machinery and most of our machines have a lot of SM parts compared to machined parts. You are doing a great job OS team. Keep it up

cliff_simms

+1 for sheet metal 

janos_horvath

+1 for sheet metal. Please OS hear our prayers!