Sheetmetal Flange

tony_rhodes7712

Hi Onshape
In order to produce more complex sheetmetal parts the ability to control the geometry behind the Flange is required. It would be great if this could be incorporated into the software at some point.



The screen shot below shows the controlling sketch behind the flange

john_mcclary

I agree, I take advantage of that workflow in SW almost daily. In onshape it requires some work arounds that can conflict with design intent.

For example this shape is a good example as you would need to "move face" to extend and fill the 48.6° angled area.
Then trim away the remainder.
So if you ever need to edit the flange side to be vertical or acute, then you would have to delete a few features and fix any references down the line that may have used that area. 

By just modifying a profile sketch, all the faces and edges of the resulting flange should maintain their internal ID (at least they do in SW). Unless you add an extra side to the profile of course. 

lana

@tony_rhodes7712
Thank you for the detailed example. This functionality has been mentioned by other users, but I could not find the improvement request for it. Please create one so that people can vote and help us asses priority of this functionality.

MBartlett21

@lana
@john_mcclary

You can use this feature that I made (You will just have to create a sketch first)

https://cad.onshape.com/documents/602655eff016f183fc184978

john_mcclary

nice

MBartlett21

@john_mcclary
The sketch does not have to be coincident with the sheet metal (it extends both the sketch and the sheet metal)

The main (only) requirement is that the edge that you want to join is parallel to the sheet metal edge

john_mcclary

Pretty neat

MBartlett21

john_mcclary

Trying to use the face of a part and it fails,

I have to create a sketch on the face and "Use" the edges.
You think you can make it accept a face also? No big deal if you can't, just figured it would be nice to save a step

MBartlett21

@john_mcclary
It should be fixed now: I just pushed version 0.7

john_mcclary

you da man

MBartlett21

Thanks!

MBartlett21

@john_mcclary
It will accept a face on a surface body as well

owen_sparks

Very nice

lana

@mbartlett21
Very nicely done. It is interesting that you choose to pack all the selection into entities field. We normally would've separated flange shape and edge for attachment. This allows to specify selection filters for easier picking. 

john_mcclary

lana said:

@mbartlett21
Very nicely done. It is interesting that you choose to pack all the selection into entities field. We normally would've separated flange shape and edge for attachment. This allows to specify selection filters for easier picking. 

That would make it more obvious that the edge needs to be selected.
It took me a good 5 attempts before I realized I needed to select the sheet metal edge as well.

MBartlett21

@lana
@john_mcclary
I have now pushed V 0.8 which separates the entities field into two other fields

john_mcclary

lana

Thank you @mbartlett21

john_mcclary

Showed this to one of the Onshape sceptics I work with, got a 'Wow' out of him.

I walked away and he was still stareing blankly at my computer from his seat. You could see the wheels turning in his head after I told him 'If Onshape doesn't have a feature you want, ask and sameone may just make it for you'.

Think he just had an 'ah-ha' moment about Onshape..

owen_sparks

Cool, well done both 

gerhard_swanepoel

Fantastic. Love it.

Yam_Soussana

Reviving the thread.

First of all, thank you mrbartlet ,for creating this useful feature.
But unfortunately I'm having some troubles with it, maybe you can help me solve them.

The product should look approximately like that at the end.



when I try to fold the small flanges on those "open" profiles (no flanges at the end) the "Shaped Flanged" feature removes the rest of the sheet towards the end of the profile like so:


Any ideas ?
Thanks
Yam

NeilCooke

Hi @Yam_Soussana - I'm not familiar with the FS, but another option is to build a small Tab feature where you want the flanges to be, then create the flange off the tab. You might need to use Move Face to get it exactly how you want it.

EDIT: or you can try cutting out the relief areas and add the flange after.

MBartlett21

@Yam_Soussana
Could you share a link to the document? I may be able to see what is going wrong

Yam_Soussana

Sure, here it is.
https://cad.onshape.com/documents/d96ed619d57583fe1c808a26/w/1f4635c42dfab2855e9a7f78/e/2411da5c7abea684ee36d6a0

Part studio 1 is for you MBartlett21.
All the small flanges are made with the feature and as you can see the outer ones suffer from that issue, while the middle ones are just fine.

Part studio 2 is for Neil.
As far as relief cuts: 
I've tried to make some cuts in the sheet and make a flange from them, if you want the flange alignment to be "inner" it works fine only in one direction (?)
If you'll try it to the other side it will create a full flange, or the correct one just in "middle" or "outer" type of alignments.

As far as the tabs method you suggested, sorry I didn't quite understand the exact workflow in order to get there, an example will be highly appreciated.

Regards
Yam

NeilCooke

@Yam_Soussana that combination seems to be an anomaly. You should probably report that as a bug (from help menu). I fixed both the inner/outer issue and the tab example using Move Face. Not ideal, but gets the right result: 
https://cad.onshape.com/documents/3a7e2555bf6887d64e8adef7/w/b4b1e5463a6fb53e39f67e07/e/5a1057ad058d12b6f8a7e13f

Yam_Soussana

Thank you for your example @NeilCooke, I get it now.
Note that in your document, after the manipulation with move face in order to solve the "inner/outer" problem, the ends of the profile are still being removed from the end of the flange (which was the initial problem, so we're back to square one).



I will report it, and let's hope a fix will be available in the near future.
Yam