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How can I project a square hole in a curved sheet metal part.

kent_hendersonkent_henderson Member Posts: 69 PRO
in Using Onshape
https://cad.onshape.com/documents/0f17179a7aabee3982fd5d48/w/a35280ab15fed51ddfa1a908/e/8a15d772748a0af7c15e5b9c

I've struggled with this now for a couple hours and I think the answer is "It's not possible". I have a segmented sheet metal elbow as is commonplace in my fabrication world. I have a square take off on the heel of this elbow. How can I project my square hole through the elbow segments?
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  • brucebartlettbrucebartlett Member, OS Professional, Mentor, User Group Leader Posts: 2,141 PRO
    I have taken a look and this is what I get to add the square hole.
    https://cad.onshape.com/documents/e7a1fc52315363260181e6e0/w/027b5afe1b08d6dc5da08875/e/2ad7b2f78ef4fb55683db0ff


    Engineer ı Product Designer ı Onshape Consulting Partner
    Twitter: @onshapetricks  & @babart1977   
  • brucebartlettbrucebartlett Member, OS Professional, Mentor, User Group Leader Posts: 2,141 PRO
    On further investigation, it appears to fail when the square passes outside the edge or across the rip on the segments.

    As a workaround, I thought maybe try creating these as single segments, but same problem here too.  @lana any idea's on this one? Is this a bug?



    Engineer ı Product Designer ı Onshape Consulting Partner
    Twitter: @onshapetricks  & @babart1977   
  • brucebartlettbrucebartlett Member, OS Professional, Mentor, User Group Leader Posts: 2,141 PRO
    As a big messy workaround to get you to production, you could create the segment as a solid (non sheetmeta) add the cut and then convert the face with the sheet metal thicken, I think that should work.  
    Engineer ı Product Designer ı Onshape Consulting Partner
    Twitter: @onshapetricks  & @babart1977   
  • kent_hendersonkent_henderson Member Posts: 69 PRO
    I didn't get fully where I wanted to go, but I did find somewhat of a work around. You can see where I slit cut through the elbow segments by removing/projecting two of the sides of the square take off. I'll need to pull these into another CAD as a .dxf to finish the cut out.

  • brucebartlettbrucebartlett Member, OS Professional, Mentor, User Group Leader Posts: 2,141 PRO
    Hi Kent, I got this to work by splitting and deleting the faces on your initial lofted surfaces. It got the better of me because I knew there must have been a way to make this work but it shouldn't have been that hard. Very neat looking model BTW, shows the power of a part studio. Kind Regards Bruce

    Engineer ı Product Designer ı Onshape Consulting Partner
    Twitter: @onshapetricks  & @babart1977   
  • kent_hendersonkent_henderson Member Posts: 69 PRO
    Thank you Bruce. I've been tied up on other projects. I'll give this a whirl tonight and see if I can duplicate your result. I'm not really a CAD guy, rather a business owner (fab & engineering). I have a couple seats of Onshape, one for a young open minded intern and one for myself. The two of us are colluding on Onshape to evaluate how I could rid my business of Inventor. That's a tough task as I have guys who are really entrenched. I'm going to have to have answers when questions arise for guys with way more CAD experience than myself. So I'm grabbing a project here and there and using Onshape to see what Onshape, and myself, can and can't do. Almost everything we do is unfolded sheet metal which of course is a fairly new part of Onshape. I love the experience overall and find it easy (most of the time) and intuitive. The hard part is making my Inventory guys love it without a mutiny.

    Again, thanks for your help.
    Kent
  • lanalana Onshape Employees Posts: 706
    @kent_henderson
    If you find Onshape sheet metal functionality lucking, please file (or vote up existing) improvement requests.
  • brucebartlettbrucebartlett Member, OS Professional, Mentor, User Group Leader Posts: 2,141 PRO
    No Worries Kent, If you need any help reach out to me, I love working in sheet metal.

    @lana thanks for looking into the problems Kent found and we look forward to some good solutions. This one is a great test case for Onshape. I am thinking one improvement that would help is to be able to export all the flat patterns to different dxf files in one go out of the flat view. At the moment they have to be individually selected and exported 1 by 1. I'd be keen to hear other thoughts on this too. 


    Engineer ı Product Designer ı Onshape Consulting Partner
    Twitter: @onshapetricks  & @babart1977   
  • lanalana Onshape Employees Posts: 706
    @brucebartlett
    That is a great suggestion. Thank you.
  • bryan_lagrangebryan_lagrange Member, User Group Leader Posts: 825 ✭✭✭✭✭
    Batch .dxf +1
    Bryan Lagrange
    Twitter: @BryanLAGdesign

  • brucebartlettbrucebartlett Member, OS Professional, Mentor, User Group Leader Posts: 2,141 PRO
    @lana @bryan I am thinking outside of the box here a little but what I really want is to get my dxf's released and saved to the version upon submitting. 
    Engineer ı Product Designer ı Onshape Consulting Partner
    Twitter: @onshapetricks  & @babart1977   
  • kent_hendersonkent_henderson Member Posts: 69 PRO
    In theory, we'll send a job like this to SigmaNest for nesting and post processing onto the plate. SigmaNest "should" let us post to laser, plasma, or waterjet directly from Onshape without the need for creating .dxf files. However, this functionality has become very broken and I think the problem is on SigmaNest's side. I will push them for fixes on the Onshape import functionality. Before sheet metal was added to Onshape, SigmaNest's Onshape import functionality was C+ but usable. Since Onshape's addition of sheet metal SigmaNests ability to import sheet metal flat patterns directly into SigmaNest has become not very good at all. Again, I'll push SigmaTek for answers. In the interim, and for most others, I think that exporting multiple pieces into a single .dxf (based on thickness/material) would be very useful.

    Here's an Onshape pet peeve. When I export flat patterns to .dxfs the creation of the .dxf tab within Onshape isn't helpful at all. I really just want it exported to use it somewhere else, right? Going back and deleting each .dxf created within Onshape is a bit of a pain. I'm not sure why they're even created.
  • Jake_RosenfeldJake_Rosenfeld Moderator, Onshape Employees, Developers Posts: 1,646
    @kent_henderson

    There should be an option for this in the export dialog:



    If you set the option to "Download", a new tab will not be created in your Onshape document.

    Please let us know if you do not see this option, or if it does not work in the way you expect.
    Jake Rosenfeld - Modeling Team
  • bryan_lagrangebryan_lagrange Member, User Group Leader Posts: 825 ✭✭✭✭✭
    @kent_henderson we use Sigma Nest as well. The only way we can import is through .dxf. Wish the compatibility with Onshape would be much better. I sent them a message to try and make it a cloud integration since currently there are no 2D cutting Apps on the Onshape App store.

    My dream would be for a cloud integrated CAM App for Onshape would be created for laser/plasma/water jet with nesting functionality. If there is a developer needing more info I can supply sample posts for Trumpf lasers, Flow Water jet, and Messer Plasma. I would also be willing to test them. Just throwing that out there. :) 
    Bryan Lagrange
    Twitter: @BryanLAGdesign

  • bryan_lagrangebryan_lagrange Member, User Group Leader Posts: 825 ✭✭✭✭✭
    @kent_henderson are you the owner of Schlemmer Brothers? I watched your episode on small business revolution. 
    Bryan Lagrange
    Twitter: @BryanLAGdesign

  • lanalana Onshape Employees Posts: 706
    brucebartlett said:
    @lana @bryan I am thinking outside of the box here a little but what I really want is to get my dxf's released and saved to the version upon submitting. 
    You mean that you'd like dxf export into a tab to be an automated step of sheet metal part release process?
  • brucebartlettbrucebartlett Member, OS Professional, Mentor, User Group Leader Posts: 2,141 PRO
    lana said:
    brucebartlett said:
    @lana @bryan I am thinking outside of the box here a little but what I really want is to get my dxf's released and saved to the version upon submitting. 
    You mean that you'd like dxf export into a tab to be an automated step of sheet metal part release process?
    Yes, I think that would work then you can link to the released tab for that version for the laser programmer to download the dxf
    Engineer ı Product Designer ı Onshape Consulting Partner
    Twitter: @onshapetricks  & @babart1977   
  • lanalana Onshape Employees Posts: 706
    @brucebartlett
    Thank you for clarification. Sounds doable.
  • lanalana Onshape Employees Posts: 706
    The batch dxf export option has been released with our latest updates. It is not linked to release process, though.  As always, we'll appreciate your feedback.

  • brucebartlettbrucebartlett Member, OS Professional, Mentor, User Group Leader Posts: 2,141 PRO
    Thanks @lana for adding this in. I saw it there but haven't tried it yet.

    Without trying yet, I am interested to know which dxf's it exports? Is it all, from every sheet metal feature in the current part studio or just the ones related to the current flat veiw feature? 
    Engineer ı Product Designer ı Onshape Consulting Partner
    Twitter: @onshapetricks  & @babart1977   
  • lanalana Onshape Employees Posts: 706
    @brucebartlett
    It is all flat patterns belonging to current sheet metal model (current view).

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