I am a Solidworks beginner. I am using 12ga.(.1046) steel
sheet metal and forming a "U" shaped profile. The base width is
18in, the two vertical flanges are 1" each end, by 12" long. The
shear size is 12" x 19.75 The bend deduction = .1875" per 90 deg
bend, radius = material thickness. To place the location of my
bend-lines i used 1" flange minus mat'l thickness = (.8954). When I
folded the model none of the dims were correct. The flanges were
(.022") less than 1" and the base width was about (18.011"), I
edited the sketch and added the(.022") to the flanges both ends
then everything worked just fine. I would like for someone to
explain the correct procedure when using sketch bends. I would also
like for someone to explain how to convert this bend deduction to
K-factor.
Any help is always appreciated.
Charles
Any help is always appreciated.
Charles
Charles
Model as Roland mentioned (Hi TheTick!!). Then use the unfold bends to create your cuts across the bends. Then collect the bends (re-fold) ot get your desired bent shape. Could you post your model??
Pete (pdybeck)
Thank you.
Charles
Hope this helps.
Thank You
Charles
Steve
We got rid of some of the cuts and basically went back to Drew's original suggestion of just forming the part then getting flat and notch it from there. I have another issue, attached. When I fold the part the notch in the upper right-hand corner moves. Can you help me with this one ?
Charles
Attachments
I'm looking at it, it doesn't appear to be moving for me unless I'm missing something. Could you clarify a bit.
I am right clicking on unfold under the featuremanager design tree and suppressing the folds, and when I do that, the notch moves to the left, and I can no longer see the FULL notch.
Charles
Suppressing the unfold doesn't suppress the cut and it searches for new edges to set it's coordinates from.
Charles
You properly put in an Unfold feature to flatten the part above the Flat-Pattern1 feature and put in your cut. What you missed was that you then need to put in a Fold feature after the cut to collect your bends again. That way the cut is always evaluated properly in a flat condition.
Good practice to learn - get used to flattening your part by clicking on the Flatten button on the sheet metal toolbar. That way you will know immediately if you just created a problem and have a better chance of finding it. Click that button after every major change and then also hit Ctrl-s to save at that point. I have seen people get all confused by switching to configs and/or suppressing/unsuppressing the Flat-Pattern1 feature.
WT
Thanks
Charles
I'm just going back and evaluating the part "Piece_1". When viewing the part from the front, would it have been better to sketch the full base-flange profile ? I sketched a "U" shape, and added two edge-flanges. When using edge-flanges we generally position the flange outside, and also dimension to outside of flange. If we used outside dimensions in the sketched base-flange full profile should we get the SAME outside flange dimensions when we exit the sketch?
Also, after performing all cuts and the final fold to collect all of the bends, as we were discussing earlier, can we delete previous folds ?
Thanks
Charles
Where you have a flange that doesn't go all the way down the base edge, edit that sketch and first drag that one end sketch line back up the base edge, then you can put a dim on it.
I also generally prefer to have my controlling dims be outside to outside as you would measure the part. That way you can modify the main part dims directly without having to do some math. So that requires the bend and material to be inside. Sometimes the situation requires something else, but that is my preference. I like using the virtual sharp option when I have a bend that is not 90° so that if the angle of the bend changes, I still have the main dim correct.
I'm not sure what you are really asking about deleting the previous folds. In your part, the only addition woud be to add the Fold feature, not remove anything else. If you mean deleting the edge flanges, no, because that's what defines them.
WT
Regarding the previous fold issue, we were just thinking if we had previous folds in the tree, and later realized that we had to make additional cuts across bends which would require a final fold to collect all bends, could we delete the previous folds.
Thank you.
Charles
Charles
Depending on how involved your part is, you may have features that are dependent on the model being folded or flat. You can have more than one set in a part. But that's also where experience helps in looking ahead and planning a bit. As a general rule, I try not to do things in the flat just because I tend to think in terms of how it functions in real life since I am usually designing the part as I go. So my thought process leads me to put holes, cuts, etc. in it in the formed state as they relate to other parts that touch it. I only unfold/fold it if I have to.
Now that being said, if you like working that way, that's not wrong as there's more than one way to do most parts. I do put in, or use an existing unfold/fold set, a set for putting a sketch on the flattened face and putting dims there that I can use to drive the cutlist sheet size.
WT
Very good.
Thanks