Hey all,
When I flatten this part and cut holes in it, the holes disappear when I uncheck the flatten feature. What am I doing wrong here? What's the difference between flatten and fold/unfold? Thanks
Hey all,
When I flatten this part and cut holes in it, the holes disappear when I uncheck the flatten feature. What am I doing wrong here? What's the difference between flatten and fold/unfold? Thanks
Flat Pattern is mainly used for visual purposes, creating flat pattern dxf's and drawings. Fold/Unfold is used for what you're trying to do, insert a feature in its flattened state, then folding it back up. It's a pretty simple fix on your end, just drag your cut feature in between Flatten-Bends 1 and Process-Bends1 and move your hole where it needs to be. Now you'll have that hole in flattened and unflatten states. Hopefully this helps! Thanks
Thanks for the help! Another question - if I Unfold, sketch holes and cut them, do I do a fold to get back to the folded shape? Or do I just roll back to before the unfold operation? I'm not sure what the difference is there. Just trying to figure out the best practices here with the sheet metal functions
Thanks
I would make all the cuts before adding the sheet metal features (could be old school mentality) - I did see issues with the un-fold/fold features.
Yes, if you do an unfold you'll always want to use a fold to get back to you bent shape.
Unfold seems to work just fine. Although when I go to re fold the part it gives me an error - This part contains features that cannot be unbent. SW seems to not want to fold my part back up after it's been unfolded. Any thoughts on this issue? Thanks
What type of feature are you trying to do? Is it on that cone part or something else? There definitely are some issues with Unfold/Fold as John pointed out that I've come across too, but not exactly sure what you're trying to do.
I only need to cut three holes in the cone shell shape and sketch on the surface of the cone.
Whenever I do an unfold I can't Fold the part back to its original shape again. This seemed to work ok when I was modeling a cylinder vs. a cone. It gives me the same error - This part contains features that cannot be unbent.
I see, so in this cone part since you already have the "Flatten-Bend1" and "Process-Bends1" in your tree, you won't need to add the Unfold or the Fold feature. Sorry, I put you in the wrong direction with that, as long as all your sketches and features remain in between "Flatten-Bends1" and "Process-Bends1" , you can just "roll to end" with your rollback bar.
Right and that makes sense to me. The only issue now is when I move the Cut-extrude up between Flatten-Bends1 and Process-Bends1 it says - Cannot insert this feature before the first sheet metal bend feature. Please uncheck the normal cut option.
And I do need a normal cut....
That's odd, not having that issue on my end. Here's what I've got, check to see if your tree matches this.
Yeah we are on the same page. My issue is I need the circular cutouts to be normal to the y axis.
i.e. if you took a piece of piping and inserted it perpendicular to the y axis it should fit snug. I believe it is off axis in your file
Ok, so you would actually just want to make a sketch on the right plane (part in it's bent state) and make a cut through your piece. In your flat pattern, the hole you made should be somewhat obround instead of circular.
Feature tree would look like this.
I need to model a simple sheet metal part very similar to this except with a cylinder not a cone. Can someone direct me to 2-3 tutorials showing the basics of how to start with a blank part? I'm new to SW sheet metal and am getting stuck on how to create the first bend.
Hey M. B., not too sure about tutorials but sheet metal cylinders are actually quite easy. Here's an example to start with, hopefully at least to get you rolling (pun intended).
You just need to correctly order the feature in the tree. Check attached part.
Anything after flat pattern feature would vanish when part is folded back.