I'm trying to make a sheet metal guard for a warning light with a tapered sheet metal cone. I need to make small mounting flange on the bottom bent out (sorta perpendicular ?) on the base edge. I can do this on a cylinder, but with the taper SW won't let me pick the bottom edge for flange.
Any ideas?
thanks in advance...
I'm guessing he's speaking of flanges on the round edges.
Hi Jim Mooney
If this is something you are talking about, or something like that, SW cannot do it yet. It is able to make parts that can be bent with SW press brakes. The spinning method does not yet exist.
Here's what I am trying to do. (I faked this by just drawing a tab on the top plane). I did try the swept flange but it doesn't work on this part. The cone is made in sheet metal by lofting a split circle to another split circle, I then unfold it and add holes, then fold it again. I am then trying to add the tabs. I tried to add them in the unfolded part, but when I fold again the tabs actually cut out (second pic)
Try this
wow, that's it, but I can't open file (I'm on 2019) interesting SW opens file but it doesn't give the feature tree
Maha please, don't do not repeat the same mistakes. Show the ends of the flattened part then you will see that it has little to do with reality.
Hi Jim,
The short answer is yes. The long answer, it is not as simple as clicking a swept flange button.
Step 1. Use surfaces to define the shape with all tabs and thicken it to get your solid model that will represent your formed part.
Step 2. Getting to the flat pattern and drawing bend notes. Offset your surface and thicken the surface. Insert bends will give you the cone itself as a sheetmetal body. Now we need the tabs. Create a new multi body tabs. Then add an unfold for the cone and an unfold for the tab. You need a cutout that provides the SM relief and mating faces for the move command. The position itself is given by the notch-out in your offset surface. The rest you need to sketch in using geometric conditions and add a cut extrude. Use move copy feature to align the tab with your relief cut faces. The trick to get the flat pattern notes is to combine the bodies into one when they are flat. SW will do the rest for you.
Remember. This will get you a flat pattern within close approximation. Due to the curvature of the cone you will get deformation when you bend the tabs. This trick works whenever the standard SM functions limitations will not work and still get a parametric flat pattern. Not just for composite bends.
Could you please upload what you've attempted thus far?
How can I attach a file to a forum post?
Select Edit in your original post (OP) and add it there.
Also, paste some images into your OP of what you're looking to accomplish, like this:
Kevin