I always seem to do stuff that software is just not designed to do... I am using SW2020 SP0. Does anyone know of a method or a macro that will arrange the flat patterns of a multibody part (ductwork elbow) on a drawing so that they can be cut out of sheet metal?
I have set up several different configurations and really do not want to have to manually arrange 6 different bodies for 26 different elbow sizes.
This screenshot is what I am wanting, but when the configuration is changed, the spacing and position is thrown off as seen in the next screenshot. I want the bodies to stay a predefined 0.250" apart and be aligned at the bottom left of the sheet (the origin). Is this even possible to automate?
I thought about maybe putting the part into an assembly 6 times and setting mates between each body, but hiding and showing bodies and managing configurations appears to become equally as difficult as manually arranging. If I hide a body in one instance of the part, it hides it in all instances.
Any thoughts or suggestions?
If you have a machine that cuts sheet metal more than likely that machine has nesting software that does this automagically.
That being said I'm not sure why dropping it into an assy would be a problem. You might have to set up the mates a bit differently but it should work just fine.