AutoCAD Inventor :: Bent Tabs On Radius Using Sheet Metal
Oct 15, 2012
Is there a way to form tabs along a cylindrical surface? We are trying to make a bottom of a round basket and we are trying to use the sheet metal portion of Inventor so we could create a flat layout but I can not seem to use an arch as a bendline. Is this the case? We are using IV 2011.
I have attached a simple model to detail what I am having trouble with.
I have constructed a sheet metal tube by first creating a flat sheet face and then by folding the sheet with two, 180 degree bends and large radius. I am doing it this way in order to simplify the drawing of the cutouts that are required in the "real" sheet (with many more cutouts than in the sample I have provided.)
When I try to add work points or work axis to the holes shown in the sample, only the holes on the second bend will accept the work features, the holes on the first bend will not - giving the error:
TEST.ipt: Errors occurred during update Projected loop failed because of multiple vertex solutions Work Point8: Could not build this Point Copy Point Zero or multiple solutions for Point Copy Point. Use Redefine Feature to change its definition.
I am using the work point as reference to the center of the hole in order to position a rod.
how to change the bend radius on a flange that has several different bend radii with the same metal thickness. For example, I have a sheet metal part that is 1/4" thick and has one bend radius that needs to be .030". How can I change the bend radius?
We have an issue where we are trying to bend a 1mm sheet with a 24mm radius. The one side must come out 105mm wide and the flange must be 50 mm wide. inventor gives a flat pattern width of 143.4
If we bend using a brake press and a 24mm tube blade then it wont come out the right size. its like the flat pattern isn't big enough. we get the 50 mm flange but whats left over is 99 and not 105. How do we deal with something like this?
The question is if I have designed a part in sheet metal with multiple flanges and one of my edges follow a specific radius. Is is possible to use contour roll or any other means to create a flange on that edge that will allow me to flatten that out. I cant see it being physically possible putting a bend in there as the material would need to stretch and the bend tool would need to follow that radius.
I have a large number of parts that are set with a "2mm" Bend Radius.
1. I wish to change it to "1.5mm" but manually takes time . Ways to automatize this? 2. What Bend Radius is recommended to be used for steel sheets (1.5 ; 2; 4; 5 mm).
How can I bend this component with the correct radius in Sheet Metal and then Flange it (It consists of two items being put together but It's hard to see)? I used the bending function in standard before but I have to Flange now.
I wrote an app some time ago that swaps out user parameters that drive sheet metal thickness and bend radius.
it appears to work about 60% of the time when it doesn't it does not give any warning but even though the FX table shows the new user parameters driving thickness and bend radius the "sheet metal defaults dialog" thickness input box is grayed out and shows no value what so ever. Clicking the Edit Sheet metal rule to display the "Style and Standard Edtior" the Thickness and Bendradius still show the Old userparameters. See attached Pic.
I am setting the parameters as follows.
Replaced "Chan_Th" with "chn_thk" in FX Userparameters
I am trying to use the sheet metal functionality to generate a flat pattern of insulation that is wrapped around a tank. The insulation essentially consists of a rolled cylinder with tabs at the cylinder ends that are to be folded inward to cover the end plates. I can't seem to find a way to make this happen as every time I am able to generate the tabs in the folded model they don't unfold into the flat pattern.
A collegue asked me about this as he has been given a part to model and the details are for the flat sheet not the finished model. Is this possible in 'sheet metal'? I had a quick play but couldn't work it out. Im used to creating the finished part and 'un-folding' to get the flat pattern.Detail supplied below.
Is there any way to cause Inventor to convert a multi-sheet IDW to an Autocaf DWG file that puts each IDW sheet on it's own tab in the dwg?
IDW ---Sheet 1, Sheet 2, Sheet 3, etc
DWG - Tabs for Sheet 1, Sheet 2, Sheet 3, etc ALL IN ONE DWG FILE
This so we can do batch printing and not have to maunually assemble dwg file with multiple tabs from the individual dwg files generated by Inventor - as near as I can tell, there is no way to get Inventor to NOT create a separate dwg for each sheet in the IDW???
Working with sheet metal and laying out a pattern for the cnc and was wondering if there is a way to imprint an extrusion onto the surface instead of cutting it. Mainly this will be used for a marking tool so the line type or layer would need to be different.
I am working on a bin type unit, and am having trouble creating a flange, I am creating the bin in the final product stage, then I will separate into manufacturer components. I am having trouble adding this flange around the top 4 edges of the bin. I need the four corners to meet on a miter 45. I will then rip down each seam and have 4 separate panels.
Is this a bad workflow? Is there a better route? I attached the part in Inventor 2013 format,
Attached are two sheet metal parts that we need to unfold and make them flat for a drawing. We cannot seem to capture the reference A or reference B planes asked for by the unfold command.
Is there a way to get the appearance of perforation on a sheet metal tube without having to create each and every hole? Looking for an appearance to drag onto the surface. Kind of like when you make a part look like it is made of brick. It being just an image on the model surface.
Very thin gauge aluminum sheets with a composite sandwiched between them.
The challenge is, the panels are relatively thick, 3mm or 4mm, but a router is used on the fold lines before bending to cut through all but the outer aluminum. This makes for a very tight bend radius.
So, thick 3 layer material, tight bend with mitered corners. Can Inventor's sheet metal tools handle this?
Can this part be made with sheet metal tools...it will be made from aluminum. I attach the shape made with standard tools and the sheet metal attempt.......how do add the sides in sheet metal.
how incredible it is that Inventor still does not have a functional normal cut option for sheet metal like Solidworks and Solidedge have long had and I agree. I realize that there are the standard workflows like using derive and thicken to get around this problem. However, for those interested, there is a way to make a normal cut (for laser/cnc) directly in the sheet metal part in many cases. It involves using a sketch to split a face and then using the resulting profile for a thicker/cut feature. I'm always interested in any other methods out there for obtaining normal cuts in complex sheet metal (for a clean dxf export). By the way, Autodesk, do you actually not have any plans of ever adding functionality in this area?
I ran the installer, created a sheet metal part and hit rebuild all, it did not create any proeprties, also tried to manually create the properteis then hit rebuild, no go.
I also did a search on my hardrive for the ApplicationPlugins, and placed the sheet metal folder in all of them(there were 3) tried again noto.
The add-in also does not appear in the add-in manager.
Or is there different what to get the flat pattern dimensions in 2013
I have just modelled a part with some faces and tried to convert to sheet metal to have inventor make the bends between the faces. However when trying to convert to sheet metal i get the following error message (Autodesk Inventor Professional Tip) - "This model cannot be converted to Sheet Metal because it contains features that have created multiple bodies. In order to convert to Sheet Metal these features must first be removed."
As the picture show the part only has 1 solid. Even when deleting all features except the "base" face I get the same error message or Tip as Inventor calls it.
I have a sheet metal door with a little bracket that gets welded to the inside lip through a cut-out in the face of the door. (see assembly)
I can't get the cut-out to line up flush with the inside lip of the door, as that is where the brackets gets welded to. the current aseembly is set-up the way I want, but I can't get a flat pattern on the door, becasue of the cut going across the bend.
I have checked off the "cut across bend" in the cut dialogue box, but this leaves a small (~1/32) lip in the cut-out and runs interference in the placement of the bracket.
Inventor Pro Suite 2013 Sean Farr Product Designer at TESInc.ca Inventor Professional 2014-Update 2 - AutoCAD Electrical 2014 Win7-x64 | ASUS P8Z77-V | i7 3770 -3.4 GHz | 32GB RAM | 240GB SSD | nVidia GTX 670 4GB - 320.49
How can I create a sheet metal jog? Like the attached. I used a contor flange to creat this one, but I have to add a jog to an existing part and don't want to have to totally redraw it just to get the jog. I'm hoping you can add it like you can a flange.
I was designing a part which consisted in a circular sheet metal part with a hole in the center, and a bent rectangular radii-oriented section. The second feature is the one I want to give focus in this thread.
Take a circular sheet metal with a diameter of 30 mm and a thickness of 1 mm. Now, to achieve the bent section one would perform - in a workshop or any other equivalent - two parallel slices of about 5 mm in length with a distance from each other of 4 mm. The slice would start in the circumference and end somewhere nearer to the center of the disc, but not parallel to a radius (since its parallel to another slice 4 mm apart as said before). After the slicing was done, one would bend the section between the slices 90 degrees to any of the sides.
Now, in Inventor I couldn't find a way to do this. I couldn't just slice a line through the disc. I worked it around by cutting rectangles of 0.2 mm in width and with the length of the desired slices, and then using the folding command to bend it 90 degrees. Is it possible to perform this so called slices?
I made a part in sheet metal and used the Cut tool for cut-outs...i tried by using flatten Patern,draw sketch but this did not cut part...is there a more better way of making these cuts?
I have been trying to work out how to make interlocking joints in sheet metal parts. The attached screen shot is the only way I have found to do it in Inventor, but it is a cheat. One of the flanges is a 85˚ bend because if it were 90˚ it would give an error "Flange Body intersects with existing body or self intersects."
I have setup all our Sheet Metal Rules to be all of our stocked in house sheet metals. The sheet metal rules are named like:
ALUM 5052 H32 1/2" (Part Number) ST STEEL T304 3/8" (Part Number) STEEL 44W 1/8" (Part Number) etc.
And each rule has the proper thickness, material, and some standardized bend radius's. I've done this to introduce more uniformity in our designs, and to also allow the designer to put as much information into the model as possible, so that if someone else does the drawings, there is no question as to which material is used.
I now want to bring in the Sheet Metal Rule name into the drawing automatically. I can't seem to find a way to reference the Sheet Metal Rule directly from the drawing. What I need to do is pick a standard field in the i Properties (I used Stock Number), and put in =<Sheet Metal Rule> so that now the Stock Number references the Sheet Metal Rule, and then in the drawing I can just reference the Stock Number, and it will come in.
I don't like having to use the Stock Number as a middle man though, as none of our existing models are setup like this. Is it possible to reference Sheet Metal Rule in the drawing without having to use another field as a placeholder for the information?
I recently had an issue in adding flanges to a sheet metal part. The thread for that can be seen here:
[URL].......
The problem I am having now is with the size of the part. I need the linear distance from the bottom edge of a flange to match the inner diameter of my part. As you can see, this is not the case as it stands right now.