AutoCAD Inventor :: Deriving Materials And Sheet Metal Styles
Oct 7, 2013
Deriving components is a good thing. Unfortunately, there is no way (at least that I know of) to derive the material fields from the source object. It's a little more complex when deriving sheet metal objects. In that situation, you not only cannot derive the material, but you also cannot derive the sheet metal styles; but you can the thickness.
Either something I am missing through the "derive component" command, or an iLogic rule that would work?
I have set up sheet metal thicknesses in my templates, Now with the Material globe I call it at the top I see the materials and change them to whichever gauge but it does not take update the sheet metal part thickness, how do I get it where I can change it there and it updates the part. I have to go into sheetmetal defaults and change it there for it to update the part to the correct thickness.
So I'm in the midst of redoing my Sheet Metal Rules, and custom materials, since the update to 2013 kind of destroyed that. I created a new material library, to house all of my custom Materials in. I set it to be the only Material Library in the project, so now when I open up a file in that project, I only see my Custom material list, and that works fine when I go into the iProperties as well, the material list shows up correctly.
But when I go into the Styles Editor, and go to add my new custom Materials to my Sheet Metal Rules, the list of materials is shown in duplicate. I have attached a couple of screenshots of me opening the iProperties, and the Sheet Metal Rules in the same file.
I want to control the Corner Seam in the sheet metal styles but it seems not possible to do that.Now i wondering if this can controled in iLogic.
I want to control the settings which you can make in the Corner Seam.In the attachment are two drawings white different corners, overlap.Those i want to control in different sheet metal styles.Your drawings are only as good as the symbols that complete them...
When I use the rip commandment a message appears " for proper folding the model should have uniform thickness equal to the model parameter thickness. Please set the proper thickness in the sheet metal styles to match your model".
I'm a bit confused on the style library system built into Inventor - it isn't very intuitive.
I'd like to create my tube and pipe styles as well as sheet metal styles and have to never create them again - regardless of the project/workspace. Is this something that can be saved in the standard part/assembly template files? If so, how?
I'm tired of creating styles every time I start a new document - it is a waste of a lot of time! And I'd like to avoid having to import settings on every document.
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.
We have just migrated from Inventor 2009 to Inventor 2013 - I was thinking to migrate the old IV 2009 materials and colors to a new library. The migration dialog box in IV 2013 requires XML files while the export from IV 2009 generates STYXML files.
in versions of inventor prior to 2013 we were able to quickly and easily refresh a part styles, and thereby obtain the master information for materials, colours and any other style.
i find that now, with the new system of managing materials and appearances that if i need to update a part to reflect the material assests that reside in my materials and appearance library that i have to:
1. open the part, then set the part material to a material other than that i wish to update, then
2. delete the local/ document asset of the material i wish to update, then,
3. assign the material from my material library to the part (to get the library assets to come through to the part).
it seems ridiculous that we have to delete local materials or colours prior to obtaining an updated material or appearance to get the new data into the part.
(the refresh styles command actually appears to be calling in the updates however the updates seem to treat the document assets as the most important. even when managing materials and appearances, the local/document asset seems to take priority over any library asset. again this is different to pre 2013, and is frustratingly slow to work around. all that used to happen in 2012 and prior is we would get a warning that the local style would be overwritten with updated style data = very quick and easy
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.
I am looking for a solid way of finding the Thickness parameter of a sheet metal part. I have tried two ways so far:
1. oCompDef.Parameters.Item(Thickness)
This works but if Inventor is installed with a different language pack like German for instance then it fails
2. oCompDef.Parameters.Item(1).Value
This also works but if the user started the part with a normal part template and then converts the part to a sheet metal part down the line, then this method fails.
Is there a reason a sheet metal "cut" isn't an option for the automated centerlines tool? Am I overlooking something? When I make holes in sheet metal parts, I draw the circle then "cut" it into the sheet metal. For some reason I can't find how to give those automatic centerlines on drawings.
