AutoCAD Inventor :: Detecting No Effect - Sheet Metal Cuts And Extrusions
Mar 14, 2013
How can I detect sheet metal cut and extrusion cut features that have the white circular model browser node icon wih the "i" insided it (toolip says "No effect?") via the Inventor API? You get this situation if the sketch does not cut any geometry. I want to delete these features.
I'm using Inventor 2012 and VB.Net.
i7-2720QM Dell Precision M6600, Win 7 Pro 64-bit, 8GB RAM
Autodesk Product Design Suite Ultimate 2013
Autodesk Vault Professional 2013
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 a back plate made out of 2mm Galvanized Steel. And here is the drawing of this back plate flattened out:
You can see that the cut is 5mm between the back plate and bended out part. This part will be laser cut, instead of being punched out.
Here comes the challenge- No matter what is the distance between bended out part and back plate laser will consider there to be two lines for it to cut *one line on the back plate and one line for bended part. And laser will go there two times even if I will make distance of 0,01mm. Is there any way to make this cut as one line, so laser will make one pass cut?
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.
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 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.
I am trying to make an angled tray in sheet metal by am having some trouble getting it to work out. I was unable to find an example of this type anywhere. I tried doing it as a sheet metal part first then gave up, created a standard part and shelled it. My problem is ripping the corners.
For whatever reason this part was not modeled as a sheet metal part from the beginning, but now we would like to convert it to one. But when the "Convert to Sheet Metal" button is pressed, an error message pops up saying "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". The only way I can get this message to go away is to delete all the features. This part is used in a few weldments, so I'd rather not have to redraw it, but I'm at a loss as to why it can't be converted.
I have created a bunch of sheet metal rules for my different gauge thicknesses. Is there a way I can propogate the gauge information to my drawing so that if I were to change the gauge, that info would also update on my drawing sheet? The only thing I can get to work currently is to pull in the material used, but that doesn't include the gauge.
is there a difference between <FLAT PATTERN LENGTH> <Sheet Metal Length> using them as custom sheet metal iProp? They seem both give correct output of flat sheet metal measures.
I have a 14 gauge sheet metal part that follows the profile in the attached picture. 7/8" legs with a 1/16" offset. Because it's 14 gauge, the contour flange won't create it. I need it to be able to be turned in to a flat pattern so that I may export it to a .dxf.
Is there another way to make this that will allow me to flat pattern it? I have a couple of pieces like this where the offset is very slim, so I am looking for a way to do all of them like this.
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.
I have never used the unfold command before. It seemed simple enough, draw the part, extrude, turn into sheet metal, set defaults and unfold to make a flat pattern. It will not let me unfold. The dialog box comes up, but will not allow me to pick a flat surface or bends....
