AutoCAD Inventor :: Unable To Unfold Sheet Metal Product
Feb 2, 2013
For some reason I cannot unfold sheet metal product on attached file. Where have I made a mistake? I used extruding, also sheet metal thickness from rule has been set to 2mm. Rest are default values.
I'm looking to unfold the attached sheet metal elbow and am unable to do so. After modeling the part I was also unable to rip an opening to split the part. I opted to cut an opening with a profile, but I am still unable to unfold the part. The probelm is likely obvious and I believe it is because I used part splits to create the different sections.
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....
I'm having an issue with some similar pieces of sheet metal. They are created with a face, then I place a fold, then I need to unfold/refold it so I can place holes while it's unfolded and have them remain as true holes.
2 of the 3 parts do this just fine, but one particular will unfold normally, but the refold, even though it succeeds, does not actually do any refolding, I'm just left with the flattened part.
Every sketch is fully constrained. I've experimented with changing the sheet metal rules.
I have a conical shaped part that Inventor 2012 will allow me to unfold, but will not refold accurately. When the refold is complete it should roll back up and be .01 degrees from completely round. But instead it leaves about 60deg of opening. I need to cut out 120+ slots out of the face of the metal, but once I do this while in the unfolded state, it will not refold at all...not that it owuld matter if it, seeing as though it refold inaccurately.
I created a part that spans between two other pieces. The original part model does not have a twist in the "flat" surfaces, so it unfolds just fine, but it also does not represent the way the actual part fits, so it is difficult to determine if any other parts are fitting correctly up to it.
I had a problem getting a part to unfold before, and I was shown a method of creating a surface body and a thicken, which I have done with this part, but as of yet have had no success unfolding this part.
Is there anything that I can do since the sides are twisted and not planar?
Automation of the sheet metal bending parts unfold /refold in vb.net for Inventor 2013.
I want to unfold the part with selecting the one of the face as stationary face and further selecting the bend/ bends with reference to face in vb.net
For refold, I have to select the stationary reference automatically , based on some criteria, and further to select the single and multiple bends by using API.
Also, I want to find the bends and faces relationship i.e.
How to find the bend associated with number of faces, how to find face entity using internal name ;
The code I tried I am attaching here for your reference.
I'm having trouble creating a flat pattern from a solid i've modelled.
Workflow: Created a 2D sketch in xy plane and extruded -1084 mm in z dir. Created cut, and extruded slots which were then patterned with rectangular pattern.
Converted to sheet metal, and then tried to flat pattern.
Tried to remove all features exept the 1st extrude, still having the same problem.
I have tried to set the correct material and sheet metal defaults, but still no luck.
The company I work for has a large number of Left Hand and Right Hand sheet metal parts. To reduce the amount of time needed to create both Left Hand and Right Hand sheet metal parts, I use the Derived Part icon. I create a Left Hand part, use the derive icon with mirroring on and create the Right Hand part. While the Right Hand sheet metal part gets created, the Right Hand part will not allow me to create a Flat Pattern.
what steps must I follow to create a derived sheet metal part that I can make a Flat Pattern with?
I set up our company log which gets embossed on most parts as a sketch block in an .ipt. The .ipt contains nothing but the sketch block. To use it, the designer only needs to derive the Logo.ipt file into their part and then use the scale setting to set the derived block to the desired size for that part. The result is a scalable set of line geometry that can easily be used for extrusion or emboss that is standard for all users. It works beautifully, that is until you try to use it in a sheet metal part in 2012.
For some reason, when this same part, which works perfectly in normal parts, is derived into a sheet metal part an error pops up stating that, "Selected part does not have any geometry that can be derived." Say what?
I was able to find a workaround by directly copying the block into the sheet metal part, but you no longer have the ability to go back and scale it if needed. Even more strange, when the block was copied over, it could not be deleted from the new part.
Is this just a bug with 2012? Why does it work in a normal part but not sheet metal?
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 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."