Autodesk Inventor

[#1]

We have several chain guards which we punch from sheet metal.  We recently changed our practice to punch a hole pattern in the part rather than weld in a mesh screen - saves shop assembly/fab time.  See the attached 2 parts.

My question: Is there an automated way of delelecting all holes within X" of the part edge.  Currently we have to go through one by one and it takes a lot of time.  I need some suggestions on how to model this part more efficiently.  As you can see, the designer of the new part got lazy and did a rectangular pattern.  The goal would be to have a consistent margin around the full perimeter of the part more like the first.

Thanks,

John

Old Style:

New Style:

[#2]

One possibility would be to actually make the hole pattern LARGER so it actually extends beyond the part. It would make holes in a larger perimeter than you want, like this:

BUT, then you could create a new extrusion subsequent to the holes which is basically the shape of the non-perforated perimeter that you want to remain untouched. You would create a sketch with the perimeter offset like this:

Then, extrude it to re-fill the perimeter like this:

Don't know if this works for you situlation but it's one possibility. Hope that helps!

[#3]

Good suggestion!  We were playing with it like that, but since we are punching the sheet metal witha circular die, we need to have full holes.  the half circles will have our CNC programmer screaming at me .

[#4]

Delete Face with Heal on the partial holes might be a little less work than finding and suppressing pattern instances.

Too bad Inventor still doesn't have a boundary fill pattern.

http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/Inventor-IdeaStation/idb-p/v1232

[#5]

Good idea,  I was thinking also of combining DRoam's plan with one more step: create a new sketch on the face with multiple partial holes, project geometry, then use face to fill in the partial holes.

We were searching high and low for a boundry pattern or some way of using a sketch profile to drive a selection filter for which points to include/exclude from the hole feature.

It looks like the short answer is not solution out of the box. Oh well...

[#6 · Accepted solution]

Start with the perforated area size, create the pattern, then create a sketch of the final size of the part.

Use the face tool, and it will fill in any partial holes.

See the attached part.

[#7]

Awesome!  That will work for us.  Thanks!