Drainage pans for sheet metal

[marshallw]

It would be nice to have a dimpling procedure in sheet metal (similar to sheet metal punch tools that create "feet" or other punched forms that do not actually cut a hole in the sheet metal face. Given a starting face, a dimple point and a dimple depth, crease  the face along the four crease lines to create a drainige pan or strengthening ribs.

 

The result is a piece of sheet metal with a depressed point at the "dimple" depth, slightly bent along the creasing lines.

Creasing sheet metal along 4 lines from a dimple point is a very common procedure for creating drain pans and strengthening sheet metal assemblies such as heating & air conditioning system conduits.

[JohnHyslop]

Or

You could loft a surface like this and it has no effect on flat pattern..

make top square small and offset on new plane..

 

Also add cosmetic centerlines  😉 

You can also colour the faces if you want to show in your 3d Representation.. 

 

Enjoy...you need to tick boxes in Drawing View > Recovery Option....  

Cheers

John Hyslop

[JohnHyslop]

For some reason I cannot upload the ipt file, i get an error

"The file type (.ipt) is not supported.."

Make a projected loop of the face, then a plane is offset and a new smaller

sketch 0.2x0.2 square if you're in mm.... then loft as surface not solid..the rest is easy to follow I think 🙂

See previous post.... 

https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/inventor-ideas/drainage-pans-for-sheet-metal/idi-p/3744249#comments

I hope this helps out.............

Cheers

John Hyslop

[b.ziegler]

So the original request for this was late 2012, it's currently early to mid 2021.  That's 8 full years we've been waiting for this feature.  

Is this still being considered or will users always have to do some type of workaround that isn't quite right and requires many extra steps?

[kschumacher]

I would also like to see this feature added.

[DanSingleton]

It's been almost a decade since this idea was proposed. It's something that any manufacturer using sheet metal does on a frequent basis.

Has it been implemented yet, and if not, why not?

[kfc10]

@DanSingleton  Maybe Autodesk doesn't have time? They work all the time on the Fusion program. Did they put the program Inventor on the sidelines?

[josvaneijzeren]

is it still not in inventor this feature?

[Nick_Arthur]

It's rather disappointing that this functionality (which has been available in competing software packages for a long time now) is still not available. As mentioned in previous responses, having a 3D representation of the geometry is important for assessment of physical interfaces (clash detection etc.), and also for communication of a design to stakeholders, especially non-technical ones, for whom a 2D representation on a drawing is not easily comprehendible.

[DanSingleton]

Just a hunch but I don't think we'll ever see this unless they make fundamental changes to allow for their models to handle calculated material distortion from metal forming operations. It is probably for the same reason they need to fake out and use cosmetic models for punching, stamping, and "tight" corner bend operations. Any operation that would typically cause the material's thickness to stretch, compress, expand, or bunch up causes the software as written to simply lose its mind.

[ted]

I know we have been asking for well over 10 years and it just seems to fall on deaf ears.  SolidWorks has the functionality, so I don't know why Autodesk is unwilling to do so.  It does impact simulation input/results.