I have a part I would like to convert to sheet metal and unfold for laser cutting, but I am having difficulty in acheiving this. I have shelled the part to a 3mm thickness and my sheet metal defaults align with this, but I cannot unfold the part. Please help.
You'd better do it like this (2015 file)
Walter
Walter Holzwarth
Brilliant, that's exactly the kind of thing I was looking for, many thanks. Did you convert my part, or redraw it as sheet metal? If you did convert, can you give me a brief walkthrough of what you did? Thanks again.
I re-modeled it after some measurements in your part. Converting a solid like that to sheetmetal would result in lots of headaches.
Walter Holzwarth
A slightly different technique attached.
The feature history tree tells the story.
The master of Inventor masters the reading of the history.
Edit Sketch1 - examine and recreate in a new file.
Edit Sketch2 - examine and recreate in a new file.
Continue on with the steps in the history and post back if you get stuck on a step.
(You might note that if you delete both the Face1 and Contour Flange1 features - that all the information needed to complete the part is still there in the sketches.)
You might start here -
http://home.pct.edu/~jmather/SkillsUSA%20University.pdf
http://inventortrenches.blogspot.com/p/inventor-tutorials.html
Did you figure it out?
I think so, thanks again. It's a pity you can't convert and unfold a part like this easily, as this is the kind of drawing I get sent on a regular basis. Not to worry, thanks again.