Help! cannot fold & refold cone part.

[jefke1988]

Hi,

I'm struggling to make a good cone part.. I tried alot but cannot seem to get it right.

When i try to unfold/refold it the result isn't quite what i expected.

image before unfold/refold

image after unfold/refold

I have attached a part to illustrate the problem.

What do I do wrong?

Also see the iLogic form these parameters are variable.

[Mario428]

Couple of things

My background is in Solidworks and it does also have a "convert to sheet metal" button. Big difference is from what I saw on the Solidworks forums is the "guru's" insisted that it was a very poor way to create sheet metal parts. Here it seems to be very common to use that button and that brings my next comment.

I almost exclusively do sheet metal, it is the nature of my work. Am far far from an expert but have a grasp on what works and what does not work. I enjoy discussion forums and when I started using Inventor I joined this one, learned some valuable stuff. BUT I see a very dismaying trend, since I concentrate on sheet metal it seems over half of the sheet metal questions are "this part will not flatten", almost always it is because the model was done as a solid and converted to sheet metal. This does not seem to tell many here anything but it certainly does to me.

As far as the flat on my cone, this is not normal for me either. I put that there to show how a part like that would be unfolded and then folded. I only use the feature when I am cornered and there is no other way, using it as a matter of course is like using the "convert to sheet metal", a weak way to model a part.

Have a good weekend.

[JDMather]

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@Mario428 wrote:

Couple of things

My background is in Solidworks .....

.... BUT I see a very dismaying trend, since I concentrate on sheet metal it seems over half of the sheet metal questions are "this part will not flatten",.....

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SolidWorks and Inventor are identical in these aspects.

There is nothing wrong with using Convert to Sheetmetal in either program IF the geometry is correct for sheet metal.  The problem is, in both programs, that users incorrectly model geometry and then expect Convert to fix their errors in logic.  So the Gurus will tell them to avoid that technique and learn sheet metal tools first.

Both Inventor and Solidworks (2014, I haven't seen SWx 2015) are currently limited to unfolding cylinders and cones and limited Lofted Contours (using only the sheet metal loft tool).  If you go to the SWx forum https://forum.solidworks.com/welcome you will find exactly the same "this part will  not flatten".... for exactly the same reasons.

Again, there is nothing wrong with using the standard modeling or even surface modeling tools to create sheet metal parts, as long as the design is done correctly.  Uniform thickness results, cylindrical or conic bends.