help with lofted flange

[Anonymous]

Hello there again,

I'm making a sheet metal transition between two dissimilar flanges and am trying to use the lofted flange feature in the new Inventor 2015. I came from 2009 so many of the new sheetmetal features are new and unfamiliar to me.

Traditionally I would loft a surface and thicken to the appropriate sheet metal thickness. However, I thought I would give the lofted flange a try. The problem is that when I do this the finished prodect leaves rather large ugly gaps between the parts of the finished assembly.

I will attach two parts. First is a lofted flange of the complete part, as I think the assembly should look when finished, (transition1.ipt)

the secons is one part, as Inventor want to make it, (6105 TRANS BOTTOM) Both parts have the EOF moved up. These parts will be created on a press break.

You can look at the sketches for the loft and pretty much guess how I would finish the other three parts of the assembly. Not sure how to attach assembly files.

Thanks for looking at this and any help would be appreciated.

[CCarreiras]

Hi!

You can start from the all part and split it in two files.

Save two copys of the "all part" (or use derive to create these two files), and then, with a litlle, repair you will have the two correct parts.

It's a long way to explain all, so i give you the files. Check it, if you have question, ask.

Files in attach.

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[Anonymous]

Seems like there should be a way to use the sheet metal tools to do this without all the tweaking. I thought the sheet metal tools were supposed to be so much better in the newer releases. This will be built in four pieces, which means I will spend almost as much time designing and modiling as they will burning, bending and welding it in the shop.

Anyone else have ideas?

[CCarreiras]

Hi!

From 2009 to 2015 there' are some improvements in sheet metal, as you can see, but sheet metal is always tricky for some shapes and you need to come out of the box and try some non traditional techniques.

The previous method i had show doesnt take some much time... but ok, i will give you some new ideas.

First it's important to understand... why the gap? It's because the bend radius vs big thickness of the sheet, yu can't have 0 bend radius, so the material stops when the bend radius is near to zero.

first workaround:

If you choose different prodution technique, you get rid of the gap:

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[CCarreiras]

Also, you can help the software to understand what you need by adding two arcs to the line, instead only the line.

But in the end, i would rather use the split technique.

...And if you have these kind of work often, think about have a parametric model (part and assembly) ready to use (iAssmbly or iLogic model). This way, everytime you need the same work with different sizes, just change the parameters and you have the new model and you will spend a few minutes to achieve that. 

Goog luck.

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