In a Sheet Metal pressure cooker

[Anonymous]

I am a seasoned AutoCad 2002 designer but new to the Inventor world. I have taken the 5.3 fundamentals course and am cramming furiously with hands on practice while waiting for the next available advanced course in my area (end of Dec). I am the senior designer in our office and typically work on the hotter more complex jobs for my boss. I find myself in the all so familiar pressure cooker trying to utilize Inventor and am struggling with a few things that are probably elementary in nature.
I am trying to construct a complex sheet metal part that has a 4-pointed star like shape. Each leg of the star is identical and made up of various faces, folds, and extrusions. There are coined areas where the metal is thinned this is why I extruded and “cut” the leg as needed. So I found myself using both “Sheet Metal” toolbar functions and “Features” toolbar functions to shape, bend, and whittle out the final leg shape. Now I’m left with a one legged part and have ran into some roadblocks that prevent me from completing the rest of the part.
1) How do I create a circular pattern to get four identical legs? I get a message that says “set contains objects that cannot be patterned” what does that mean? Is it because I combined sheet metal and standard functions?
2) I also tried to make an assembly by placing four instances of the legs, but that prevents me from being able to further cut and shape the complete assembly as if it were one part!
I’m sure this is a beginners dilemma and more of a planning or methodology issue than a software issue.
Any help is greatly appreciated.
Thanks, Tom…

[Anonymous]

Many sheetmetal parts aren't allowed to be patterned.

Try making your assembly and then derive it into a new IPT file. You should be able to
continue your design there, and it will stay parametric with the original leg.

--
Kent
Member of the Autodesk Discussion Forum Moderator Program


"tmalinski" wrote in message news:f11f625.-1@WebX.maYIadrTaRb...

> 1) How do I create a circular pattern to get four identical legs? I get a message that
says "set contains objects that cannot be patterned" what does that mean? Is it because I
combined sheet metal and standard functions?
> 2) I also tried to make an assembly by placing four instances of the legs, but that
prevents me from being able to further cut and shape the complete assembly as if it were
one part!
> I'm sure this is a beginners dilemma and more of a planning or methodology issue than a
software issue.
> Any help is greatly appreciated.
> Thanks, Tom.

[Anonymous]

1. You cannot pattern sheet metal features at this time.

2. I would construct the part as a sheet metal part, add chamfers,
etc., then add fold lines for each point. did a similar part last
week...

Dennis

tmalinski wrote:

> I am a seasoned AutoCad 2002 designer but new to the Inventor world. I
> have taken the 5.3 fundamentals course and am cramming furiously with
> hands on practice while waiting for the next available advanced course
> in my area (end of Dec). I am the senior designer in our office and
> typically work on the hotter more complex jobs for my boss. I find
> myself in the all so familiar pressure cooker trying to utilize
> Inventor and am struggling with a few things that are probably
> elementary in nature.
> I am trying to construct a complex sheet metal part that has a
> 4-pointed star like shape. Each leg of the star is identical and made
> up of various faces, folds, and extrusions. There are coined areas
> where the metal is thinned this is why I extruded and “cut” the leg as
> needed. So I found myself using both “Sheet Metal” toolbar functions
> and “Features” toolbar functions to shape, bend, and whittle out the
> final leg shape. Now I’m left with a one legged part and have ran into
> some roadblocks that prevent me from completing the rest of the part.
> 1) How do I create a circular pattern to get four identical legs? I
> get a message that says “set contains objects that cannot be
> patterned” what does that mean? Is it because I combined sheet metal
> and standard functions?
> 2) I also tried to make an assembly by placing four instances of the
> legs, but that prevents me from being able to further cut and shape
> the complete assembly as if it were one part!
> I’m sure this is a beginners dilemma and more of a planning or
> methodology issue than a software issue.
> Any help is greatly appreciated.
> Thanks, Tom…

--
Dennis Jeffrey
CAD Associates - Fort Wayne
Autodesk ASC
(260-432-9695 x 221