topic Re: Stuck on sheet metal rectangle 'cone' funnel thing with flanges in Fusion Design, Validate & Document Forum

Stuck on sheet metal rectangle 'cone' funnel thing with flanges

guy_pc8Z25V — Tue, 08 Oct 2024 15:23:41 GMT

Hi all!

I'm trying to make a metal rectangle 'funnel' using the sheet metal tools in fusion.

I want to eventually end up with 4 different panels which i can send off to be laser cut, so in the end i can bend them and weld them together.

I made this using the solid tools fine, but then i realised i wanted to create a flat pattern and could only do this via sheet metal tools so i started again.

I have ended up with this monstrosity below as a rough creation... Which if I could remove the 'excess' of the flanges, i think i should be able to separate the 4 bodies into different components and then generate a flat pattern for each of them? I could obviously keep going chopping and changing till it looks like what i'm wanting, but i thought i would post here and see how you guys might get around this? I'd love to be able to use the lofted flange, but it didn't quite seem to work out for me for some reason.. It created the whole part with no seam anywhere, so obviously couldn't be flattened.

Hopefully the dimensions and sheet metal rule are included in the exported file! First time doing this.

Thanks for any help, I'd really like to see how other people might do this, and i don't seem to be able to come across any similar scenarios online haha!

Re: Stuck on sheet metal rectangle 'cone' funnel thing with flanges

guy_pc8Z25V — Tue, 08 Oct 2024 16:19:19 GMT

Well, I managed to get the lofted flange tool to work but i had to create two sketches with the opposite 'lines' instead of being able to use a rectangle, as the lofted flange tool wouldn't let me select a single line of the square in a sketch, it tried to select the whole square and failed to work. I then worked from the base upwards and created the top lip from the flange tool and split the body to get the mitred corners.

Re: Stuck on sheet metal rectangle 'cone' funnel thing with flanges

Warmingup1953 — Tue, 08 Oct 2024 18:02:34 GMT

What about this approach?...This is just a rough draft

Re: Stuck on sheet metal rectangle 'cone' funnel thing with flanges

guy_pc8Z25V — Tue, 08 Oct 2024 18:33:57 GMT

Pretty much exactly how i managed to solve it in my next upload haha!! Couldn't believe it. Soon as i figured out how to get the lofted flange working it took 2 seconds to finish!! Super annoying but every day is a school day haha!

Re: Stuck on sheet metal rectangle 'cone' funnel thing with flanges

guy_pc8Z25V — Tue, 08 Oct 2024 18:35:27 GMT

I thought I could create an offset plane, create a new sketch and put my final funnel square in, and loft each individual 'lip' at the top down to the square, but the tool kept selecting the entire square. So i created two square sketches, one with the left/right lines as construction, and one with the top/bottom as construction. That allowed me to select each individual line for a lofted flange. Maybe i'm just stupid and cant select the individual lines when it's a full square in one sketch haha!

Re: Stuck on sheet metal rectangle 'cone' funnel thing with flanges

evanp4509U4JZ — Tue, 08 Oct 2024 19:33:31 GMT

In the menu for lofted flange there is a tick box for "allow chaining". That may be the issue as when I tried, it is automatically checked. Maybe unchecking it will allow single line selection.

Re: Stuck on sheet metal rectangle 'cone' funnel thing with flanges

evanp4509U4JZ — Tue, 08 Oct 2024 19:34:31 GMT

"chain selection" not "allow chaining".

Re: Stuck on sheet metal rectangle 'cone' funnel thing with flanges

johnsonshiue — Thu, 10 Oct 2024 01:39:43 GMT

Hi! Here is another solution without using explicit Sheet Metal features. The Sheet Metal workflows are best to design unfoldable sheet metal parts in one piece. When there are compound angles or multiple pieces are needed, the Sheet Metal commands may not be as flexible as they should be.

Instead, I leverage Surface Modeling techniques to create the exterior shape. And use Chamfer to create the gaps fitting the panels. The rest is pretty straight forward.

Many thanks!

Re: Stuck on sheet metal rectangle 'cone' funnel thing with flanges

user015M86Y — Fri, 11 Oct 2024 11:13:04 GMT

Hi, see my proposal attached

Four sheet of bend sheet metal to weld together

See the draft function to get the angle plate

Transform each bodies to components in order to create four flat pattern with boundary fill (ref John HACKNEY)