topic Re: Issues Generating Sheet Metal "Lancing" Punch in Inventor Forum

Issues Generating Sheet Metal "Lancing" Punch

roofvents — Fri, 11 Mar 2022 20:00:39 GMT

Hello all,

I am in the process of creating a part that requires lancing in order to attach a rod so it can rotate. I believe I have the correct geometry for the punch, however I am having trouble generating the actual Sheet Metal iFeature. I keep getting an error regarding a center point, as shown below. I'm currently stuck and don't know how to proceed. Any help is appreciated!

Re: Issues Generating Sheet Metal "Lancing" Punch

johnsonshiue — Fri, 11 Mar 2022 21:42:30 GMT

Hi! Please share the ipt file here or send it to me directly johnson.shiue@autodesk.com. I can take a look and see why the center point warning comes up.

Many thanks!

Re: Issues Generating Sheet Metal "Lancing" Punch

roofvents — Mon, 14 Mar 2022 12:43:20 GMT

Here is the .ipt file. My apologies for not attaching it originally.

Re: Issues Generating Sheet Metal "Lancing" Punch

Gabriel_Watson — Mon, 14 Mar 2022 14:36:13 GMT

You have two features being extracted, and Inventor is apparently asking for a center point on each one. The cut had a center point, but the round extrusion lacked one. If you change the following to become a center point type, you can then select both features and save this as sheet metal punch:

Re: Issues Generating Sheet Metal "Lancing" Punch

roofvents — Mon, 14 Mar 2022 16:14:19 GMT

That worked, but now I have a new issue. When I go to place the iFeature, I get an error saying the file has 0 volume changing features (as seen below).

Here is what the .ide looks like:

Is this related to what sketch I choose as a simplified representation?

Re: Issues Generating Sheet Metal "Lancing" Punch

johnsonshiue — Tue, 15 Mar 2022 02:37:51 GMT

Hi! I took a closer look at the issue. I was able to make it work. The trick here is to establish relative dependency, essentially making the selected features portable.

Please take a look at attached files. Look at how the sketches, the constraints, the dimensions, the sketch coordinates and the workplane are defined.

Here is another thread with a similar issue.

https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/inventor-forum/punch-tool-how-to-change-the-orientation/td-p/10987929

Many thanks!

Re: Issues Generating Sheet Metal "Lancing" Punch

Gabriel_Watson — Tue, 15 Mar 2022 03:03:46 GMT

Thank you @johnsonshiue!
I had given up on those because it takes a bit too long to fix them, when we are trying to keep the original user's model as pristine as possible.

I don't think the Extract iFeature tool should be this complex to understand sometimes, and if it has to be, then I figure we need your words above (and a few samples) made available on an Autodesk Knowledgebase article when we press F1 at the tool. Then everything would make sense, and beginners would probably not come here every week with models that seem perfect but are missing either a fundamentally different approach or a small invisible change.

Re: Issues Generating Sheet Metal "Lancing" Punch

roofvents — Tue, 15 Mar 2022 14:28:55 GMT

Thank you @johnsonshiue for the updated part! I now realize where I went wrong on my original sketch.

I agree completely @Gabriel_Watson, there should be more information about how to create a proper iFeature on Inventor itself. Everyone who is new/beginner level at Inventor would highly benefit from this. Thanks again for your contributions as well!