Help with designing a simple sheet metal component with bends

[Anonymous]

Hi all,

I'm fairly new to Fusion 360 and this is my first project that I have modelled entirely in the software. One of the components necessary is a single sheet of 4mm aluminium that has been bent in 3 places to produce an surrounding chassis for the rest of the hardware. Two of the bends are 40mm in radius, and the other 90mm. I've managed to sculpt the shape i'm after fairly accurately in the sculpt workspace, however i'd be interested to know if there's a better, more accurate way to do this. I'm aware that the sheet metal workspace is still unreleased to most unless they're on the preview trial, so perhaps i'll have to wait for that. I will need to have this cut, so it will be necessary to 'flatten' the design out for that in the future. Is it just going to be a matter of waiting? I can't proceed with the design without having complete confidence in the accuracy of this component. 

Cheers!

Callum.

[JDMather]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Hi all,

... I've managed to sculpt the shape i'm after fairly accurately in the sculpt workspace,

Callum.

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Can you attach your *.f3d file here?

[Anonymous]

I've attached a .f3z since I cannot for the life of me work out how to export as a .f3d. Hope that's useful. If not let me know. Cheers

[TrippyLighting]

You've modeled a number of components in the sculpt workspace the should have been modeled with the solid modeling tools in Fusion 360.

Then you've made a few modeling mistakes in moving bodies within components when that was not necessary.

Consider this a good concept model and re-do it with the proper modeling tools and technique. To create a flattend state of the frame you can use sheetmetal once it comes out, but it really is not at all necessary. This is a simple sheet metal shape that does not require a lot of precision. Model it in it's final state and create a dimensioned manufacturing drawing. Any sheet metal shop should be able to manufacture that for you.

I'll certainly stick around to see how this develops as really like the futuristic elegance of this design!

[Anonymous]

Thanks so much for letting me know, still very much a learning process.

As for modelling in the solid modelling workspace in Fusion 360, I got stuck when trying to model this shape purely here. I completed a sketch with a 4mm offset with each of the fillets, and then extruded the sketch 300mm to the desired width, however i'm then unsure how to edit the shape to have it's slanted edges on all faces. Would you possibly be able to give me a brief instruction on how to do this? I'm just unsure how to do it outside the sculpt workspace, which I've always known wasn't going to be the right way to do it.

[TrippyLighting · Accepted solution]

Here is a screencast outlining a method to design the case. It does not use the sheet metal workspace. While I have access to the review, I've not worked much with it. I might try it out.

The model I created should be very close to the shape you created.

I'll look into the other modeling issues later.

[Anonymous]

That's absolutely brilliant.

Thanks so much, Peter. I really appreciate you taking the time to do that for me.

From what I've seen, the sheet metal work-space could provide an easier alternative to something like this, although what you've done here is perfect.

Thanks again!

[TrippyLighting]

You're welcome.

I looked at some of the other things that caught my eye. You have many body move icons in the timeline. Be aware of the difference between moving a body and moving a component. It is likely that you wanted to move components into the right location, and not the bodies within the components as that moved them away from their sketches.

When you select a vertex, edge, or face of a 3D object in the viewport and follow the breadcrumbs in the browser you'll see that this actually highlights the body within a component, but not the component. If you then invoke the move command, you'll move the body within the component away from its location on the origin of that component. That creates al the cross arrow symbols in your timeline. In a design such as this it is not likely what you want to do.

You want to move a component and to select a component in the viewport you'll have to double-click on a 3D object. Then when you move the object in the timeline nothing will be recorded until you save the location with the capture position icon (orange cylinder and block).

You are already working properly with components in that bodies and sketches all are located in the component they are belonging to and you also seem to understand component activation.

That is very good to see as so many other users stumble across that with their first design and have a lot to re-work later.