How do I create sheet metal parts in Fusion 360?

[Anonymous]

I'm new to Fusion 360 and can follow the tutorials pretty well, but they are all solid items.  I need to create bent sheet metal parts which also include cut-outs.  I have no idea where or how to start on this.

[Anonymous]

Any update on when for sheet metal? I'm feeling flat... Thanks!

[promm]

@Anonymous,

Thank you for your continued interest.  I am planning on making an updated video this week to show our progress.  The plan is to start gathering feedback next month on sheet metal creation by a selected group of external users.  The amount of users will grow as we get closer to a release.  The team is in the process of building out our flattening abilities, along with focusing on the core quality of the tools.  I am looking forward to the day when I get to see the designs our users come up with using sheet metal.

Cheers,

Mike Prom

[sytran]

This is an exciting time to be a maker!  Can't wait for this. 

[Anonymous]

Hi! I am curious, what is the status on sheet metal for Fusion 360?

Regards,

Thomas

[brianrepp]

Hi @Anonymous - have you seen the blog post that went up yesterday re: Sheetmetal?  Some good info on what's being worked on, and in what phases.

[yoshimitsuspeed]

When can we get it? How do we apply for the early testing?
Will we be able to flatten parts made in the model workspace?

[fusion5GBH9]

I would like to apply for testing of the sheet metal functionality if this is something you are looking for.

We are a small shop that does all in house low qty development and would be happy to test the new software and provide detailed feedback on its performance.

[lonarome]

This is awesome. Things I'd love to see

1) Solid to sheet metal, solidworks does this well and It's a huge timesaver.

2) Automatic joins for spot welding or fasteners, ie you have a flat part, it gets bent into a shape, and now you need to do a ton of work to extend edges around to a place where you can attach them together via spot welds or fasteners. 

[lonarome]

This is awesome. Things I'd love to see

1) Solid to sheet metal, solidworks does this well and It's a huge timesaver.

2) Automatic joins for spot welding or fasteners, ie you have a flat part, it gets bent into a shape, and now you need to do a ton of work to extend edges around to a place where you can attach them together via spot welds or fasteners

[Anonymous]

This tool looks awesome.

I would like to design a stamp that will automatically bend and cut sheet metal parts. Will this tool help me to create the stamp?

[promm]

@Anonymous,

Creating stamps is not a part of our initial release focus.  I do have it as a part of our long term solution, we are starting with the ability to create a sheet metal part with flanges.

Cheers,

Mike Prom

[Anonymous]

I saw some tutorial video for sheet metal. If I understand correctly, this has not been released to the public yet? (I don't see the sheet metal menu in the software version I have)

[yoshimitsuspeed]

Nope not available yet. Last I heard I think the preview is supposed to be available some time mid 2016.

[Anonymous]

Did you mean 2017? mid 2016 is 6 months ago.

Meanwhile, do you know if there is a way that I can "extrude" a sketch which consist of a polyline? (Without having first to make an enclosed shape of the right thickness).

So if I recapitulate, I want to be able to take a sketch which consist of lines, extrude it and specify a thickness.

[JDMather]

Extrude as a surface and then Thicken.

Attach your *.f3d file here if you can't figure it out.

[promm]

@Anonymous,

Sheet metal is currently in a limited preview, allowing selected users to give feedback on the ability to create sheet metal parts while the development team works on flattening.  You can find out more about the preview in the preview forum https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/preview-functionality/bd-p/297 and https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/preview-functionality/sheet-metal-feedback/td-p/6818047

Regards,

Mike Prom

[CLmoss]

J D Mather,

can you expand on that thought?

[mavigogun]

Thanks for the update, Mike.   While sheet metal work isn't of immediate interest, I'm very much concerned with any facility to flatten curved surfaces for cutting from flat stock.   Even if such a capacity was limited to non-compound curves, the utility would fill a significant gap moving from design to fabrication.

[dghylin]

Definitely need a function to develop a compound curve into a flat 2D format....like the side of a boat...is that in the future?

Don

[sytran]

I'm hoping sheet metal has a feature that flattens out a compound surface,  but I'm not sure it'll happen.  Right now there is exact flat plug in that does that,  also the slicer plug in does something similar  but the results are a little polygonal.