Sheet Metal part from assembly right to flat pattern and manufacture

[javelin_exile]

Hi folks

So I have a small assembly here that is a shelf bracket made from 2 parts. I needed a handful so I was just going to plasma cut the parts out and be done quickly. But I wondered if this could be a little quicker. Normally I would save out all the parts from an assembly to go on to the Manufacture module, but can I just take my flat pattern for one single component of many and bring it to manufacture to get my cam file?

[jhackney1972 · Accepted solution]

You sure can.  After developing the Flat Pattern for any of your sheet metal components in the assembly. You go into the Manufacturing environment and simply select the one you want to work with.  If you have other components showing, simply turn them off.

[javelin_exile]

Wow thanks Has that been there all the way along and I just missed it or is this recently added? Is there a fully define sketch button somewhere that I missed? Heh

[chrisplyler]

Do you mean that you would like a sketch of the flat pattern, such that you could export a .dxf file for your plasma cutter?

There isn't a button for that exactly, but it's pretty easy.

1. Make sure you have the flat pattern of the component on your screen.

2. Create a new sketch right on the desired face of it.

3. Project (keyboard shortcut is P) the face into the sketch.

4. Finish the sketch.

5. Right-click on the new sketch entry in the Browser, and from the context menu that pops up, choose Save as DXF.

[javelin_exile]

oh no. I hadn't seen flat patterns available in the manufacturing module before I thought it came in on update because I was exporting all the parts to their own files then making them from there. I guess I still have to do that if I want to cut all the parts in an assembly nested in one process. But I thought I would ask if it was recent since I missed that function and thought maybe I also missed a button that would fully define a sketch automatically, while I'm in a sketch. It's a function I miss from Solidworks and haven't see it in fusion yet.