Creating One-Piece Frames for the Tube Laser

[chelmickVUXUE]

So, I spent some time this past week trying to figure out how to model one-piece frames that can be manufactured with a tube laser, bent by hand, and then welded together. I've used Frame Generator a lot and I really like its functionality, but unfortunately, it doesn't offer a way to create one-piece frames (at least to my knowledge). 

I won't tell you how my first attempt went, because it's so much work just to get a result that doesn't work well. But, for my second attempt I decided to try sweeping the profile of the tube I want in a normal part, using a cut-extrude to separate the mitered joints, and then converting the part to a sheet metal part. To my surprise this worked really well (I did not think it would let me take a closed profile part like a tube and convert it to sheet metal). This gave me the ability to flatten it and export a STEP file that could be sent off to the tube laser. It's a bit of work that I wouldn't expect most people to go through and honestly, I wish this feature could be baked into Frame Generator. It seems like these one-piece frames are used a lot, so having it built into Inventor would be great. 

I'll drop some screenshots and the file if anyone is curious what I did. If there is an easier way to do this that I am not aware of, I'd love to know. 

[chelmickVUXUE]

Here' s the file if anyone is interested in looking at the model tree. Also, a screenshot of how it's used in a weldment. 

[chelmickVUXUE]

Tried a third method. 

This time I created the frame using Frame Generator (saves time not needing to define a 3D sketch or a tube profile), opened a standard part and derived the assembly from Frame Generator, then used cut-extrudes to separate the miters, then converted it to a sheet metal part. This method is a bit faster and since the derived part is linked to the Frame Generator assembly, any updates to the frame also go through to the sheet metal part. 

I'll attempt to attach the pack n go. 

[chelmickVUXUE]

After playing around with both methods, I much prefer the latter. I like being able to edit my reference Frame Generator skeleton and having the updates pushed to my derived sheet metal part. 

[chelmickVUXUE]

Here is another Pack and Go with the latest model. You should be able to open this up and reverse engineer it or learn from it if you're interested. This model includes keyed miter joints and locating cutouts for gussets. 

Again, the idea here is to be able to cut this on a tube laser in one piece, bend it by hand, and then weld it together. For thicker walled tubes, you can add relief cuts to the bend lines. I believe we've been able to bend .120" wall tube by hand with this method.