Thicken sheet metal plate with embosses in it with small radiusses

[Anonymous]

Can't thicken my surface 7 mm. There are radiusses/embosses that are smaller. Inventor does not want to thicken the whole surface. What Can I do?

[JDMather]

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@Anonymous wrote:

 What Can I do?

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Attach your file here.

[Anonymous]

Hello.

I have a sheet metal plate from aprox 2 mm thick.

I want to make a smaller scale model to 3D print this.

For this I want to thicken the complete sheet metal, and then scale it down

and still have approx 2 mm wall thickness everywhere.

But when I want to thicken the complete sheet metal plate

(with all kind of embosses and small radiusses in it)

Inventor does not want to thicken this sheet metal plate.

How can I solve this issue.

[swalton]

I suspect that the solution to your problem is tied to your specific geometry.  

Post your part so others can review and understand the issue.

If your part is propriety and you don't want to post it to a public internet site, make an example part that shows the same issue, but not the secret geometry and post that one.

It is unlikely you will get any useful advice or recommendations if you don't post a part.

[johnsonshiue]

Hi! Inventor sheet metal thickness is driven by Thickness value. The workflow you are talking about may not work within Sheet Metal environment since you are trying to drive body thickness with scaling.

I think the best solution is probably create a zero offset surface on one side (Thicken/Offset -> surface output -> distance = 0). Then derive the surface with a smaller scale to another regular part or a sheet metal part. Thicken the derived surface to the desirable thickness.

If you cannot figure out, please share the file here. There should be a solution but not within sheet metal environment in the same part.

Many thanks!

[Anonymous]

We have a sheet metal plate with.

We want to scale this down to 0.25 to be able to 3D print this.

But when we scale this down... we do not have enough material evertwhere to print this.

The min wall thickness must be 2.0 mm for our 3D printer.

So we want to thicken the bottem with 6.8 mm...

and than scale the complete model down to 0.25x

How can I so this.?

Thanks.

File is now included....

[Anonymous]

Hello,

I have share the file. Could you work with this to find a solution?

[johnsonshiue]

Hi Anton,

I took a look at the part. The scaling is easy. You can use Direct Edit -> Body -> Scale -> 0.25. But, the tricky part is to thicken it to 6.8mm. The thickness looks very big relative to the body and Inventor fails to generate the thickened body. Is 6.8mm required?

Many thanks!

[Anonymous]

Hello Thanks for your reply.

In the end we do not want a thickness of 6,8 mm.

But, we want an overall thickness of the part from min. 2,0 mm

so the part is thick enough to produce the part on a 3D printer.

When I donwscale the part... I tried this... the thickness is going donw from now... 1.2mm / 4

So we want thicken the part from 1.2 + 6.8 = 8.0 mm

and then make a scale model from 1:4 so we have a thickness from 2.0 mm left.

But the process of thickening the part with 6.8 mm does not work because of the shape and radiusses from the part.

I hope you have a better understanding from this challennge.

and can find a solution for this.

Thanks.