Multiple Default Sheet Metal thicknesses

[Anonymous]

It is usually recommended that bigger assemblies are initially constructed in a skeleton part, in which all the bodies are drawn and fitted to one another. They are then extracted into an assembly using the Make Components feature.

However, this method is not practical when constructing assemblies using Sheet Metal of varying thicknesses, since only one thickness is allowed in the Sheet Metal Defaults option dialog. Therefore I wish that it is possible to work with multiple sheet metal thicknesses in the same part.

[jtylerbc]

What version are you using?  In Inventor 2018, you can have as many different thicknesses as you want in a multibody sheet metal part - you just have to create a sheet metal rule for each thickness.

[Anonymous]

Oh, I see. I have always used the custom thickness option, and didn't realize that you could specify different rules for each sheet object. I'll close down the idea.

[jtylerbc]

That was a new feature added in Inventor 2017 or 2018 (I forget which).  So it hasn't been around that long.

We have done the same thing up to the point of implementing Inventor 2018.  We're taking this change to the multibody sheet metal tools as the opportunity to finally go in and build a decent set of sheet metal rules.  It's something we had been talking about doing for a while, but this finally gave a specific reason to sit down and do it.

[n.schotten]

And added benefit of seting up multiple rules is that you can also set them up for different suppliers.

Not all have the same radii for a given material and thickness.

What i noticed, and why i'm here looking for an idea that matches, the suppliers also have 'rules' on minimum distances left and right of the bend (to fit with the tooling) and the distance a hole (contour) must have to the bend line to not deform during bending. Also the maximum length of a bend for the force their machine can put out.

Recently a needed to bend a 1.8meter strip in 5mm stainless. But their machine could only handle ~1meter for that material. So we had to make cuts in the bend to reduce the actual bend length (like a chain weld).

I looked at the sheetmetal rules... There currently is no space for notes to leave this info. I'm talking notes! not yet about implementing this data to do a design check against. Although that would be great. Like the interference check, but for bend complience...