Sheet Metal Workbench

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shaise
Posts: 470
Joined: Thu Jun 11, 2015 8:11 am

Re: Sheet Metal Workbench

Post by shaise »

Ahh understood!
you are talking about a single face split into two parts, causing a "double" bend.
The way to fix it is to select OpenSCAD work bench, make sure the part is selected, and click the "refine" button. this should fuse the 2 faces making it one, and you can continue bending as usual.
As a side note, if you have symmetric bends, such as the 2 sides of the U you can select the 2 faces you want to have a bend, and add both bends at once. (instead of bending one side then the other)
Statik
Posts: 6
Joined: Fri Jun 03, 2016 5:31 pm

Re: Sheet Metal Workbench

Post by Statik »

Yes, that's exactly what I was referring to. Thanks!
For reference, I learned Solid Works two years ago as part of my Engineering course and I designed a multitool as part of the course. I built the following part but used fillets to mimic bends as we didn't learn the sheetmetal folding portion. Since I run Linux as my daily driver, I wanted to recreate the part in freecad so that I could unfold the model and have it cut.
Handle - Handle.pdf
(55.9 KiB) Downloaded 203 times
It is rather complicated so I'm learning how to make it work in Freecad

Statik
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shaise
Posts: 470
Joined: Thu Jun 11, 2015 8:11 am

Re: Sheet Metal Workbench

Post by shaise »

Nice!
Good luck, and share a photo when you finish.
Statik
Posts: 6
Joined: Fri Jun 03, 2016 5:31 pm

Re: Sheet Metal Workbench

Post by Statik »

Sheet Metal apparently doesn't like me making cuts to bends. :(
It is such a complicated shape. I wish there was a way to create the outline and then add fold lines. Then I could tweak the parameters until the final product looked correct.
Attachments
Handle_3.fcstd
(191.83 KiB) Downloaded 99 times
User avatar
shaise
Posts: 470
Joined: Thu Jun 11, 2015 8:11 am

Re: Sheet Metal Workbench

Post by shaise »

Statik wrote:Sheet Metal apparently doesn't like me making cuts to bends. :(
if you are talking about cutting Extrude006 from Bend009, it worked for me.
bendcut.png
bendcut.png (54.4 KiB) Viewed 3641 times
Regardless of that, I see that each time you want to cut, you create a sketch, extrude it, then use "Boolean cut" to cut it.
A simpler way is to go to part design workbench, select a face and press the sketch button to map a sketch to it. now make the sketch as before, and when finished just press the pocket button, and it will cut through the body.
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NormandC
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Joined: Sat Feb 06, 2010 9:52 pm
Location: Québec, Canada

Re: Sheet Metal Workbench

Post by NormandC »

Statik wrote:Sheet Metal apparently doesn't like me making cuts to bends. :(
Quite possibly because of this:
FC_Statik_Handle_3_01.png
FC_Statik_Handle_3_01.png (20.71 KiB) Viewed 3629 times
Coplanar faces and face tangency between objects used in a Boolean operation is almost always a bad idea. To reduce risk of Boolean failures, take care to ensure the solid cutting the other does not share coplanar faces. In other words, make it extend so you don't see these intersection edges on the end and bottom face of Extrude006.

Nonetheless the cut works here too, and I'm very surprised!

But know that such a cut will make the part impossible to unfold. To ensure a part can be unfolded, the edges along the sheet metal should always be normal to the upper and lower faces of the sheet.

Here's how it should look like:
FC_Statik_Handle_3_02.png
FC_Statik_Handle_3_02.png (20.71 KiB) Viewed 3629 times
But this is rather out of the purview of this topic... (FYI I extruded a surface, cut it with a solid similar to your Extrude006 then used Part Offset on the result with "fill offset" option checked to create a 1mm plate. The Flatten tool is not sophisticated enough to unfold this)

OS: Ubuntu 16.04.2 LTS
Word size of OS: 64-bit
Word size of FreeCAD: 64-bit
Version: 0.16.6707 (Git)
Build type: None
Branch: releases/FreeCAD-0-16
Hash: 5465bc47c95db45e0be85dc0e2872419efadce0f
Python version: 2.7.12
Qt version: 4.8.7
Coin version: 4.0.0a
OCC version: 6.8.0.oce-0.17
Attachments
Handle_3_normandc1.fcstd
(301.23 KiB) Downloaded 107 times
pastmanu
Posts: 3
Joined: Mon Apr 10, 2017 10:55 am
Location: treviso

Re: Sheet Metal Workbench

Post by pastmanu »

Hi everyone. I find in this topic some problem with rounded edges (https://forum.freecadweb.org/viewtopic.php?t=15421). I understand (see attached file) that if i have only one face without round edges 'sheet-metal' unfold, but if i have all the face with round edges 'sheet-metal' does not work. But what exactly does it bother the function to try to fix it a bit?

Thanks in advance

manu
Attachments
2ways.FCStd
(247.2 KiB) Downloaded 102 times
hgraminho
Posts: 3
Joined: Fri Apr 13, 2018 2:16 am

Re: Sheet Metal Workbench

Post by hgraminho »

This workbench would be very useful if there were an option to manually set k-factors for selected bends.

Also, for the remaining bends, it would be nice if the generated k-factor value is displayed as a read-only value.

My suggestion is: put an AUTO_K checkbox for every bend. If it is checked then the k-factor field becomes grayed-out with the DIN 6935 value on it, otherwise k-factor field is editable for manual entry.
R-INYURU
Posts: 11
Joined: Sat Jun 09, 2018 4:23 pm

Re: Sheet Metal Workbench

Post by R-INYURU »

Hi,
While I was playing with this workbench following a tutorial on the creators blog, I runned into a bug when using the extrude tool of the workbench. After extruding and trying to play with parameters by changing the gap1 or gap2 alone, what happen is the gap is created on both ends I selected but in different parts, one on top the other on the bottom. As you can see on the image where is red circled.
Screenshot from 2018-07-02 00-04-01.png
Screenshot from 2018-07-02 00-04-01.png (80.49 KiB) Viewed 2404 times
Is this made intentionally or its a bug?

This is the FreeCAD version I am using:
OS: Ubuntu 16.04.4 LTS
Word size of OS: 64-bit
Word size of FreeCAD: 64-bit
Version: 0.17.13522 (Git) AppImage
Build type: None
Branch: releases/FreeCAD-0-17
Hash: 3bb5ff4e70c0c526f2d9dd69b1004155b2f527f2
Python version: 2.7.6
Qt version: 4.8.6
Coin version: 4.0.0a
OCC version: 7.2.0
Locale: English/UnitedStates (en_US)

Any help will be appreciated.
Thanks in Advance.
Trying to learn more about FreeCAD, any idea I will appreciate.
chrisb
Veteran
Posts: 53930
Joined: Tue Mar 17, 2015 9:14 am

Re: Sheet Metal Workbench

Post by chrisb »

There have bugfixes and improvements been made recently. Have you th enewest version of SheetMetal installed?
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