Sheet Metal Workbench

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janifr
Posts: 9
Joined: Sat Oct 30, 2021 2:05 pm

Re: Sheet Metal Workbench

Post by janifr »

Hi,

I'm quite newbie wih FreeCAD and 3d modellin anyway. I wanted to make something like in this picture so when figured out how to do it, I made a tutorial.
piece.PNG
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https://youtu.be/urjArwjb3_U
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sfgrayson
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Re: Sheet Metal Workbench

Post by sfgrayson »

Hi,

Is there a way to make the Extend feature still work when not passing through a wall? It works perfectly fine as long as it is going through, but when the respective line is deleted in the base sketch, the extend feature breaks.
doesntwork.png
doesntwork.png (75.16 KiB) Viewed 3454 times
This would be very useful for making custom shaped flanges/tabs in general without making a bunch of additional PartDesign features on the Extend.

Great job on the workbench devs, I'm having a blast learning it. I use CAD everyday at work to design chimney parts so I'm very excited to bring FreeCAD into that work and for other sheetmetal workers.

My About FreeCAD:
OS: Fedora 34 (Workstation Edition) (GNOME/gnome)
Word size of OS: 64-bit
Word size of FreeCAD: 64-bit
Version: 2021.922.24301 +4188 (Git) AppImage
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ExtendWorks.FCStd
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janifr
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Re: Sheet Metal Workbench

Post by janifr »

janifr wrote: Tue Nov 02, 2021 2:12 pm
When unfolding, is it possible to get the bend angles?

For a pieces like this that are created otherwise than using WB:s bend tool the angles are not necessarily obvius.
bend.PNG
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OS: Windows 10 Version 2009
Word size of OS: 64-bit
Word size of FreeCAD: 64-bit
Version: 0.19.24291 (Git)
Build type: Release
Branch: releases/FreeCAD-0-19
Hash: 7b5e18a0759de778b74d3a5c17eba9cb815035ac
Python version: 3.8.6+
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Locale: Finnish/Finland (fi_FI)
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-alex-
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Re: Sheet Metal Workbench

Post by -alex- »

janifr wrote: Sat Nov 06, 2021 4:39 pm When unfolding, is it possible to get the bend angles?
AFAIK it is not possible yet. That would be great.
jaisejames wrote:ping
Do you think it would be possible to code such feature?
For example If the angle value could be collected for a bend it would be possible to duplicate the bending line in unfold sketch then modify his lenght to set it accordingly to the bending angle value in mm, or in 1/10mm if the original lengh of the bending line would be <180mm (just to workaround minimum size issue by scaling). Each duplicated line would be centered on the original one.
In this way it could be possible to import the unfold sketch then add dimensions on bending lines to get the angle value on drawing as like a bending note.
What's your opinion ?
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FBXL5
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Re: Sheet Metal Workbench

Post by FBXL5 »

sfgrayson wrote: Thu Nov 04, 2021 3:03 am Is there a way to make the Extend feature still work when not passing through a wall? It works perfectly fine as long as it is going through, but when the respective line is deleted in the base sketch, the extend feature breaks.
I can reproduce that behaviour. (And Realthunder's Link Branch behaves the same way.)
I haven't noticed this before; my focus must have been completely on the intersections.

sfgrayson wrote: Thu Nov 04, 2021 3:03 am This would be very useful for making custom shaped flanges/tabs in general without making a bunch of additional PartDesign features on the Extend.
Indeed that would be nice, but I'm afraid that other than rectangular (cuboid) extensions/cut-outs are to complex to code. I hope i'll be proved wrong with the next version of the SheetMetal workbench. :)
jaisejames
Posts: 384
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Re: Sheet Metal Workbench

Post by jaisejames »

-alex- wrote: Sat Nov 06, 2021 9:56 pm
janifr wrote: Sat Nov 06, 2021 4:39 pm When unfolding, is it possible to get the bend angles?
AFAIK it is not possible yet. That would be great.
jaisejames wrote:ping
Do you think it would be possible to code such feature?
For example If the angle value could be collected for a bend it would be possible to duplicate the bending line in unfold sketch then modify his lenght to set it accordingly to the bending angle value in mm, or in 1/10mm if the original lengh of the bending line would be <180mm (just to workaround minimum size issue by scaling). Each duplicated line would be centered on the original one.
In this way it could be possible to import the unfold sketch then add dimensions on bending lines to get the angle value on drawing as like a bending note.
What's your opinion ?
These details are available in sheet-metal unfolder macro in macro section in addon manger [but not updated to work with py3]. I attached modified macro with some features commented out to work with newer version of freecad. Pls check with Shaise, if it is possible to incorporate in sheetmetal workbench.
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Sheet_Metal_Unfolder.FCMacro
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Kunda1
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Re: Sheet Metal Workbench

Post by Kunda1 »

jaisejames wrote: Mon Nov 08, 2021 6:35 am [but not updated to work with py3]
:(
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janifr
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Re: Sheet Metal Workbench

Post by janifr »

jaisejames wrote: Mon Nov 08, 2021 6:35 am These details are available in sheet-metal unfolder macro in macro section in addon manger [but not updated to work with py3]. I attached modified macro with some features commented out to work with newer version of freecad. Pls check with Shaise, if it is possible to incorporate in sheetmetal workbench.
I did modify SheetMetalUnfolder.py to incorporate same functionality than in this macro. I'll push my changes to Github, but I'll post here also. Don't know if its working right though.

Please comment.
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SheetMetalUnfolder.py
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-alex-
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Re: Sheet Metal Workbench

Post by -alex- »

jaisejames wrote: Mon Nov 08, 2021 6:35 am These details are available in sheet-metal unfolder macro in macro section in addon manger [but not updated to work with py3].
:o I didn't know about that, I didn't use this macro since years... thanks for pointing this out!
I attached modified macro with some features commented out to work with newer version of freecad
Thank you, works pretty fine already. But the bend angle parameter is missing in spreadsheet bendtable:

Code: Select all

mySheet = self.theDoc.addObject('Spreadsheet::Sheet','Bendtable')
    mySheet.set('A1', 'Bendlabel')
    mySheet.set('B1', 'Radius')
    mySheet.set('C1', 'Direction')
    mySheet.set('D1', 'k-Factor')
It would be great to collect bend angle value then add it to bendtable.
shaise wrote:ping
Hi Shaise, what's your opinion about including such features in SMWB unfolder?

janifr wrote: Mon Nov 08, 2021 6:14 pm I did modify SheetMetalUnfolder.py to incorporate same functionality than in this macro. I'll push my changes to Github, but I'll post here also. Don't know if its working right though.
Thanks for your attempt, works pretty fine, I can get both objects: legacy unfold objects and sketches + "new" notes and bendtable.
But Unfold_Sketch_bends is empty now, only new Bendlines object is visible. The K-factor value =0.13 seems wrong, I've set 0,5 manually while unfolding. The angle value is missing in bendtable.
Looks like a nice step forward :)

test_sheet_metal_bendtable_unfolder.png
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janifr
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Joined: Sat Oct 30, 2021 2:05 pm

Re: Sheet Metal Workbench

Post by janifr »

Thank you for the feedback. I'm currently learning what this code does, and simultaniously learning python, I've virtually zero experience with it.

My branch is at https://github.com/janifr/FreeCAD_SheetMetal
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