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Fill Pattern in SW - how to limit to blind depth ?? 1

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EastGhostCom

Electrical
Sep 16, 2011
1
Every other damn feature in SW 2011 has a way (in Property Manager) to define/limit the depth of the feature, but apparently not FILL PATTERN.

I'm trying to add custom perforated sections into an eighth-inch thick aluminum chassis. The chassis is modeled as one solid piece with several internal walls or electrical shielding dividers.

I want to add a square area, the inside of which should be perforated...basically, these are ventilation holes.

So I create a new sketch on the plane of an outside surface of the metal chassis. I draw a rectangle. Then I add a Fill Pattern feature and select the sketched rectangle as the "Fill Boundary". I also select the two outside chassis surfaces as "Faces to Pattern". I use the "Create seed cut" option and make a small circle.

Everything works great, the pattern looks perfect.

There's only one problem: The resulting perforation cuts all the way through the chassis and also perforates every internal dividing wall. I only want the outer two chassis walls to be perforated, however.

Every other feature offers a "up to next" and "blind" depth option. Why is that not present for FILL PATTERN? Why am I forced to use "Feature Scope" that requires a solid body, resulting in cuts to every internal part of the (solid body that is my) chassis.

At a loss, would appreciate any input. TIA
 
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Can you post the part (or a similar non-proprietary one) to experiment with?
 
Maybe you could not merge the features into one body so the perforated parts will be separate bodies??

--
Hardie "Crashj" Johnson
SW 2011 SP 4.0
HP Pavillion Elite HPE
W7 Pro, Nvidia Quaddro FX580

 
Are using 'Features to Pattern' (vs. 'faces', as you post)? It's the only one for which I see a 'create seed cut' option. And it does appear that 'through all' is the only option with that cut.

How I would get blind or otherwise depth-controlled holes would be to make a single hole to the end condition desired, using either a cut or the hole wizard. Then fill-pattern that feature rather than making the seed cut within the pattern command.

Depending on your needs for this pattern it may make even more sense to use a pattern or decal to represent the perforations without incurring the overhead of a dense fill pattern.
 
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