Overlapping Flanges Don't Mitre Inventor 2011 1

[cjjatpuresilica]

Hi,

Can anyone please help me overcome the inability of the flanges to mitre in the corners.

I have tried numerous models, including repairing Inventor, all to no avail.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you.

cjj

 

[cjjatpuresilica]

Dear rollupswx,

This note may appear out of turn but it is just to thank you and to add that I accept your kind advice over keeping original sketches simple, which is why I had driven my sketch from circles rather than from individual lines requiring many measurements and angles. In subsequent models I have set up layers of sketches each building on each other using blocks that appears to work well, keeping each individual sketch confined to just a few construction lines constrained to the underlying blocks.

In summary, the very meaningful help I received from you last night was:

1. The missing 2 dimensions from my sketches related to not being constrained to the centre of origin.
2. When Inventor fails to corner mitre overlapping flanges, simply use an offset and fix the problem with a separate corner seam.
3. That there is possibly a much better route to folding up from a flat namely to loft.

Finally there is no doubt that without your kind help I would have been stuck on this problem for a goodly while.

So thank you rollupswx, you get my sincere vote of thanks.

cjj

 

[rollupswx]

If you do a lot of sheetmetal you are also going to want to become familiar with surface modeling techniques (create surface model and then Thicken to solid) to workaround some difficult parts that the standard sheet metal tools don't include specific needed "easy button" solutions.
I considered that perhaps surface modeling might be a way to make this part, but decided to stay within the sheet metal tools to avoid confusion. I consider the result I got using a single loft with flanges to be a bug in the program and will be submitting that to Autodesk to take a look. I came to the conclusion the reason that automiter wasn't working is the edges of the two flanges (on careful examination) are not co-planar, but at a slight angle to each other. I am not considering the failure to automiter (in this specific case) to be bug or lack of functionality. Purely a logical geometry problem. Conditions not met for the functionality to work. Making the sheetmetal much thicker might make the reasoning more obvious.

 

[cjjatpuresilica]

Dear rollupswx,

Thank you for your added dimension vis-a-vis the surface modelling solution.

Is this still a suitable solution bearing in mind that my model has to be controlled via iRules to make it fully adjustable in size whilst retaining the various features in tact?

I am also intrigued by your observation of the edges not being co-planar causing the failure of the auto-mitering and will look at this also.

Thus far I have managed to loft in one piece i.e all sides together, without a hitch although as yet have not added my XML file or iRules to control the part.

I am new to sheet-metal work as well as Inventor and wondered if you can point me at the limitations that exist for fabricators to actually fold a component.

Presumably when a model becomes in a sense closed i.e. a fabricator cannot access a flange or face then it becomes unviable.

I ask because my model is only half of the finished article which i am having to bolt together. Could it be folded as one component with just one seam?

As previously stated I am most grateful.

You cannot know yet just how profound my particular model is and the influence it will have in due course.

Thank you.

cjj

 

[rollupswx]

Surface modeling in Inventor is fully parametric.

 

[cjjatpuresilica]

Dear rollupswx.

Thank you.

cjj