How To Turn On Sheet Metal In Solidworks

Create the solid part.

How to turn on sheet metal in solidworks.

To begin we first want to turn on the sheet metal tab on the commandmanager. Select use gauge table. No bend lines or bend notes are show then your bend line sketch for that view is more than likely not set to show. Sheet metal parts are generally used as enclosures for components or to provide support to other components.

It is located in c program files solidworks corp solidworks lang english sheet metal gauge tables. Go to the view drop down menu or the view heads up menu and select sketches. The body has to have a uniform thickness if it is not uniform you could create a 0 surface offset and thicken it with the intended thickness. If you don t have the sheet metal tab open right click in the area where the 1 arrow points then click sheet metal.

Erapid is rapid sheet metal s free soldiworks add in for instant sheet metal part quoting. Insert bends was the first sheet metal feature ever in solidworks and it can handle imported geometry as long as there are some requirements met. As designs get more complex and start to violate the conditions and requirements for you to use certain features you may need to switch to a few additional techniques that allow you to create flat patterns from a wide variety of shapes. Properly formatting the list of gauges is important.

Solidworks sheet metal allows you to quickly and easily design folded or flat parts but what about parts that don t have simple straight bends. The beauty of erapid is you can explore multiple design iterations without ever having to submit a rfq. In the propertymanager under sheet metal gauges set options if you want to use a gauge table. Go to the feature tree and expand the view and drill down to the bend line sketch right click on it and set it to show.

It provides free instant sheet metal part pricing within solidworks. Click convert to sheet metal 3. To do this we simply need to right click any tab on the commandmanager and select sheet metal from the drop down menu. Click convert to sheet metal sheet metal toolbar or insert sheet metal convert to sheet metal.

I personally use the k factor version but many may prefer bend allowance or go with a bend table. Click on the sheet metal tab select base flange tab and give 1 mm to the sheet metal parameters. You can design a sheet metal part on its own without any references to the parts it will enclose you can design the part in the context of an assembly that contains the enclosed components or you can design the part within another part document in a multibody environment. Both can be found in a nearby folder.