Hello, I would like to simply make a sheet metal part, 0.2mm thick, which winds into a cone (very slight slope here). For this I used the " Transition folds" function. When I lay it flat, it works. To this I would like to add rigid parts, evenly distributed, with a thickness of 0.8mm (this is the modeling of a flex-rigid electronic board). The problem is that when I add these rigid parts, they disappear when I lay the part flat. By tinkering (assembling by hand several sheets of metal, each including a flex part and a rigid part), I manage to do it but it's really not clean. I would like to be able to easily change the number of rigid parts, the width of a rigid part and the width of a flexible part, without having to redo the whole assembly. I attach photos. One is shaped (full circle in a cone). The other is flattened (open circle). Thank you in advance for your help.
If I understand the idea of why (to get the development of the electronic board) ... I still have a doubt that you have to go through the sheet metal function to do that.
Indeed, to make an unfolded, it uses the K factor and/or a value of loss at the fold which depend on the folding machine (which you will not have here)
And in addition, you enter a 3rd dimensional factor with the cone
That being said, I don't necessarily have a solution to offer you. Apart from drawing it according to extrusion and doing the calculations yourself. But I don't think that's what you're looking for?
I think it's not possible to unfold everything, here is a conical sheet metal part that can be demonstrated. Good luck. @+. AR. Item1.SLDPRT (257.1 KB)
For the unfolded of a cone, the transition fold is a good start...
Where it will get stuck: the variation in thickness due to the addition of the "rigid" parts. SW does not know how to unfold a sheet metal if there is a variation in thickness on the axis of the fold. On a transition fold, the entire surface is considered as a folding axis! So impossible.
The few times I had to draw this style of piece, I proceeded like this:
Creation of 2 configurations
in the first is active the folded part + the "extra thicknesses" (visual of the desired part)
In the second, the extra thicknesses are "removed", the part is unfolded (by the unfolded function, not by the unfolded state = big difference!) and the extra thicknesses are redrawn.
@coin37coin Yes, I agree that the sheet metal function is certainly not perfect, but it's enough for what I want to do.
@A.R My version of solidworks is too old to open the part
@a.eriaud: the "unfold" function does not work for "transition folds" unfortunately.
I created a portion of an arc in thickness 0.2 folded, in 0.2 unfolded, in 0.8 rigid, and I created an assembly with a circular repetition to have the folded part, and I assembled the unfolded parts by hand to have the unfolded state of the flex. It will. I'll have to get through this. Thank you all the same for your answers!
