- [Instructor] Many times designs evolve
from what might have started as a solid body
might actually be made from sheet metal.
Other times, geometry of a sheet metal part
is too complex and designing it as a solid is much easier.
Either way you go, SolidWorks has a
Convert to Sheet Metal command that will allow you to create
a flatten-able metal sheet metal part
from a solid, very quickly and easily.
So to get started, let me show you
what we're going to be doing.
So right here you can see, we have this solid,
and we're gonna create a sheet metal part from it.
And that is gonna look a lot like this part here,
so you can see, we used that original solid
and then created a sheet metal part around it.
And then my other example here is gonna be,
this part here, which starts as a non-sheet metal part,
and we convert it over to a sheet metal part here,
with bent edges.
So those are my basic things I'm gonna be using,
and creating, so let's go ahead and close this one here,
let's leave this one open,
and let's go ahead and also close this part here.
And we'll start from this one right here.
Here's my example.
So the first thing I wanna do
is head over to the sheet metal tab
and say, Convert to Sheet Metal.
So the first thing I wanna do is choose my fixed entity,
which I'm gonna choose as the bottom surface right here.
All right, now, let's choose the thickness,
so I'm gonna type in, 0.063, and my bend radius
is gonna be 0.03, and here's my bent edges,
so I wanna start from that fixed face,
and start bending from there.
So I'm gonna choose this edge right here,
notice it gives me a representation of that first bend.
And so we'll just work our way around the part.
And as it's showing me the ripped faces here
as well as the bent edges.
And let's choose this surface right here,
how about that guy right there,
and click on the inside edge here,
and notice this ripped edge is just kinda
following us along, and there it is.
All right, so now we have all the edges selected,
SolidWorks does a great job of specifying
the default radiuses and the gaps,
and we can modify those if we'd like to
by changing them in over here,
or we can come down here, you can see
where all the ripped edges are found,
and you can modify these gaps if you'd like to,
so let's make a really small gap,
so like maybe a 10 thou gap,
and let's make our overlap 1.0,
so it's a full overlap.
And as far as the K-factor, let's go ahead
and just leave it as K-factor for right now,
but you might wanna go back and change that
to a bend deduction value later,
but keep in mind, we do have one edge here,
one bend here, that is not a standard 90 degree bend,
so that is gonna have a different K-factor
or a different bend deduction than the other ones,
so you might wanna go back and modify that one individually.
Same thing down here with the Auto Relief,
it's set up as Tear, but you can also switch that to,
maybe like, an Obround, or any other style you'd like.
And once everything looks good, go ahead and click on OK.
And there is our first sheet metal part.
Now of course, there's nothing really connecting
these edges together, so you might wanna come back later
and do a weld here, or extend these flanges
and do like, a closed corner type of set up,
but either way, we have a sheet metal part now,
starting from a solid.
So you can really create some pretty complex geometry
very quickly, by starting from a fairly complex solid,
and then just quickly converting it over to sheet metal.
This would be a lot harder to create
if you just started from sheet metal in the beginning.
Now let's switch over to my other example,
which is right here, and this is a basic part.
So most time, you'd see something like this
that would go out for manufacturing,
it was designed like this and the shop would say,
"Hey, this would be an optimal part for sheet metal,
let's go ahead and convert that over."
Lemme show you how to do it.
We're pretty much doing the exactly the same thing,
Convert to Sheet Metal, as far as my fixed face,
let's go ahead and just choose this one here.
My bent edges, let's go down here and choose this edge here,
let's choose this entire big bend right here,
and this little guy over here.
All right, now we have that, let's define the thickness
of the material, I'm gonna type in 0.125,
and keep in mind, you can change the thickness
different from what you started with.
So notice over here, I can make this as big or small
as I'd like, and notice, the little preview is showing
very thin material here,
but you wanna generally make it fairly close
to the thickness of the existing part,
so this here is the same, but it does show you
that the material is gonna be kinda rounding in here.
Our bend radius here of 30 thousand should be just fine,
our bent edges are shown here, and of course,
we can modify the other things down here.
And once everything look good, click on OK,
and now we've very quickly converted
a non-sheet metal part quickly into a sheet metal part,
and I can click on Flatten, and you can see there,
is our flattened state.
Click on Flatten again and it folds it right back up,
so very quickly, the Convert to Sheet Metal command
can easily take a solid or a part that's designed
as a kind of a mock-sheet metal part,
and turn it into a real sheet metal part,
that can be flattened out.