Miterfolding

[ken]

Does anyone have know of a good way to handle miterfolding in TopSolid? It is very common for us to take one panel and run it through a miterfold machine. So in TopSolid, the panel would be designed like the top assembly shown but would need to be cutlisted and machined as a single flat panel.

[RaudMees]

Hello

For me it looks like sheet metal element, but how to get groove into that, no idea today. I have to make some tests. Is it somekind composite material or smt else?

RM

[Todd]

There are 2 ways I do my miterfolded parts in TopSolid Wood.
1.) I model the folded parts first and make parameters for the overall depth, width, & height & anything else I need to translate to the flat. Then for the flat draw a sketch and draw lines for miter folds and convert them to construction so later they can be selected with the groove function and last I link the sketch to those parameters exit sketch and extrude the part. I also created part types so I can filter the flat out of the draft and the folded out of the cutlist & cam.
2.) all the same as above expect no sketch use the sheetmetal to make the flatten part instead of sketch. careful as this option has limitations and difficulties the more complex the miter folded part is.

also the more complex the part the more time you will take to associate the two to match and link features.

[ken]

Thanks Guys,

@Todd, I appreciate the detail on your procedure. I was hoping that there was some sort of built in functionality that I was missing but it sounds like the option 1 work around is normal for you? I don't have the sheet metal module so I haven't been able to try that out. It seems like unfolding for metal would be similar to unfolding wood but I am guessing that all of the bend tolerances and metal specific options get in the way when working with a wood part?

It would be super awesome if TopSolid added in some native function for this or a way that you could use the define bent part option to accomplish this and link the multiple mitered parts together. This kind of construction is one they use all the time in our shop so I can see it being a lot of work to make and keep up with all the duplicate parts needed to accurately cutlist everything. Do you think that adding the sheet metal module would be worth looking into just for this functionality?

Thanks!
Ken

[Todd]

I agree and I have sent in a request for a miterfold function with detailed description and video of how it would work about 4 years ago and the development team looked at it and added it to there list but gave to expected date of implementation. As for the sheetmetal I think you would be fine without it as it is not a time saver compared to the other way and as you said cheating bend tolerance is needed since there are no radius corner on a miterfold.