SOLIDWORKS Sheet Metal
SOLIDWORKS Sheet Metal Tips and Tricks from Javelin’s Certified Experts
Welcome to part 4 of this adventure of making a large sheet metal HVAC duct. In Part 3 we saved the bodies, converting them into sheet metal parts and exported as DXF/DWG. In this final part I’m going to show you how to modify the exported parts in DraftSight to get a laser/plasma friendly part…
Designing 90° Sheet Metal HVAC Duct in SOLIDWORKS – Part 3 of 4
Welcome to part 3 of this adventure of making a large sheet metal HVAC duct. We left off in part 2 splitting the single body duct into 7 bodies. Today I’m going to demonstrate how to save the bodies out and how to convert into the desired thickness of gauge sheet metal. Using the “Split…
Designing 90° Sheet Metal HVAC Duct in SOLIDWORKS – Part 2 of 4
Welcome to Designing 90° Sheet Metal HVAC Duct in SOLIDWORKS – Part 2. In the previous part we had created the basic model for the duct, the required sizes are set with a basic sketch, and a circular profile sweep was used to create the model. In this second part we’re going to cut a…
Designing a 90° Sheet Metal HVAC Duct in SOLIDWORKS – Part 1 of 4
Designing and manufacturing a duct for a ventilation system is easy, right? With this series I’m going to start with simple, but most commonly asked for in a HVAC system design, the 90° bend: I’m going to break down the SOLIDWORKS creation process into these 4 parts: How to sketch and model the duct part…
SOLIDWORKS MBD is a fantastic tool that eliminates the need for standard 2D drawings on the shop floor by creating and communicating design information directly onto your model. SOLIDWORKS MBD was first introduced in 2015 and has come a long way to deliver even more industry specific features. Now SOLIDWORKS MBD Sheet Metal support is…
A common practice in industry when working with SOLIDWORKS sheet metal is to show thickness as gauge value. For example, 20 gauge equals 0.0359 in. We will accomplish this using an equation, and IF statements to convert the values. Here is an example. This condition indicates that if the value is 0.0359, it is desired to display “20” as a result. Gauge_Number = IIF(“Thickness” LIKE 0.0359,…
What is a complementary angle? What am I referring to with changing the bend note angle to be complementary? Unfortunately, this won’t mean that your flat patterns will praise how great of a designer you are, but it certainly could help impress the manufacturing department! Check out the image below describing the difference between the…
SOLIDWORKS Indented BOM with Single Body Sheet Metal Part
When you create a SOLIDWORKS Indented BOM from an assembly that contains sheet metal or weldment parts it will add further indented rows with the cutlist information. You have the option to show the ‘Detailed cut list’ in the Indented BOM. For weldment files, deselecting the ‘Detailed cut list’ option will show the total length…
Practical Values for approximating “Zero Radius” bends in SOLIDWORKS
I am as sure as the words posted here that every sheet metal designer has been asked to fudge some values to represent a “SOLIDWORKS Zero Radius” bend or a “SOLIDWORKS Sharp Corner” at some point along the way. As it turns out there is a procedure for ensuring sharp corners in SOLIDWORKS, however it…
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