Book Image

Mastering SOLIDWORKS Sheet Metal

By : Johno Ellison
Book Image

Mastering SOLIDWORKS Sheet Metal

By: Johno Ellison

Overview of this book

SOLIDWORKS© is the premier software choice for 3D engineering and product design applications across a wide range of industries, and the Sheet Metal module forms an important part of this powerful program. This book will help you to understand exactly what Sheet Metal is, why it is used, and how you can make the most of this fundamental design feature. You’ll start by understanding the basic tools, including Base Flanges and Sketched Bends, before moving on to more complex features such as Custom Forming Tools and Lofted Bends. The book covers all the necessary tools in a step-by-step manner and shares practical manufacturing tips and tricks that will allow you to apply the skills that you learn to real-world situations. By the end of this SOLIDWORKS book, you’ll have understood how to make the best use of SOLIDWORKS Sheet Metal tools and be able to create a whole range of 3D models and designs confidently.
Table of Contents (18 chapters)
1
Section 1: Getting Started with the Sheet Metal Module
6
Section 2: Advanced Sheet Metal Tools
13
Section 3: Converting 3D Parts to Sheet Metal and Creating a Sheet Metal Enclosure

Adding final details to the enclosure

Now that we have a basic enclosure design, we can finish it off by adding some rear ventilation and by using Forming Tools to add some handles to the front face. This enclosure is a fairly simple example, but it shows the process that could be followed to build more complex designs by using simple steps.

First, we will add some ventilation to the rear face of the enclosure using the Vent tool. We could also cut these vents manually, but the Vent tool speeds up this process:

  1. All Vents require a sketch of the Vent layout, so start a sketch on the rear face of the enclosure and draw the profile shown in Figure 13.22.
  2. A centerline was used to find the vertical midpoint of the rear face, and then the Circle tool and Offset Entities were used to add the three circles. The Line tool and Circular Sketch Pattern tool were used to add the five Ribs.

The outer circle is 40mm in diameter, with two smaller circles, each one offset inwards...