Flat Patterns in Drawings.....Revisited

I did a little playing around with bringing flat patterns into drawings and
aside from being able to change the fixed face in 'Flat Pattern' feature
(thanks again AC for that tip), you can tell the part which side is up in a
sheetmetal part. It appears that when you start to create a sheetmetal part,
the direction of the extrude will determine which side is up when bringing
in a flat pattern.

So if you start a part, and the extrude is in the positive 'Y' direction,
the top surface is going to be the side that will come into the drawing face
up.

If you change the direction of the extrude to go down in a negative 'Y'
direction, the bottom surface becomes the side that will come into the
drawing face up.

Again, this isn't really a problem for me in drawings, since we have the
'Flip' button. Where it is a problem is bringing a sheetmetal part into
Sigmanest to create a laser file, using their Solidworks Import module. And
the reason it's a problem is I do some etching of text on some sheetmetal
parts with our laser. If I bring the part into Sigmanest and the bottom, or
the side where there isn't any text for etching, comes in face up, then I
lose all the text to do the etching. Even if I manually flip the geometry in
Sigmanest.

I guess what this really boils down to for me is, I just need to pay
attention now to which direction the base flange is extruding. I'm not sure
why I was always changing it before.

Anyway, this is my take on the whole thing. If I'm wrong on any of this,
please let me know and/or correct me.

Thanks,
Richard

 

This is good to know - thanks.

WT