Living Hinge/Insert Bends

Hey All,

I've been tasked with unfolding a customers (plastic) part that has a living hinge. I have done this in the past by
adding a sheet metal bend. It seems as though SWX will no longer work as it did before. When I add the bend, all of my
previous features disappear. My techie from go engineer says it never worked the way I describe. Was I dreaming? No, I
recall being wide awake! When did SWX stop allowing sheet metal bends to coexist with other non sheet metal features?

Thx,

M.T.

 

It may have done it for you by accident?
And so you don't feel like it's just you, years ago I saw it do
something similar on a part I had modeled up but it should not have done
what I saw, it was a bug. Or maybe your geometry (imported?) and the
walls somehow allowed for this to happen?
So, yeah, it would be nice to have it do that, otherwise some programs
have a bend feature to do this.

There are a couple ways to do this but normally you model a plastic part
with a hinge in the folded or closed state or have sketches which
reference a closed state to help reference and model for the unfolded
state and bridge or join the two halves together.
With multibodies, or say, rotating the top lid into a open state, and
combining the hinge, helps keeping everything in a single part file.

So, currently (no bend function), it's a multiple step process in
building/referencing the open/closed states and for molding

...

 

Damn, I should have known. Leave it to SWX to fix the ONE bug that was in my favor!

M.T.

Oh, BTW Paul, I Did my hike to Baboon Lakes a while back. Although it's only around 3000 ft elevation gain and around
4-5 miles, it nearly killed me. We each had 45-50lb packs (all our winter gear). I think it would have been much easier
if it had not come so close to the L.A.marathon. I was still recovering from that effort.
Once we got up there it was one of the most awesome times I've spent in the wilderness. We didn't see another sole in
the 3 days we were there. There weren't even foot prints after Blue lake.

 

Hey Malcom,

That sounds great!! I can imagine it was fantastic, you guys picked a
good time to do it (minus the marathon)!
No foot prints!! Sweet!!
Thanks for sharing, I almost forgot.

I'll be hiking this tomorrow...
http://www.thebackcountry.org/chilnualna/

Have a good one!...

 

I haven't used sheetmetal in 2004, but in the old days, SWX DID "allow sheet
metal bends to coexist with other non sheet metal features", provided the
latter
followed after the sheet metal portion of the history tree.

As I understand it, once you add items which are not of sheetmetal
thickness, it is no longer possible to add bends, unless you roll back above
that addition. Makes sense.

Is it possible this is why it worked once up on a time?

living hinge. I have done this in the past by

it did before. When I add the bend, all of my

worked the way I describe. Was I dreaming? No, I

coexist with other non sheet metal features?

 

Hmm, so it was possible or it was allow until.. they figured that it
should not work that way?
Thinking back when I last saw that behavior.. was it SW2001?

...

 

Sorry, I wasn't very clear

Subject to the restriction I stipulated, SolidWorks has allowed a mixture of
sheetmetal and non-sheetmetal features right through v2003, and may well
still do in 2004. Anybody tried it?

(When I said "Is it possible this is why it worked once up on a time?" I was
asking Malcolm if it was possible that the model which worked for him met
the restriction I describe)

 

Anybody tried it?

Yes, I just tried it and it doesn't work (a leaset not for me).
Supressing the Flat-Pattern supresses all following features.

SW 2004 SP3

Muggs

 

Hi Andrew,

That's exactly how I remembered it worked back in the day. It no longer works that way now.
When did this change?

M.T.

 

Andrew,

The part is modeled with various features up to the point where there is an extruded piece that will create a 90° bend.
After I add the sheet metal bend all of the part disappears except the extruded piece with the bend. All of the previous
features are present in the FMT and are not suppressed. They simply have disappeared. When I roll back before the bend
feature the part appears normal.

M.T.

 

I don' t know when it stopped or why, Malcolm; I'm still back in 2003 Sp3.1,
and it works fine

 

I tried this some years ago way back in the days of SWX 2001 I think,
passed it to my VAR who said it should be OK if the wall thickness is
constant - as per sheet metal.

But a living hinge is a thin flexible web of material that joins two
rigid bodies together hence the sheet metal algorithms don't apply.

I don't know if things have changed since, they may have...... there's
always 2005!

Kev

 

I would think multibodies would be a good fit for this application:

Create your bottom
Create your top (lid), being sure it can easily rotate about the desired
hinge-point with a simple single dimension edit.
Bridge the two bodies with some sort of sweep or loft.

Never tried it, but that is how I would approach it now.