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shaise / FreeCAD_SheetMetal

A simple sheet metal workbench for FreeCAD
http://theseger.com/projects/2015/06/sheet-metal-addon-for-freecad/
GNU Lesser General Public License v2.1
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addon freecad sheetmetal workbench

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FreeCAD SheetMetal Workbench

A simple sheet metal tools workbench for FreeCAD

Demo Workflow

Tutorial by Joko Engineering:

Tutorial

Developers:

Wiki

SheetMetal Wiki at FreeCad

Terminology

Sheetmetal Workbench definitions

Sheetmetal WB Terminology

Physical material definitions

Physical Terminology

Test case

As a simple test case, consider the following example:

You can find a simple calculator in tools/calc-unfold.py.

Material Definition Sheet

Description

You can use a Spreadsheet object to declare K-factor values inside the project file permanently. This will allow:

Usage

  1. Create a spreadsheet with the name of material_foo with the following content (see this table):

    Radius / Thickness K-factor (ANSI)
    1 0.38
    3 0.43
    99 0.5

    Notes:

    1. The cell names are case/space sensitive.
    2. Possible values for K-factor is K-factor (ANSI) or K-factor (DIN).
    3. Radius / Thickness means Radius over Thickness. Eg. if inner radius is 1.64mm and material thickness is 2mm then Radius / Thickness == 1.64/2 = 0.82 so 0.38 will be used as the K-factor. See lookup.py for more examples.

  2. Use "Unfold Task Panel" to assign the material sheet.

  3. Unfold as usual.

Screencast

Screencast

Engineering Mode

Description

Some sort of parameters effect the fabrication process but are impossible to inspect visually, such as K-factor, which makes them susceptible to go unnoticed until the actual erroneous production took place.

In engineering mode, such "non-visually-inspectable" values are not assigned with default values and explicit user input is required. "Engineering mode" is a safer UX mode for production environments.

Activating

  1. Switch to SheetMetal WB at least once.
  2. Edit -> Preferences -> SheetMetal
  3. Select enabled in Engineering UX Mode field.

Installation

For installation and how to use, please visit:
http://theseger.com/projects/2015/06/sheet-metal-addon-for-freecad/
Starting from FreeCAD 0.17 it can be installed via the Addon Manager (from Tools menu)

References

Release notes:

License

GPLv3 (see LICENSE)