When the part is manufactured, the entire flat sheet metal shape will be bent by hand or by CNC bending tools to create the finished form. You can picture this by imagining the process of making a sheet metal component. Flanges are simply sheet metal surfaces connected to the base flange by bends in the material. Now that we have a base flange, the next step is to add more flanges to the design. You will see the thickness of the base flange update. For this project, I am using 18 gauge aluminum 5052, which is 1.02mm thick. Your sheet metal manufacturer or supplier should have a document detailing the availability of sheet metal gauges in different materials. So, to figure out the thickness you want to use for the material, it is useful to refer to a chart of sheet metal specifications. Sheet metal thickness is typically specified as a gauge, rather than a direct measurement as it is presented in Fusion 360. Then you will be presented with a second dialog box where you can edit, among other things, the thickness of the material. Click this pencil icon to begin editing the sheet metal rules. If you hover the mouse over the name of the material, a little pencil icon will appear. In the Sheet Metal Rules dialog box, you will find the material you selected for the base flange. To adjust the design rules for the part, navigate to Sheet Metal Rules in the Modify section of the ribbon. This includes the thickness of the metal, along with some other useful properties like how sharp the bends in the material will be. The Design Rules basically specify the properties of the sheet metal that will be used to make your part. In other words, unlike using extrude in the Model workspace, where you would specify the thickness by setting an extrusion distance, in the Sheet Metal workspace, the thickness of the material is determined by the Design Rules. One of the significant differences between the Sheet Metal workspace and the Model workspace you are likely most familiar with is that when working with sheet metal, because we are using a sheet metal raw material, many of the geometrical attributes of the part are determined by the material selected, rather than having the user directly input the model geometry. You may have noticed that we never specified a thickness for the base flange. After clicking OK, Fusion 360 will generate a flat body based on your sketch. You can also select a material to use for the base flange, a subject we will address further in the next step. Your selection will appear in the flange dialog box. Then, using the Flange command, select the sketch profile for the part. This is a command we will be using quite a bit for this tutorial. To create a base flange, select the Flange command from the Create menu in the ribbon. The geometry of this base flange comes from the dimensions of the HS-5065MG servo. For this tutorial, we will start with a sketch that will form the back of the servo bracket. This can be a simple rectangle or a more complex shape with cutouts, holes, or sides at irregular angles. This flat piece of metal will be the starting point of our design and we will be adding other surfaces coming off the base flange to build the sheet metal part.Ĭreating a base flange starts with creating a sketch just like you would do in the Model workspace. To start our design, we will need to add a base flange. Flanges are basically sheet metal surfaces that are connected to other surfaces by bends in the material. In the first half of the video below about the manufacturing of PC cases, you can see a bunch of different sheet metal parts being formed and finished in a variety of ways.Ī big part of our time in the Sheet Metal workspace will be spent adding flanges to the design. The 3D parts can then be finished in many ways like powder coating, anodizing, painting, polishing, or brushing. The flat metal shapes are then bent, stamped, rolled, welded, or formed using many different techniques. These sheets are cut according to a flat pattern using CNC milling, water jet cutting, laser cutting, plasma cutting, or a variety of other techniques. Sheet metal fabrication begins with flat sheets of various kinds of metal like aluminum, stainless steel, brass, and nickel. Sheet metal fabrication offers designers and manufacturers a fast and inexpensive way to make parts that are compact yet extremely strong. From the interior structures of electronics, to the chassis of appliances, to air conditioning vent covers, to the lighting fixtures in the ceiling, sheet metal parts can be found just about everywhere. There are likely dozens or hundreds of individual sheet metal parts inside various products around the room you’re in right now. Sheet metal parts are extremely common in products of all kinds.
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