Sheet Metal Pattern Fail

[cherkey]

Hello all,

Need a little help determining if this file fails due to my system, or the file itself.

Opened this today to do some updates and the part cuts have just about all failed. This occurs at the feature HexGroup and Feature Pattern 34. Could someone open this and tell me if they're seeing failed cuts?

I have several previous versions of this part saved as well, and all are now acting this way...

Video drivers are up to date.

TIA

 

[DavidJ]

Things seem to go wrong at Feature Pattern 34.

I can't see any obvious reason why...

 

[Lew_Merrick]

Take a look at <Sketch 32> that creates the Extruded Cut Hex Group. I suspect that there is some duplicated geometry in it that, if you will, double-negative's other geometry causing the cut to fail when (radially) copied. The hexagons in that sketch seem as if they ought to be fully constrained, but the analysis of the sketch says otherwise. My guess is that whatever is causing that sketch to be not fully constrained is your culprit.

 

[cherkey]

Thanks to those that viewed the part. I went thru the hex group sketch and made sure I ended up with 0 DOF... thankfully not many to do. Problem still there. No overlapping lines... Tried copy/paste into a new sketch and a new pattern but no good. So, started deleting hexagons in the hex group... second one I deleted allowed it to pattern correctly. Re-drew the hexagon and all is well again... Go figure...

Edit - Aw geez, nevermind...something is still messed up in the file...

 

[Lew_Merrick]

OK, I dug a bit deeper. The first thing that leaps out and bites me is that you are using the AD_Thickness as the depth of the punch (holes) when, at least to my way of thinking, it ought to be Through All or AD_Thickness + .010 (or something like that). Second, it appears that the Radial Copy command is the actual source of the problem.

I don't use the sheetmetal module all that often, but I am either punching through or partially punching (as in a half-shear or a knock-out). A punch through is (at least to my way of thinking) analogous to Through All.

???

 

[DavidJ]

Lew - the sheet metal module uses AD_Thickness in all cuts by default.

Now that you can put a single cut 'though all' multiple regions of a sheet metal part - it is important to differentiate between the two options.

I suspect some minor corruption of Cherkey's file - having seen other odd cases reported of strange behaviour, which are not fixable in the file - but the problem doesn't exist if the file is re-created from scratch in the same way. Unfortunately I don't have any idea how to resolve such issues.

 

[cherkey]

Thanks all for reviewing the part. I've tried several variations of creating this pattern, short of creating an individual feature for each of the hex (eek). I've also tried recreating the pattern in a new part but fails the same way. I've sent the file to support in the hopes that it could be reviewed and repaired.

Regards,