Left and Right configurations with Sheet Metal

[AustinSchuh]

We have a lot of sheet metal parts on our robot that we design using Solidworks. Inevitably, there is a left and right version for most of them, where the only difference is that most/all of the bends are bent the other way. To do this, we normally have to remodel a significant amount of the part, and add to the clutter of the model.

With Configurations, we can easily make bigger and smaller versions of the same part, or ones with extra or fewer features. But what we haven't found out how to do is just flip all the bends to the other side, or take the current bends and instead bend them the other way without remodeling anything. Is there a good way to do this?

Thanks,
Austin Schuh

[Madison]

Originally Posted by AustinSchuh

We have a lot of sheet metal parts on our robot that we design using Solidworks. Inevitably, there is a left and right version for most of them, where the only difference is that most/all of the bends are bent the other way. To do this, we normally have to remodel a significant amount of the part, and add to the clutter of the model.

With Configurations, we can easily make bigger and smaller versions of the same part, or ones with extra or fewer features. But what we haven't found out how to do is just flip all the bends to the other side, or take the current bends and instead bend them the other way without remodeling anything. Is there a good way to do this?

Thanks,
Austin Schuh

You might have luck with dropping the part into an assembly and selecting INSERT>MIRROR COMPONENTS. You'll need to define a plane about which the part is mirrored and the software will recreate it based on that information.

[AustinSchuh]

Originally Posted by Madison

You might have luck with dropping the part into an assembly and selecting INSERT>MIRROR COMPONENTS. You'll need to define a plane about which the part is mirrored and the software will recreate it based on that information.

Thanks Madison. That will work for some of the parts, but not all of them, since sometimes we also want to add a change to the other side once it's been "mirrored"

[Paul Copioli]

Austin,

While in the part you want to make a bend opposite version of, do the following:

1. Select the face or plane to mirror about.
2. Go to "insert --> mirror part"

This will create a new part that you can save as a new name.

You can add features to this part, but any change you make to the original part will also be made in the new part. Of coarse, with any linked part or feature in SolidWorks, you can break the link at any time.

We do a ton of sheet metal parts and this is how we model our bend opposite parts.

Paul

[AustinSchuh]

Thank you Paul!

That worked for the most part. The resulting part was just 1 body though, and wouldn't let me use any of the sheet metal tools to operate on it. I looked through the options that popped up while creating the mirrored part, and couldn't find any promising ones. Is that the correct behavior? If so, what's the best way to add, for example, a edge-flange to the resulting part? I can think of "hacks" to do it (draw the desired edge flange in a separate configuration in the original part, and mirror that part), but I'd rather not resort to that unless that's the best way to do it.

Austin Schuh

[Paul Copioli]

If you want to add more sheet metal stuff to the mirrored part, your best bet is to just copy the part and flip all of the bends. Mirrored parts on sheet metal work best when the part is a true "bend opposite" part.