Tips For Making a Sheet Metal Chassis on SolidWorks

[O'Sancheski]

I was wondering if anyone had any tips for making sheetmetal chassis on Solidworks. This is the first time that I am experimenting in sheetmetal and want to get it right.

Thanks

[Frenchie461]

Put flanges on the top and bottom of the sheet for the sides. It improves structural strength greatly

Try drawing it out on a piece of paper before CADing it. This helps me visualize what I want.

A rectangle split into 3 or 4 triangles with 3/8 of an inch between sides works great for weight relief holes

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by Frenchie461

Put flanges on the top and bottom of the sheet for the sides. It improves structural strength greatly

Try drawing it out on a piece of paper before CADing it. This helps me visualize what I want.

A rectangle split into 3 or 4 triangles with 3/8 of an inch between sides works great for weight relief holes

Has anyone ever tried making a scale copy of their cad out of paper? Should help avoid things that can't be bent or are hard to assemble.

[IKE]

Originally Posted by Andrew Schreiber

Has anyone ever tried making a scale copy of their cad out of paper? Should help avoid things that can't be bent or are hard to assemble.

In the summer of 2008, Jim Zondag drew up a chassis based off our 2008 sheet metal chassis with additional overlap on the front and rear clip based off of some observations at IRI of 1024's chassis that year. He then proceded to make a scale model of the chassis out of posterboard and glue to verify bends and get a feel for the added torsional rigidity. This worked really well. Later that fall, I used Jim's prints to make a full size aluminum chassis to provide feedback on the ease of fabrication of that particular design. It was a really neat chassis, but went a different direction in 2009-2011.

I highly recommend the posterboard prototype. It is just stiff enough to require you to really plan your bends, but is relatively cheap and easy to work with.

[O'Sancheski]

Originally Posted by Frenchie461

Put flanges on the top and bottom of the sheet for the sides. It improves structural strength greatly

What size flanges would you do?

[Frenchie461]

Originally Posted by O'Sancheski

What size flanges would you do?

we did .75 inch this year