converting to sheet metal in solidworks with no fixed face

The big problem here is when you open a part from a drawing view – it opens the Configuration shown in that view. What do you do? The most common action would be to select that view (right after you added that diameter dimension), and hit “Open Part” from the context menu. 125″ in diameter while you are dimensioning. Let’s say you’ve made the drawing below, but you realize that your holes are supposed to be. So if this derived configuration is made automatically by SOLIDWORKS, how can it break? There are hundreds of reasons that this flat pattern configuration can break, but I’ll explain the most common one.

If you activate your Flat Pattern derived configuration, your part should be flat! And that is the root of the problem for most people. So if you activate the default Configuration, your part should be in it’s formed state. That derived configuration is a COPY of your Default Sheet Metal configuration, with one major change The Flatten Feature is unsuppressed. When a flat pattern view is inserted into a drawing (either from the View Pallette or the Model View Property Manager), a Derived Configuration gets automatically created in the Sheet Metal part. To understand what happens to flat pattern views in drawings – you need to know a little bit about what that flat pattern view does. But most importantly, I know how to fix it. Here’s the good news though if your Flat Pattern View is broken, I know what happened. Just typing that makes me feel a little bad, because I know the feeling.

I also get to be the guy that you call when you think SOLIDWORKS just broke your amazingly detailed, perfectly edited, painstakingly organized Sheet Metal drawing. I get to be the guy that you call when things go wrong or when things aren’t working out exactly how you planned.

I have been at 3DVision for over 5 years answering thousands of questions over the phone and through email. I’m Justin Maxwell, and I am part of 3DVision’s Technical Support Team.

Converting to sheet metal in solidworks with no fixed face