Creating an Expanded Metal Part

[mlocascio]

I am trying to create an expanded metal part using diamond-shaped protrusions and copying them. Then I am patterning a copy of that feature. This is taking an incredible amount of time to regenerate.

Is there a MUCH BETTER way to create this kind of part without being bogged down by regeneration times?

Michael P. Locascio

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[ptc-1932745]

My first suggestion is to do all of those features as surfaces (surface
extrudes, surface cuts, etc...) and then solidify as the last step. I
have had this method help in the past.



I'm trying to get an idea of the complexity of your issue. How many
diamond-shaped cutouts are you making? (100's, 1000's ?)





Christopher F. Gosnell



FPD Company

124 Hidden Valley Road

McMurray, PA 15317

[DonSenchuk]

(IIRC & without testing it myself...)

Create one diamond as a surface. Pattern the surface. Solidify the first diamond feature. Pattern the solidify.

That will be faster than creating them as a solid from the beginning, but it’ll probably still eat up a lot of time during regen.

In Reply to Michael Locascio:

I am trying to create an expanded metal part using diamond-shaped protrusions and copying them. Then I am patterning a copy of that feature. This is taking an incredible amount of time to regenerate.

Is there a MUCH BETTER way to create this kind of part without being bogged down by regeneration times?

Michael P. Locascio

[BobFrindt]

Without seeing exactly what you are patterning, I don't know if this will
help, but if the pattern type can be changed to "Identical" the regen
times are much quicker.

General is the default and also the slowest.




Bob Frindt
Sr. Designer
Parker Hannifin Corporation
Parker Aerospace
Gas Turbine Fuel Systems Division
8940 Tyler Boulevard
Mentor, OH 44060 USA
direct (440) 266-2359
cell: (216) 990-8711
fax: (440) 266-2311
-
www.parker.com



Don Senchuk <->
02/20/2012 10:23 AM
Please respond to
Don Senchuk <->


To
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cc

Subject
[proecad] - RE: Creating an Expanded Metal Part






(IIRC & without testing it myself...)
Create one diamond as a surface. Pattern the surface. Solidify the first
diamond feature. Pattern the solidify.
That will be faster than creating them as a solid from the beginning, but
it?ll probably still eat up a lot of time during regen.


In Reply to Michael Locascio:
I am trying to create an expanded metal part using diamond-shaped
protrusions and copying them. Then I am patterning a copy of that feature.
This is taking an incredible amount of time to regenerate.
Is there a MUCH BETTER way to create this kind of part without being
bogged down by regeneration times?
Michael P. Locascio


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[TomU]

Usually when I run into these type of parts, I create a reference part with the complicated geometry. Then I do a copy geom from other model (quilt of all solid surfs, or something similar). Finally I set the copy geom's feature's dependency to independent. This prevents the heavy part that takes forever to regen from having to be loaded or regenerated.

[lylebeidler]

Once you have it created, a very useful thing is to go into the part & mark
all the features up to & including the final pattern as read only (Edit >
Read Only > select the feature [as of WF3]). This will prevent subsequent
regenerations of the assembly from trying to take a long time regenerating
the expanded metal.



--



Lyle Beidler
MGS Inc
178 Muddy Creek Church Rd
Denver PA 17517
717-336-7528
Fax 717-336-0514
<">mailto:-> -
<">http://www.mgsincorporated.com>

[DanMcCaherty]

I would suggest taking a look at Leo Green's video on Turbo patterns....

http://www.e-cognition.net/pages/TurboPattern.html

[mlocascio]

That was a GREAT method!! Thanks for sharing that.



Michael P. Locascio

[mlocascio]

Tom,



That's all good. But I would still need to create a part that would take
forever to regenerate.



Mike L.

[mlocascio]

Mr. Robert Frindt,



That is a most interesting observation. I will have to try that.



Mike L.

[JonathanHodgson]

That's a good tip. "Identical" patterns regen faster than "Variable";
and "Variable" is faster than "General".



I always try to change a pattern to the fastest type that will work -
although usually (for my models), "Identical" is not available; and just
occasionally "Variable" does cause a pattern to fail. You just have to
remember that the first thing to try is putting it back to "General".



Jonathan

[ptc-187142]

I've had pretty good luck with creating the part sheet size I wanted with an extrution and then creating a large field of the expanded metal with a single cut extrusionand then patterning the field up to get cover the overall part size. I found that the larger the field you can create in that first single extrusion the less regen time it will take. Still, there is none-the-less alot of geom for it to run through.You can play around with the size of the field and the number in the pattern to get to a place you can live with.