Problem with mirroring the Flange

[sureshdesigns]

Hi all


Im trying to make a part. First I have created asheetmetal flat wall then Iadded a flange by taking driving surface'sedge of the flat wall.Ifliped it in order to get driving surface outside.


The Probelm is when I tried to mirror the flange,it asksfor edge placement I selected driving surface's edge on the other side. Getting a error message could not construct the feature geometry. But when I selected the driven surface (White Surface) the flange got mirroed with opposite direction. After that I have to redefine the sketch always.


Can I get a solution for these.

 

[design-engine]

don't mirror flanges! Just take the 4 minutes and model the same sketch over again. Much more efficient.

 

[Dell_Boy]

There are a lot of sheetmetal walls that can be mirrored but to do this you need to use the Edit/Feat Operations/Copy/New Refs/Dependant menu and make appropriate selections for references. Usually the copy will fail on the first creation but by correctly selecting the appropriate Regen Actions you can get the mirror to work.

Even with the fails you should takes less than 4 minutes to do it and you have the benefit of them staying as identical as you want them to be and modifying either side will update the other. With practice you should soon work out what can and can't be easily mirrored.

A useful hint is when selecting sketcher orientation planes, it is usually safer to use top or bottom instead of left or right and with this method you don't need a mirror plane.


DB

 

[design-engine]

dont mirror in sheetmetal. And if you insist. Don't mirror features. Mirror the entire part. Itts easier to just model a new feature or use Dellboy's workaround. Remember its not how fast you model something it's how fast you modify it 20 times.


Edited by: design-engine

 

[bureaadr_old]

best practice: don't mirror in sheetmetal, especially features. You will get the payback of extra time spent at the beginnig of your design when it comes to changes and modifications later on

 

[prohammy]

dont mirror in sheetmetal. And if you insist. Don't mirror features. Mirror the entire part. Itts easier to just model a new feature or use Dellboy's workaround. Remember its not how fast you model something it's how fast you modify it 20 times.

Couldn't agree more!


Start a new wall and use copy geom tool in sketcher if the wall is too complex. Mirroring often 'looks' like the quickest method to achieving your end goal, but once you are finished and need to de-bug your model or even if you are just trying to change something, mirrored parts can cause you no end of grief. They can also create a few problems for th e flat pattern





Kev

 

[AHA-D]

don't mirror flanges! Just take the 4 minutes and model the same sketch over again. Much more efficient.

BS !


If you need the same flange then it should be most efficient to mirror. Then, if you change one flange the other one changes with it.


But yes, I have experienced also that ProE doesn't like to mirror in sheetmetal. Neither does Catia BTW. That's why both CAD-systems now have the mark "ineffecient in sheet metal" in my personal opinion. Nothing matches Solid Edge up till now.


Alex


(getting professional in most mainline CAD-systems by now, watch my curriculum guys [and gals] . Need a job in Inventor and Solidworks to get the full range)
Edited by: AHA-D

 

[design-engine]

users on solidworks mirror sketches. ouch.

 

[Dell_Boy]

Oh the unbelievers do take some convincing.

The attached file


2008-06-03_033138_mirror.zip

contains a sheet metal part with a wall "mirrored" in the method I described above. It took about 15 seconds to mirror the wall as I could pick the correct RegenActions so it wouldn't fail on first creation.

Now here's the neat part; instead of making it fully dependant, I made it semi-dependant. The length of the second wall is independant of the first. ALL other dimensions are common and can be modified in either.



And as far as I know, no other CAD systems, including SolidEdge offer this capability.



DB


Edited by: Dell_Boy

 

[design-engine]

for those I like to redifine the sketch and use edge in sketcher so the features appear mirrored. I did not look at the file tho....