It took me way to long to find this tutorial. This is exactly what's needed for SENDCUTSEND to see the bend lines. I thought I could just change the colors in the feature tree but SCS only saw the upward bends.
Thanks for the video. Is it possible to have Features on each layer rather than entity types? so an extrude as one layer and each cut extrude as a layer? Or their respective sketches as layers each? I need to export dxfs that can show different cut depths within the one part to our router.
Typically a flat DXF is only used for parts that are a constant thickness, and parts are manually sorted by thickness and cut out of material of the correct size. If you have a part that is not constant thickness and you need to cut it on a mill you would need to generate NC code using some kind of CAM software like Mastercam or SOLIDWORKS CAM. Some machines have programming abilities built-in, but you would need to check to see what file formats they accept. Exporting as a an ACIS file format can export a 3D wireframe geometry with depth, but it is done as a simple save as and does not use the export layers routine.
There may be workarounds to get this to work, such as creating a blank drawing with a flat view, add centermarks, apply them to the desired layer, and then export the drawing at 1:1 scale. To review your approach and offer specific advice I recommend you reach out to your support provider, if you are an MLC CAD Systems customer you can contact us here: www.mlc-cad.com/contact-us/
lets assume that we want to cut a single line on our sheet metal, and not a closed contour (unforunately we can have a cut extrude feature with opel sketch). But we want to have engarving to this part too. how can we differentiate these two sketches (one is cut [white color] and the other one is engraving [blue color]). Thanks in advance
I recommend testing out any approach to see if it will work for you, but try using a sketch to define the engraving. You can use the font OLF Simple Sans which will create a single pass for each letter. You may have to explode the font to get it to recognize, but then it should export it as a sketch entity and you can map it to a different layer.
there's a problem i have, i have a press brake and i prefer marking the bend lines before cutting the boundary during laser cutting. but the bend lines outputted by solidworks is meant for down bending and not up bending. i end up having to transfer the mark to the other side of the sheet metal and then bend it on a press brake, is there a way to tell solid works as to which side i want the bend lines to be, or maybe spcify whether i am doing up bending or down bending .
Does your software interpret an up and down bend based on whether the bend line sits on the top or the bottom face of the part? Is that the only way it can interpret bends? SOLIDWORKS places all bend lines into a single sketch on the fixed face. You can setup layers or colors to define up vs. down bends, but if your other software requires the lines be on the back face, then you'll have to add those yourself. Depending on the software this may be an enhancement request for either SOLIDWORKS or that other tool, reach out to your Value Added Reseller for more information.
I just tested this and I'm seeing some odd behavior on my end as well. It may depend on your workflow and if it is a bug you'll need to get with your VAR for additional context and to explore workarounds. If you are an MLC CAD Systems customer, create a case by phone/email/web. www.mlc-cad.com/technical-support/
Can you do this in a Macro? I have a Marco that exports ALL configurations as flat pattern .DXF file, but all same layer. I would need geometry and sketches separated for cutting and marking respectively.
Just about anything is possible with a macro, as long as you know how to program it. We'll be releasing some API tutorials in the next month that you might find helpful if you're trying to create the macro yourself.
