I have been asked many times while on support how to make a sheet metal
cone. In this article I will show you one method to produce a flat
pattern for a sheet metal cone.
The first step is to draw a vertical line and change it to a center
line. Then use the three point rectangle command to draw the cross
section of the cone. That is all that needs to be drawn. Now use the
general dimension command to add the correct dimensions. Make sure to
dimension the thickness of the rectangle equal to the parameter
Thickness. This is necessary so that the sheet metal style can control
the thickness of the metal. On the picture below you can see the fx:.120,
this is the value of the Thickness parameter. You can also see that by
using a center line my dimension are diameter dimension by default. As
for the height of the cone you can use an aligned dimension or a
vertical dimension.
Now a quick short cut to the revolve command will be to select "R" from
the keyboard. This will start the revolve command and you should revolve
the cross section to an angle of 359.9 degrees, or what ever amount you
choose. The small gap that will be created by not fully revolving the
section will allow Inventor to be able to flatten the cone.
After the revolve command is completed to create the flat pattern you
will need to select the inner or outer conical face of the cone, and
then select the flat pattern command.
Once the flat pattern command is issued you will now have a solid that
can now be placed into an IDW or if you are using Inventor 11 you can
select the face and right mouse button and export the face to DXF
directly from the solid.
This is one way to create a sheet metal cone, but there are many others.
Please experiment and try to find a method that suits your design needs.
This page last edited on
Friday, December 19, 2008
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