Protolabs Sheet Metal Design

A key early step in integrating nuts pins studs and other connectors into your part design is to consider sheet metal and hardware compatibility selecting the connector material to make sure it works with the type of sheet metal being used.

Protolabs sheet metal design.

Factors affecting tolerances include material thickness machines used and number of steps in part production. Sheet metal finishing. Sheet metal tolerances are far more generous than machining or 3d printing tolerances. This guide will help you improve manufacturability of your design by providing best practices for hems countersink holes slots bends and more.

Our digital approach to manufacturing lets us ship sheet metal prototypes and production components to you within days. Because sheet metal parts are manufactured from a single sheet of metal the part must maintain uniform wall thickness. Sheet metal thickness ranges from 0 024 in. Avoid elaborate design elements for sheet metal fabrication.

Depending on the part geometry a sheet metal punch 2 can form additional features. You re bound to encounter a few twists and turns when designing parts for sheet metal fabrication. With our online quoting platform and. Get an interactive quote with free design analysis within hours.

Specialized design elements might look great and sometimes there are good reasons for them but taking them out of your models and aiming for simplicity is good practice. How to reduce sheet metal design risks and production costs. Once the parts are deburred they move to the press brake 3 where they are formed into the final geometries. During the sheet metal fabrication process thin sheet metal stock is placed on a flat bed where a laser cutter 1 draws programmed part patterns.

Determining material compatibility of sheet metal and hardware. This is probably the easiest and most obvious of the tips to help you cut costs on sheet metal parts. Erapid is a solidworks add in developed by protolabs that provides instant pricing and design for manufacturability dfm feedback for sheet metal parts. 0 609mm to 0 138 in.

Sheet metal fabrication need a crash course in sheet metal part design.