Making a good DXF file for unrolling

Rhino
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1

Hi friends,

I am making a file for a sheet metal product and the cutting and bending company uses my .dxf file for unrolling my model so they can cut and bend it. Their programmes calculate the bends and cuts so that everything will be right.

They tell me that my model has overlapping parts so they cant flatten / unroll it. I don’t think anything is overlapping, and I can’t see it in my model or in the .dxf when I open that.

Does anybody know where to find a guide on how to save as .dxf in the right way or how to build the model the right way?

I guess knowing what software is used by the supplier could maybe be useful but I don’t know right now… :slight_smile:

BR,

Jens

2

what are they using?? That sounds utterly bizarre. The sheetmetal places I’ve dealt with just rebuild the 3D in an actual parametric sheetmetal system. DXF?!? Like a mesh file?? Are we talking a sheet metal product made up of standard features that can be CNC’d, or a freeform shape being molded?

3

Hi Jim,

And thanks, the idea is they shouldn’t rebuild it from scratch because (ultimately) I would have to pay them to do that… I would like to make the best possible file for them to work on.

No molding, pure sheet metal.

4

Eh…I’m not sure trying to save that cost is worth it unless you have a lot of experience, it’s a bit of a black art, let the experts handle it.

5

Hi Jens - can you provide a simple example Rhino file, the dxf export, and a description of the problem reported by the client? Otherwise, I have no idea where to even start…

-Pascal

6

Hi Pascal,

Thank you so much! - I will try to gather some more and clear information before spending your time on this :slight_smile:

BR, Jens