Solidworks Sheet Metal Drawing No Flat Pattern

Solidworks users occasionally come across a sheet metal drawing view that displays formed bent part instead of flat pattern.

Solidworks sheet metal drawing no flat pattern.

Right click flat pattern and select unsuppress. Here is the explanation of a common mistake that causes this problem. You may have to do a rebuild in your drawing. Click make drawing from part assembly standard toolbar and click ok to open the drawing sheet.

As shown in the figure below the flat pattern view is the same as the front view and shows the part in a bent state. Then double click on the default config. The use the sheet metal flatten tool. Select a format or click ok to use the default format.

Some items to note about the flat pattern feature. Wrong flat pattern in view palette. So here goes i will explain what is happening in the background and give a few best practices to ensure the setup is correct. The solution was to open a new part document delete the defaultsm flat pattern configuration and resave the document template.

You can create dxf files of sheet metal flat patterns without flattening the part. Neil bucalo technical analyst computer aided technology inc. In a sheet metal part create a new configuration. Click edit suppress this configuration to suppress all of the selected features.

When the flat pattern drawing view of a solidworks sheet metal part displays the part in the bent condition this can indicate an issue with the suppression state of the flat pattern feature. Select process bends and all of the features after it. Now when you go back to your drawing it should be good. The next time the user created a sheet metal part and then created the flattened drawing view it worked correctly.

Looks like you accidentally unflattened while in the defaultsm flat pattern config. From the view palette drag the flat pattern to the drawing sheet. In the featuremanager design tree do one of the following. Jody go to your part file and double click on the defaultsm flat pattern config.

So when the drawing view was inserted solidworks could not automatically create the configuration and set the sheet metal state to flattened. Usually the reason for the flat pattern not coming through to the drawing sheet is not completely understanding what solidworks completes in the background.