Quick Tour 2- Nest by Folder

1. Load the CAMWorksNesting Add-In in SolidWorks.

2. Select Nest by Folder option in the CAMWorksNesting menu bar.

3. The ‘Browse for folder’ dialog opens.  Browse to the folder named ‘Tutorial4’ in the ...\CAMWorksNestingData\CAMWorksNesting 2013\Examples\Tutorials\Assemblies.

4. CAMWorksNesting opens all the parts contained in the folder as an assembly in the SolidWorks Graphics area.

5. The ‘Create Nesting Job’ dialog is displayed. All the parts present in the folder are listed in the Part List of the Part data tab.

6. Observe the Part list. Two of the parts viz. ‘TutPart4A SM [Default]’ and ‘TutPart4D SM [Default]’ are sheet metal parts of 3mm thickness each. Observe that these sheet metal parts displayed in the graphics area are automatically flattened. The other two parts, ‘TutPart4B SM [Default]’ and ‘TutPart4C SM [Default]’ are solid parts of thickness 20 mm each.

7.  

a.  Thickness: CAMWorksNesting extracts the part parameter of Thickness from the Solid Part and displays it in the Thickness field as default thickness for the part. The thickness of the sheet metal parts, ‘TutPart4A SM [Default]’ and ‘TutPart4D SM [Default]’ is 3mm each while that of ‘TutPart4B SM [Default]’ and ‘TutPart4C SM [Default]’ each.

b.  Material: Since Material related information is not defined for this sheet metal part, CAMWorksNesting will display the first material in the Material drop down list as the default material. In this tutorial, we will assign a material ‘Copper’ to all the parts. This material is listed in the Material Dropdown list. Select ‘Copper’ from the Material dropdown list.  

c.  Quantity: Set the following quantities for the parts displayed in the Part list:

d.  Angle: Assign an angle of 90⁰ to all the parts.

e.  Grain Direction: Leave the Grain direction is set to ‘None’.

f.   Normal Face: No changes are made to the default normal face selection for any of the parts.

8. Click on the Sheet Data tab. To nest all the four parts in the part list, two different sheets of varying thickness and material 'Copper' need to be added to the sheet list. Set the following sheet parameters in the sheet data tab.   

a.  The sheet metal parts ‘TutPart4A SM [Default]’ and ‘TutPart4D SM [Default]’  will be nested in a sheet of DXF format. Following are the steps to define a sheet using a ‘DXF’ file format:

i.    Click on the Sheet Data tab.  In the Sheet list, click on ‘Select to add sheet’. Select the option ‘Sheet DXF’.

ii.  This activates the field used to indicate the path of the DXF file. Click on the  button to browse to the folder containing the DXF file.  

iii.  Select the DXF file named Tutorial4_sheet.dxf from ..\CAMWorksNestingData\CAMWorksNesting 2012\Examples\Tutorials\Sheets  

iv. CAMWorksNesting populates the thickness and material field for each prospective sheet to be added to the sheet list based on the serial order of the parts listed in the part tab. Hence, by default, the Thickness field and the Material field will display the values of the first part listed in the part list. In this illustration, the thickness and material of the first part (3mm and Copper respectively) will be displayed as default values. In case this value is not displayed in the fields, assign the appropriate values.  

v.  Click ‘Add sheet’ to add the dxf file in the Sheet List. The dxf file is added to the Sheet List. The Sheet preview indicates that this sheet is a remainder sheet.  

b.  The solid parts ‘TutPart4B SM [Default]’ and ‘TutPart4C SM [Default]’ will be nested in a standard sheet. Following are the steps to define a standard sheet:

i.   In the Sheet list, click on ‘Select to add sheet’.

ii.  To add a standard sheet, select the ‘S1 (6’ X 4’) – Len: 1800 mm Width: 1200 mm’ sheet from the Standard Size dropdown List.  

iii.  As per the principle given in step 7-a-ii, the thickness and material field will display values of the next part in the part list which has either its thickness or material or both different from the previous part. Thus, thickness field will display a value of 20mm and material field will display ‘Copper’.   

iv.  Ensure that the sheet material assigned is ‘Copper’, assign Sheet quantity as ‘1’, Grain direction as ‘None’.

v.  Click ‘Add sheet’ to add the standard sheet to the Sheet List.  

9. Observe the Nesting Data Group Box.  Use this group box to set the nesting parameters:

a. Leave the Part to part distance and Part to sheet distance set to ‘0’.

b. Click on the  button to select the location to save the output Assembly file and Summary text file.

c. Set the Nesting method to ‘Fast Nesting’.  

10. After setting the part, sheet and nesting parameters, click OK. This sets into motion the process to generate a nested layout.

11. After the Nesting process is completed, CAMWorksNesting will display a message indicating the location of the text file containing the Summary of the Nest Results. Click OK to close the message. The Text file will be displayed.

12. The Nested layout assembly will be displayed in the Graphics area. Both these files are saved in the location indicated Output Assembly File path stated in the Create Nesting Job dialog.

13. Use the SolidWorks/ CAMWorks Solids Configurations Manager tree to view the Nesting layouts generated.