Hi All,
Ok, so I believe I understand this, but it doesn’t seem to work as expected. Any help or explanation is greatly appreciated!
I have an unusual, but not complicated part. I start with a solid, then "Convert to S/M" and remove the sides I don’t want from the shell process. Great, I have my form. Now, I want to convert it to a proper S/M part, and I hit the "Conversion" button.
This is where I seem to get lost: the part should be relatively simple; 3 bends in the brake, two of which are identical. These two ‘flanges’ should have a split, where they come together on the 3rd 135° bend (on the back). To me, this should be a simple "rip connect" from the 4 options shown in the "Conversion" tool. I can select the inside 90° corner, and I want the outer corner of the 135° bend to place my rip. But I can’t. I can select all the other corners except this one.
But, if I add bends to the five edges where I want my bends, I can then go back and add the "rip connect" to split this flange. Great! But not so great. I want a gap at this split, and when I click on the "add gap" button, the rip cut is now not do-able. I’d also like a relief hole at this point, but it won’t add that either.
I’ve tried a few other way of making this part work, using the "conversion" tool. And when I add an ‘edge rip’ to the back bend (the 135° bend) it all seems to work out fine. I get my gap on the split on the opposite flange, and I have any relief hole I want. But that makes for an ugly flat pattern, and a bear in the brake! Not to mention an ugly seam where a bend should be.
My fix/ work around has been to Model the solid shape, shell it in the ‘convert to S/M', then add my bends in 'conversion'. Only then to add an extrude feature the size & shape of my split (with gap) and relief hole. But this seems excessive, and superfluous due to the 'conversion' tool.
I feel this should be an easy task for Creo 2.0 to perform; to add a rip cut & relief on a face, between two corners. I believe I’m missing some keystroke or setting to make / select one of the faces to be my main, driving face, which is causing my grief..