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Arabella Kochanski
The release of SOLIDWORKS 2018 added a great sheet metal feature called Tab and Slot. Tabs and slots can be added to adjoining components to create an interlock between them. The feature can be added to a multibody part or an assembly. Using SOLIDWORKS Tab and Slot for sheet metal assemblies is a great way to avoid making fixtures that hold the parts together during fabrication.
Tab and Slot features can also be added at the assembly level between two components. To do this, the assembly must be in Edit Part Mode on either the tabbed or slotted component then follow the above guide.
Zach Brown is a certified SOLIDWORKS Expert and a Technical Support Engineer. Prior to working at GoEngineer, he spent 15 years as a mechanical designer, CAD support tech, and instructor using SOLIDWORKS. His hobbies include playing guitar, riding motorcycles, and skiing.
My goal was to be able to build a sturdy box, no 12 and no fasteners. I did not want to use a fastener because they always seem to need another person to help holding pieces while another wildly swings a hammer at your finger, or another jig, or clamps or something; I wanted to avoid that if possible. From here I knew I needed to build it like some sort of puzzle piece where the sides get locked into place and from there, I could use glue to hold it together. SOLIDWORKS offers this tool in the form of Tabs and Slots, like a puzzle piece, my box would go together.
The sides were the interesting challenge, but I was able to use long slots that locked them together. The biggest problem was that Everything needed to be carefully measured. Everything was cut with a table saw, router and drill. If you have a CNC, this would have made the project WAY easier as I could have exported this from SOLIDWORKS CAM (This also might sound familiar for all your fabricators out there).
This might just be a home project for me, but if you scale it up, it might be metal instead of wood, welding instead of glue. One person putting together a well-executed plan with CNC parts that fit together JUST RIGHT vs 2+ people holding, measuring, tacking, re-measuring, hammering parts into place or grinding and/or starting over. Profit vs Loss. Tabs and Slots is a great way to increase productivity and take out a lot of guess work for those in fabrication.
Tabs and slots are great design features that allow for laser cut parts to fit together. They provide a simple way to have a design fixtured or set in place without the immediate need for adhesives or other fasteners. As a result, they are usually helpful for projects that involve welding or bolt assembly, in which the parts need to be held together before final assembly or welding.
When designing using tabs and slots, there are usually more than one tab and slot pair. This is the case in order to make the part connection more secure. The greater the number of tabs and slots, the more constrained the fixture becomes. As a result, it can be daunting to think of designing tabs and slots using CAD (Computer Aided Design) because of the large number of tabs and slots you might need to sketch and design using the software. Thankfully however, most CAD softwares have built-in features to quickly create several tabs and slots with the click of a few buttons.
The tab and slot feature in SolidWorks requires a 3D part to already be created. For the purposes of this tutorial, the example geometries that will be used are in the figures below. Tabs and slots will be added to these base shapes so that they can be mated together perpendicularly after being laser cut out of sheet metal.
To place the tabs, start off by selecting the linear edge corresponding to where you want the tabs to be located. Then, select the face that will be on the opposite side of the slots. In the figure below, the edge is highlighted in blue, and the opposite slot face is highlighted in pink.
Finally, the last section of the option tree allows for prescribing clearance and different corner types for the slot hole around the tab. Refer to SendCutSend documentation for advice and best practices when it comes to designing tabs and slots.
To prove the accuracy of the SolidWorks tabs and slot feature, parts were laser cut by SendCutSend and assembled using the designs from the figures above. The upright part was mirrored across the assembly to create a simple stand geometry. A geometry such as this allows for a self-fixturing structure that is useful when welding or other types of assembly is required.
The third method (c) provides the width and overall length of the slot in linear dimensions. This method is preferred if the slot has positional tolerances that use the boundary method (see ASME Y14.5M-1994 figure 5-47).
In this case select the bore of the washer and any face on the slot for mating. Then select Distance along slot from constraints drop down tab and specify the distance (In this case 10mm). Reverse the distance direction if required.
In this case, select the axis of the pin and any face on the slot for mating. Then select Percentage along with slot from constraints drop-down tab and specify the percentage (In this case 20%). Reverse the offset direction if required.
I believe the slot mate only works for flat surfaces. I would do a path mate along a 3-d line that connects the foci of the slot. Then I would make the end of the pin tangent to the face of the slotted part.
One of the coolest new features in SOLIDWORKS 2018 is the Tab and Slot command. In manufacturing we often wish to hold two parts together but want to avoid the costly process of developing and manufacturing a fixture to hold these parts together. A great way to work around this challenge is to design tabs into one part and slots into another so the two parts may be aligned without the need for a fixture. In previous versions of SOLIDWORKS this would take several steps, which would look something like this: Sketch> Boss Extrude> Fillet/Chamfer> Pattern of Boss Extrude>Second Sketch> Cut Extrude>Pattern of Cut Extrude. SOLIDWORKS 2018 gives us the ability to create these features in a single command, the new Tab and Slot command.
When working with Tab and Slot command in SOLIDWORKS 2018 we want to break down the feature into four fundamental areas. The first two areas are the boss and cut features. The image above shows we are working with an assembly of two parts. Our goal is to create a boss extrude on one part and a cut extrude on the other part. The boss extrude feature will be our tab. The cut extrude feature will be our slot. After establishing which component gets the tab and which gets the slot, we will specify how much larger the slot should be relative to the tab. This offset distance is our slot clearance. Lastly, at the outer corner of each tab we can choose to apply a fillet or chamfer, and we can set the desired size of the fillet or chamfer.
These are the four fundamental specifications for a Tab and Slot command. As this blog proceeds we will also see how to set values like Number of Tabs, Tab Offset from End, Width of Tabs and Height of Tabs.
As we can see in Figure 2 the Tab and Slot command is found in the pulldown menu INSERT>SHEET METAL>TAB AND SLOT. This is a little misleading because this great new command is not limited to sheet metal parts and can be used in any part type.
In Figure 3 we see a simple part file with two boss extrusions. This file is not a sheet metal part. However we are able to execute the new Tab and Slot command to create the finger joint for this woodworking project.
Next, we see the option for Tab Edge, shown in blue in Figure 7. The Tab Edge will be selected by the user and dictate the component from which the tabs will be extruded, as well as the location of the tabs. In Figure 7 we have selected the edge from the rear, thicker component. This component will be the component that has tabs added to it, and the tabs will be added to this edge (as shown in the preview).
We now have the option for Slot Face, shown in pink in Figure 7. The slot face will be selected by the user and dictate the component upon which the slots will be cut, as well as the location of the face for the cut extruded slot. In Figure 7 we have selected the face of the front, thinner component. This component will have the slots added to it, and the slots will be cut extruded from the face selected.
Next, we see the two options for Start Reference Point and End Reference Point, shown in purple and green in Figure 7. This indicates the start and end points of the edge to be used in the Offset settings (see below). These points are selected automatically when the user selects the Tab Edge and do not need to be manually selected.
As we continue down the Tab and Slot property manager we next see the option for Offset. This option can be enabled or disabled. It allows the end user to specify a distance from each of the end reference points specified earlier in the command. The offset distance from the start reference point and end reference point may be specified independently.If the user chooses to uncheck the option for Offset, the tabs will simply be created exactly at the end of the tab edge. This would be similar to indicating an offset distance of 0.00. In Figure 8 we have specified an offset distance of 0.125 in from each reference point to our first and last tab.
Next, we have the section for Spacing. In this section we can specify a distance between tabs or the desired number of tabs. In Figure 8 we have specified that we would like to generate three tabs equally spaced along our tab edge.
The we have the option for our tab length and height. These options are fairly straightforward, and I generally set the desired length and then the desired height to a blind value. In our model the thinner front sheet metal component has a wall thickness of 0.060 in.With this in mind we have set my tab height to a value of 0.100 in. This will generate a tab that sticks out from the mating component by a distance of 0.040 in, which will make alignment and welding of the two components a little easier. In the Tab Height section we have options for Blind, Up toSurface and Offset From Surface.
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