AutoCAD Inventor :: Assigning Material To Faces At Assembly Level
May 19, 2011
I would love for the day that ADSK allows users to assign materials to faces and surfaces at the assembly level. I know this can be done at the part level but this practice has it's flaws when trying to have an accurate BOM and Parts List as well as other "issues" when using that method.
Take a plated part for example. At my company our structure of a plated part would look something like this:
raw material - machined part - plated part. I'm sure it;s the same at many other manufacturing companies.
Typically we will have a material spec sheet for the raw material. We will have an IPT and INV dwg of the machined part file. We then place the machine part (IPT) into an IAM to become the plated part. We do this workflow because if we chance any geometry to the child (machined part) it will update and reflect a tthe parent IAM level (plated part). This also keeps out parts list and BOM structure in-line with our MRP system. So this workflow works great for us.
However there is an issue doing it that way. Inventor doesn't allow to assign materials to faces at the assembly level which seems just wrong to me. I kind of understand why they did that but it sure would be nice to be able to assign materials to faces in IAM files. Yes I know I could acheive this by using Derived Component but then my parts list and BOM structure does not reflect the base part. It only reflects the Derived part in my Parts List. Is there a way I'm missing to alter or change the Parts List to pull info of title, part number, etc of the base part rather than the Derived?
Ideally I'd just love for one day INV to allow material assignment to faces and surfaces in the assembly level. It looks rather strange on our drawings where we do a section view of the top l;evel assembly and see parts that are technically made of brass but look to be made of chrome or zinc plating instead because of how we had to assign material to the entire body of the component at the assembly level.
I have box. After assign material it's still box. But after assign different material to some faces, box become 3d body and I can't simple look and change it's size in properties.
How to assign different materials to different faces and box still remain box.
If it is impossible, could I look gizmo size? I need to control sizes of all objects with easy way without annotate.
I need som code to assigning a material to a part in VBA.
Dim oApp As Inventor.Application Set oApp = ThisApplication Dim oDoc As PartDocument Set oDoc = oApp.ActiveDocument Dim oPropsets As PropertySets Set oPropsets = oDoc.PropertySets Dim Mat As String
When assigning materials to a part in inventor the process is simple, however when one wishes to assign a specific steel type ie ASTM A516 as opposed to just a generic steel then this is where it gets a little more complicated.
This specific steel type will also need to be called up in the parts list relevant to the individual part that it is attached to.
I know that a custom material can be added to the favourites section in the materials library,and this can be done if required.
Have i delved deep enough into the inventor materials library , do the basic steel and others materials ie plastics break down into specific types with their elastic properties,yield stresses etc etc in other words a more comprehensive materials library or is this something that must be created by custom material input.
I have to create a workplane and then define the section.
Usually the sectioning is done w.r.t flat surface/s and then the section plane can be offset depending upon our requirement and placement in the assembly. I am not getting this offset option when I want a Sectioned View. The section takes where I click on the flat face straight.
I have a sub assembly with frame members and have used different colors for different sizes. In the top level assembly all the colors are lost, presumably because it defaults back to material color. Is there a way to get the frame member colors to display and all assembly levels?
I am using IV 2010. I have an assembly that is made up of subassemblies and individual parts. Some of the subassemblies share the same parts. I would like to know when I create the BOM for the top level assembly if it can show parts only with no assemblies. I want to get the BOM to combine like parts from all subassemblies in one list. I have tried to use the part only option and it still puts subassemblies in the BOM and breaks the parts out per subassembly.
When ballooning an assembly drawing having a structured/all levels BoM, the balloons default to the part level of the BoM hierarchy. Is there a way to have the balloons reference the part's subassembly (direct parent) without having to override the value of each balloon manually?
I have a rule that turns off all work geometry and sketches of an assembly and all referenced parts and assemblies.
This rule is almost perfect.
When i run the rule. All sketches and work geometry are turned off. But sketches in sub assemblies remain visible in the top assembly. When i open the document of the sub assembly the sketches are off.
So what I see is a top assembly 'override' of sketch visibility inside sub assemblies
How can I turn off visibility of a sketch on a level higher?
Currently I have some code which loops through all sub components of an assembly and sub assemblies. However I only need sub components inside the top level assembly and not any sub-assemblies. Is there an easy way to acomplish this?
This code will list all sub components inside an assembly when a drawing is open.
Dim oDocument As Document Set oDocument = ThisApplication.ActiveDocument Dim oRefDocs As DocumentsEnumerator Set oRefDocs = oDocument.AllReferencedDocuments Dim oRefDoc As Document For Each oRefDoc In oRefDocs debug.print oRefDoc.FullDocumentName Next
Specifically to Subassembly.LinkWidthAndSlope / I only have Top or Datum options for that sub and if I assign either one in the code set it seems to overwrite all the other subassembly materials such as asphalt, curbs etc...with none set my realisic view has a gap between the back of curb and slope to existing.
Civil 3D 2012 SP1 on Win 7 64-bit SP1 Intel i7-2600kcpu @ 3.4ghz 16mb ram ATI FirePro V4800
How do you save features added in an assembly to the part? For example, if I add a hole in an assembly, presently I cannot see it when I open the part. It seems like a very basic function, I'm not sure why it doesn't do it automatically.
I'm trying to use the Level of Detail function to add a hole feature in a sub assembly that will be used in 2 places inside the main assembly, but the sub assembly is present in many other location and does not need this hole. My thought is to have the master level of detail depict the hole feature and have another level of detail with this hole suppressed.I can't get the two levels of detail to save the desired outcome. When I switch LODs, the hole feature will not suppress or unsuppress as desired. Is this possible or am I doing something wrong.
I have an assembly that is made up of 3 unique parts ( 5 parts total). These parts and there features are to be laser cut, then assembled and welded along the outer perimeter in the small chamfer. I have designed the parts to have 5/16 holes, which will be later tapped to 3/8"-16 UNC after assembly.
Once these parts are assembled, I don't understand how I can change the holes to reflect this. Meaning I want the parts to be pre-drilled(laser cut) with 5/16 holes, but I want the assembly to then have 3/8-16UNC holes.
The hole command will not let me select the existing hole features in the assembly and add threads. What is the consequence of inserting a 'new' hole with 3/8-16UNC threads over the existing 5/16" holes in the assembly?
Is my workflow incorrect? should I have the parts modeled with the tapped holes and just make a note on the drawing to not tap these holes until assembly? how does that affect the laser cutting?
The model I have been working on has been trying to change it's colour all day. Finally I had a crash 'graphics adapter stopped working' and when I re-opened the model it had gone all blue. The top level assembly is all blue but the subassemblies are the proper colours when you open them.
I'm updating my graphics driver which should maybe stop the problem re-ocurring but in the meantime I need to get my top level assembly to display as per the colours in the sub assemblies.
I am fairly new to Inventor and have recently just finished drawing up a machine made of many parts and sub assemblies and then made into one master assembly. Due to the nature of some hole positions i decided to draw some holes directly on the Master assembly thinking it would then change the original sub assembly/part file. Apparently not as i found out making technical drawings.
How i can rectify this so i dont have to re-draw all the holes on part level and keep my constraints in place?
I have a frame fabrication / assembly with a Custom iProperty called "FINISHED MATERIAL SIZE". I have set the following parameter for this property:
FINISHED MATERIAL SIZE = <Stock Number> x <G_L>mm
This returns the stock size and length to my drawing cutlist. The problem is that the <G_L> Parameter returns the trailing zeros and unit string.
I would like to set all the frame members in the assembly such that the G_L parameter returns a value rounded off to 0 decimal places with no trailing zeros and removes the unit string as well.
Is there a way I can achieve this from the assembly so I don't have to manually open each frame member and make the changes in the fx parameters dialog one at a time?
How to find the cross section details like area and movement of inertia at particular cross section
in( solid works there is a direct option select the section and select the face and click on the calculate automatically gives the are and movement of inertia etc in part and sassy level also) but in inventor in part level its possible but in an assembly level.
In order to reflect production process, I have to create holes on the bent pipe at assembly level after 2 bent pipes are welded to the straight pipe. Now when I suppress holes, it does not suppress only at LOD or view rep but throught the whole assembly.
Is it possible to suppress features such as hole using LOD or view rep, which are made at the assembly level? or I have to use another method? See below in highlighted.
When holes are put in at the assembly level by using the 2d sketch command, projecting geometry and then using the hole command in the Model tab works great. Is there a way to transfer the holes put in at the assembly level to the detail drawings (ipt)?
I wish I can open my general assembly BOM and set the proper Materials to my all my parts after migration from 2012 release.
But I cannot change Material for the some custom part in the assembly BOM in the Parts Only tab. Parts refusing to change a Material have special symbol and I guess it means “promoted assembly” – no info regarding these symbols.
I can change any Material in Structured and Model Data tabs but it is extremely inconvenient for the big assembly.
[URL]....
The questions is: Why those promoted assemblies have inaccessible Material in the Parts Only tab?
I have similar subassemblies built in similar way as you can see fro video, but one is treated as promoted assembly and other as promoted part, the question is what possible difference between those is?
I am using this code placed in the .ipt file to change Sheet Metal material
If Material_SM=1 TheniProperties.Material="Steel"SheetMetal.SetActiveStyle("RB_Mild Steel")ElseiProperties.Material="AISI316"SheetMetal.SetActiveStyle("RB_Stainless")End If
It works fine presuming code placed in every .ipt file to be ruled.
Is it possible to modify code in a way so when it placed in top assebly it runs through entire assembly finds all Sheet Metal parts and applys Material prpperties/Sheet metal style according Material_SM parameter.
Inventor 2013 SP2 Windows 7, 64 bits RAM 18GB Core TM2 Duo CPU 2,99 Gz
I need converting imperial dimensions into metric in assembly as weell as part level sketches dimensions.
Any solution for converting all imperial dimensions to metric dimensions in whole assembly constraint level and as well as part level sketch dimensions. Any macros or any ilogic rules?
I am wondering if there is a way to use a part of one piece located in an assembly to cutout a portion of another piece located in an assembly when both pieces occupy the same space?
The situation I'm in is that I've got an L bracket (piece 1) resting on top of a piece representing a concrete block (piece 2). The L bracket has metal studs attached that protrude into the concrete. Idealy I'd like the mass of concrete located in the same space as the studs removed so that when I generate cross sections everything adds up.
How do I change the a part material render style within an assembly?
I have tried this below. It changes the name but doesn't update the render style. Sub Material()Dim oassy As AssemblyDocumentSet oassy = ThisApplication.ActiveDocumentDim ocompdef As AssemblyComponentDefinitionSet ocompdef = oassy.ComponentDefinitionDim ooccurr As ComponentOccurrencesSet ooccurr = ocompdef.OccurrencesDim opartdef As ComponentDefinitionSet opartdef = ooccurr.Item(11).Definitionopartdef.Material.RenderStyle.Name = "Red"End Sub
In Inventor 2012 user has ability to change the material properties globally.
All parts using certain material will follow the changes made to properties and written to single library. It is clear and predictable.
In Inventor 2013 material properties belong to individual file.
When changes were done to appearance properties of a single part there could be situation when the same material parts in the assembly could have different appearance.
Here is the fact I do not understand and it is contradict to actual reality since the same material with the same standard must look absolutelly the same when switched to Master view.
Seems like to make parts look the same or to change the appearance I should click on each single file and make the same changes to each file.
I do not intend to change the appereance properties in single file on purpose to make problems to myself but I am sure I will take somebody else part and it will be changed due unnecessary reflection or other too much realistic things added in 2013. So finally I will get some sort of parrot collored assembly without clear and most importand easy way to make an order.
So I wish I could equalize all same material parts in apearance view. I do not count the way of clicking each file.
