AutoCAD Inventor :: Automatically Constrain Components To Plane In Assembly?
Nov 14, 2011
I'm a playground designer and we're currently in the process of updating our systems to Inventor. Over the next few years I'm going to be working on many different assemblies all using the same parts and sub assemblies, many of which need to share the same ground plane.
I'm wondering if there is any easy/quick way to make certain parts (not all) automatically constrain/flush to the ground/XZ plane when I place them?
If you edit a section view sketch you can project model edges in the sketch and use them to constrain the section view line. However I cannot seem to project an included workplane to the sketch. For a particular application I really need to use a workplane because the model is actually a dummy that gets replaced by a vb macro. So any projected model edges will loose their reference.
I found out that I could use a sketch in the model to create the section view. In a model sketch it is possible to project work planes, so this looks like a good solution. However I do prefer the flexibility that you have when you use a drawing sketch.
How to use a work plane to constrain a section view, other then the model sketch method explained above.
Imagine a flat, rectangular plate with origin plains located symmetrically down the middle of the plate. Place a component, say a small cube, and constrain it to the face of the plate and the origin planes so that it too is symmetrically located. I now wish to pattern this cube about the midplane and create a total of five instances. I select "Pattern Component" in assembly mode and select the cube. For direction 1, I put in two instances and select an edge of the plate so that the pattern is taken to the left of the midplane. For direction 2, I again select two instances but pick an edge so that the pattern is taken to the right of the midplane. I now should have a total of 5 cubes but I don't. I have 6.
The second pattern is actually a repeating pattern of the first which, in the end, creates too many cubes. Visually, it looks correct because the cubes are placed excatly on top of each other. Numercially, like in BOMS, it is not correct.
It's a simple "wedge" assembly where the wedge is constrained to a single axis with a return spring keeping it biased one way. The are two blocks that are pulled tight against the taper of the wedge with springs that keep them pressed against the taper. When the wedge moves in they split, when it moves out, they contract. Simple, right?
For the life of me, I can't seem to constrain the parts correctly to the taper so it behaves correctly. The design is proprietary, so I've made up a "lite" version of it and attached it here.
Is there a way that will allow me to place a component into an assembly where it automatically creates a constrain between the components xz plane and the assembly xz plane? I tried the Ground and root component, but it does too much, I will need to constrain the component differently on the other component planes.
sometimes when using constraints the "movable" part is fixed after adding the first constraint.
If i use i.e. a surface to surface constraint the movable part should be free to slide on the surface.
To move the part in this case I have to add further constraint or delete the old one.
Furthermore sometimes constraints in assemblys do not update automatically. I have to click on the part and try to move it away. After releasing the part the consraint will be updated.
Are there any options to control or better change this behavior?
Is there any way to group assembly components?I'm aiming at a live mass calculation for different level of details/design views.In this case I'v got an assembly with about a ton of stainless steel spread out on different subassemblies.
I have made representations showing only the welded stainless steel and I would like the weight of these to appear in the partlist. Not the weight of the complete subassemblies.
I went into an assembly to change some parts and sub-assemblies and now everytime I move a part or constrain something I get this message "Errors Occurred During Update". Why is this happening?
Inventor 2013 Windows 7 Professional 64-bit SP1 HP EliteBook 8470w Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-3610QM CPU @ 2.30GHz Memory: 16 GB AMD FirePro M2000 3D Connexion SpacePilot
I am working on a large plant piping project and while I've seen this behavior before I've never seen it this bad.
Attached is a screen shot of a small portion of the assembly drawing in which you can see a good example of what I'm dealing with.
At the top you can see a weld neck flange that appears to be attached to air where there should be an elbow. In the middle you can see that on one side of the elbow there is missing geometry.
At the bottom is another flange that attached to air where there should be an elbow. This drawing is littered with these errors and as such is unsuitable for even a reference document.
I have turned visibility of these components off and on without resolution. I have turned on tangent and interference edges without resolution.
I have translated a copy to ACAD to see if it's simply graphical but the ACAD file shows the same errors. I have checked parallel and perpendicularity and all is well.
Inventor 2012 Pro 64bit (Build 219 - SP2) Vault 2012 Pro Admin Windows 7 Pro 64bit Quad Core processor 2.26 Ghz 16 GB DDR3 RAM 1.5 GB Nvidia Quadro FX 4800 (Driver Version 9.18.13.1090) 2 – 320 GB SATA drives
I'm running Inventor 2008 SP2. Each time I open the assembly 2 subassemblies always explode. You can see the red and blue subs in the attached picture. I thought this was supposed to be fixed by now. Actually I thought this was supposed to be fixed in R11 a long time ago. When I grab and drag either component, everything snaps back to where it's supposed to be.
If this isn't fixed (along with a laundry list of stuff that's been broken since R10) you will be losing customers. This and all the other bugs have cost me countless hours in lost productivity.
In Inventor 2012 I know that it is possible to arrange assembly components in a circular or rectangular pattern. But is there a way to arrange these components in an oval pattern?
I need to modify all the ipt in an assembly, but I don't kow how many ipt I have, and I don't know the name. Can I have with iLogic the list of all the ipt used in the assembly ? For example, to modify the Part Number in all the components.
Here is the history. I originally created a part with multiple solid bodies.
After creating it I was told we needed to make it an assembly. So what I did instead of recreating each component I called up the original multi-bodied part and did save as copies.
Then deleted the portions of the model I didn't need with only the part needed left.
Then I took all of those parts and assembled them together to form an assembly.
Now, here inlies the problem. When I go to make a drawin gof this assembly all of the balloons are coming up with the same item number as it was when it was a multi-bodied part.
It is clearly an assembly based on the model tree and the file extension.
I have a machine assembly with old part naming. Now we have a new part naming system. So i am supposed to rename all existing parts, assemblies to new naming system.
E.g. : A machine assembly with old names (lets say part1, part2..... part1000). It has to be renamed to new names (say item1, item2.....item1000).
"part1" should be renamed as "item1" and so on.
Design assistant is not a good option because its a lot of manual work, its same issue with using Vault.
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
It seems to me that the basic exclude component no longer works when deriving assemblies. If I cycle through components it is not possible to get the Grey circle with the backslash through it?
I've not seen it mentioned anywhere so I must ask. When in 3D modelling, is it possible to set AutoCAD to constrain drawing and movement in only the positive Z axis? I'd like to draw obviously in the XY plane but also only in positive Z (above ground?). I don't think i'll ever need to draw anything in the negative Z plane, which by my understanding would be actually underground (correct??). If it is at all possible to constrain in the positive Z plane, would there be a way to temporarily over ride this for the times I may need to Press Pull a hole out of a solid?
I have this strange knack of drawing in Top view in a left viewport (model space) then extruding in the right SW viewport then sometimes when I try ti move objects the end up underground (negative Z plane).
I want to create numerous custom properties for a part. Some of these will be the same for all instances of the part (i.e. vendor, part number, etc). But some have to vary from instance to instance.
So, as an example - if I place 5 identical tanks into my assembly I need to assign unique text entries for each of these 5 instances (i.e. TANK-01, TANK-02, TANK-03, etc)
Furthermore, all these textual properties have to be able to be shown physically on the part (for identification on plots) and extractable for BOMs, etc. It seems that any custom i Properties I set up are global for all instances of the part.
Long time Autocad user but now am moving most of my work across to Autodesk Inventor.
Some of the work I do is with companies that their parts are standard components that will not change.
So I am using Inventor to automate the drawings based on their requirements. For example if it needs to be 4m high. then to use 2 x 2m sections. Currently I have create different assemblies of the different potential heights that I can switch between using ilogic but I need to be able to shift the top truss arch depending on how high the truss is.
I was just wondering how to place a component into an assembly using ilogic? If this is possible, is there also an option to choose if iMates will be generated?
I would ideally like to place a list of components into an assembly, the list with probably exist in excel, then have iMates set to 'Automatically generate iMates on place' so that my assembly assembles automatically.
Inventor 2013 Certified Professional Autodesk Inventor Professional 2011 Windows 7 Enterprise, 64-bit
I am currently working on a parametric assembly using i Logic to control the size of the components as well as patterns. However, I have hit a road block in trying to figure out how to write a rule for resizing the last roof sheet in this assembly pictured below to be even with the frame. The rule below is what controls the roof sheet pattern based on the frame length. The problem I am continually running into is how do you modify a part which is in an element within the pattern without having it affect the rest of the parts in the pattern since they all refer to part. I can get since it is hard to find information on i Logic.
Roof_Pattern_Spacing = Roof_Sheet_Width Roof_Pattern_Count=Ceil(Parameter("Length")/Parameter("Sheet Metal Roof Section:1", "Roof_Sheet_Width"))
(Note: The red line symbolizes where I would like to have the roof sheet end.)
Assembly comprised of multiple components all derived from the same master sketch "4 Inch Rail Master Sketch"
Using the sketch to drive geometry, using the parameters to drive various extrude lengths.
Geometry changes seem to propogate quite well, while parameter changes do not...is this a bug or am I doing something wrong? Generally have to open each individual part and "edit derived part" to force changes to propgate...
files attached (move end of part marker down for all .ipts).
I have a part file with work plane on it (visibility option is checked). When I put it on assembly file, the work plane is disappeared.The part file is on attachment.
Can you extend axis or planes in assembleys? I have a laser and I want to extend the axis of it to show the path it takes. I can extend it by clicking and dragging the end in the part, but not the assembly... is there a workaround?
I have an assembly that was generated by Pro/E. It opens fine, but there are roughly 1000+ planes that are all visible. Is there a way to easily shut these all off whithout having to do it in each part?
