Round parts and features… Part 1

Features, and Holes on cylindrical parts, or How do I draw on Round things…? PART 1

As we all know, round parts have a slight sketching challenge; there are no planes to pick from the cylindrical surface. This can be a problem if one is not aware of the tools provided; a combination of construction planes and axes to allow feature definition on the cylindrical surfaces. These include angle offset, offset from the center axis, and various other positional locations on a cylindrical part.

Let us take a look at some solutions and tools to help with these tasks. Note the figure below represents a part that could become a problem child:

A working knowledge of Planes and Axis tools will be needed to define any of the holes and features in the part above.

TIP:  turn on your default work planes…

Starting with the raw part below:

 

Let’s add a feature to the part like the particular one identified below…

Adding the hole feature is very easy and straight forward, and we will use the point & line technique to define a sketch plane on the cylinder surface.

Steps:

1. Drop a plane along the part Axis at desired location…

2. Create a new sketch on the plane created in step (1)

3. Create the vertical and angled line as shown above, and then dimension to the desired angle as show in figure below. This will provide us with the ability to rotate the position of our feature around the part cylinder and along the length of the cylinder – two positioning controls!

4. After finishing the sketch from steps 1, 2 & 3, use the line created in the sketch to create a plane on the end point of that line and normal to that line. The figure below shows the expected results…

5. Now we need to select the plane just created as our new sketch plane, add the geometry to define the hole (feature) shape, see the figure below…

TIP: if this is a counterbored hole, define both the counter bore dia., and the hole dia. in this sketch and share it later for the hole creation.

Hope you found this process helpful. The following PARTS of this TIP sheet will cover the creation of the remaining features each using a different process…

Stay Tuned

Mike

iPhone and Inventor

Ok, for all you iPhone users out there, you may have already seen Sketchbook, the handy little application from Autodesk.

Well, here’s a nifty video showing how you can incorporate those sketches you produce on a lazy Sunday at the bar into Inventor.

Enjoy.

Brent.

Using Previous Part Versions

Vault Manufacturing How to:

Working with a previous version of a digital design…

During the process of product design engineering teams will build many iterations of a design model. That process will include operations to part and assembly models including reverting to an earlier version of a file managed by Vault Manufacturing. In the next few steps we will review that process and the steps to manage and use those files in digital product design.

While using Vault Manufacturing (VM) engineering teams will check out and generally work with the latest version of a digital model. Vault Manufacturing, by default, will always provide the engineering user the latest version of all design related files.

The next few steps will walk us through the process to get a previous version of a file to the user’s workspace:

Starting with a file in VM and with a state setting of Work In Progress (WIP)…

 

Let’s take a look at the design…

 

We can see in the above picture what the latest Version of the design appears to be. . Now if we review with  VM we can see we have 9 versions of this part…

 

With this many design versions we might want to review and use an earlier iteration of this part for the design…

In order for us to see all the versions managed by VM, not just those linked to revised files, we will need to set the vault to show all versions; this will allow us to identify the version we need to work with..

 

Note: This check box appears in the upper right corner of the VM preview pane (see above picture)

So it will appear as shown below…

 

Checking this box will allow VM to display all the related file versions…

Lets open the file and use the Latest version from VM, we will open the file directly from within Inventor 2010 using the new Ribbon Interface and  the Vault Tool Panel.

 

Using this method of operation the system will present the following dialog box, allowing us to identify the file we need to work with…

 

Selecting the file will result in Inventor 2010 opening that file and placing the latest version in the user’s Workspace, now work can begin on the file. When prompted we will select <Yes> to checkout…

  

Now what Inventor application sees as the latest digital model…

 

Let’s review the part browser panel, as you can see the only part checked out is the “GB Mach.ipt” and it’s not the file needed for the design. Let’s undo the checkout so we can get an earlier version of this file…

 

Now VM indicates we have a local file copy in our workspace since the circles remain in the Vault list pane as shown below…

 

Now we need to remove these files from our local workspace by right clicking the folder in the Vault and selecting “Go To Working Folder”. This will allow Windows access to the working folder to manually delete the files.

 

This will result in  the identified  files being removed from the local workspace…

 

The result…

 

 And now VM knows the files have been deleted…

 

Now that we have removed the local copies to prevent user confusion  (or at least my confusion) let’s get that earlier version. We will start from within the VM application to identify the file or files we need.

First we will highlight and right click the file to check it out (GB Cast, See Below), but we will not download the files to the local workspace…

 

Make the following selections in the dialog that appears, but make sure you uncheck the “Download Files check box…

 

Now that we have checked out the latest file set needed, but have not downloaded them to the workspace, we will need to replace them with the previous version to begin our work. Notice in the picture below how VM has highlighted the files selected indicating they have been checked out.

 

You should notice in the picture above we do not have a local copy (the circles are missing) present in the user’s workspace, this is the correct result for the operation we are currently performing.

Let’s take a look at the steps required to place an earlier design (Previous Version) in the user’s workspace…

First let’s identify within VM the actual version of the file we need, Version 6…

 

With version 6 highlighted in the file preview pane, right mouse click and select “Get/Checkout”

 

Now is the time to make sure the download file check box is checked…

 

Select <OK> to continue…

Notice how the VM list pane now appears, the checked out files will have the following symbols indicating their vault status…

 

Now let’s return to the Inventor application and open the files from the user’s workspace…

 

Select the exact files that were identified as the previous version file set…

 

Reviewing the file with Inventor we see a version of the file without the holes in the boss…

 

Also note the look of the Vault panel browser in Inventor 2010…

 

The indication shown above is correct for the current process we are working through; we will ignore the indications and save the file. The save operation will capture this design version as the latest to be used by the engineering design team. In order to make it the latest version in VM, all the changed files must be checked in.

 

Let’s go ahead and delete the local copy. This is the workspace copy, not the vaulted and controlled masters…

 

Deleting the local (workspace) copy will clear our local system of files no longer needed for our design work…

Let’s move back to the VM window and see what it looks like…

Version 10 of the file looked like this…

 

Version 11 looks like this, and is an exact copy of Version 6…

 

Now that the file above is our latest working master any user that needs to work with or use this file in another design is assured of having the latest digital prototype version of this design model. Users can get a previous version of any digital design files by using this process; if the files are not in WIP state then this process will not work. The files to be modified, by using a previous version operation will always need to be in a WIP (Work In Progress) state.

I’ve included a link to a video file that demonstrates the process reviewed in this blog, have fun…

Click here to see video…

Vertically-centering text objects in Inventor drawings.

When creating drawings in Inventor, you may want to have text center (middle-justify) vertically. The problem is that the preview looks great, but the text will not center in the drawing.

Here are the steps to change files that have an existing justification problem:

General step 1: Make a copy of the current drawing’s annotation objects style & edit the copy…

The reason for making a copy of the style is twofold:

     1) The original style is preserved without change. This makes it easy to revert back.

     2) A style can be copied & modified more than once to create easily customized objects.

General step 2: Use the copied & modified style to set the defaults for the desired drawing objects…

General step 3: Select annotation object(s) to be modified (hold <Ctrl> key down for multiple selections) & change their style from the drop-down list…

Any type of annotation object can be modified using this procedure. Simply set up the desired style or standard parameters in a copy of the existing style/standard, then use that style as the default for individual objects in the “Object Defaults” section of the dialog box. That’s it!

Marshall

Showcase Subscription Advantage Pack

For all you lucky lucky people out there with Showcase and Subscription, check out the Subscription Advantage Pack here:

http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/pc/item?siteID=123112&id=13912819

There’s some fantastic additions to the feature set, my particular favourite being the keyframe animation capabilities. 

Takes the product to a whole new level.

Have fun.

Brent.