I’ve already showed you how I do my branched here, but I
have a different solution today.
As you
are aware you cannot connect a third line where two are already connected and
the error you will get from Inventor is: “Branches not allowed in routes”. Well
now, we already proved that it's possible and here I will show you a different,
and in some aspects better way.
As you
try to connect another line where two are joined into a node the route goes
into violation mode and it’s partially locked for editing until you fix this
error by deleting the segment or removing the constraints that hold it all
together.
The
alternate solution is to use Coincident Constraint but not as you might expect,
by connecting the 3 nodes together. Instead constrain the node to the line
twice and you simulate a node to node constraint but without Inventor seeing
this as a branch.
Start the Coincident constraint, and select the
end of the free line. Choose one of the fixed lines for the second element of
your selection.
Continue
with Coincident Constraint by selecting the node on the fixed lines and then
select the free line as your second element.
This
will in fact simulate a connection between the nodes but without generating a
route violation error.
When
you place a fitting like the tee in the line the pipes are trimmed
automatically to the engagement distance. For the free node (open ends) you can
choose Trim/Extend Pipe from the contextual menu and set a manual value. Those
of you that follow my blog and videos know that I like to import parameters
with preset values for how much space a fitting will take, like valves, tees or
elbows (in my case they take same space for installment). When I use trim on the
loose end branch line I am actually typing “ee” to get the engagement distance parameter value and to
have Inventor automatically update it when I change size of the route.
If you have already connected the free line to
the fixed ones you need to select the node and see if Trim/Extend Pipe is on
the contextual menu. If there isn’t one click the node again and in the right
click menu choose Select Other and see if there’s an option for second point,
or the third. You cannot get it wrong and edit a different pipe because only
the free end has this option and is allowing you to trim/extend.
TIP: From all my tests
Point 2 is the free end so right from the beginning Select Other and right
click when “2.Point” shows up to get the
Trim/Extend Pipe menu. This of course depends on your selection order when
doing the coincident constraint.
TIP: Sometimes when
populating a route it will complain that it’s intersecting with itself and you
need to edit the route and allow for gaps before connecting the points. This
goes against my rule to populate the routes at the very end but the solution is
to create a small segment, step up and populate and then remove the segment and
do your normal routing. The error only occurs the first time you populate a
route. If the route has been populated once it can run intersect it as much as
you can and you won’t have an error.
And the video:
Later,
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