This is first on
a three post series where we cover publishing dumb parts to content center.
Consider dumb parts any featureless models you download from the internet.
While some download servers will give you Inventor models with features they
have no dimensions and no parameters, in short, they are still dumb. On my last
post I gave you a couple of websites where you can download models and increase
your content library and if you’ve missed it then you can read all about it here.
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| Some of my parts have just as many work features. |
Before we
discuss how to create a family of dumb parts and publish it to content center I
need to make sure that you understand a couple of things like how to create
work features. While you probably have this nailed down I will take some time
and show you some tricks on creating work features. These are especially needed
if you are going to publish tube and pipe fittings to content center which we
will cover in the last post of this series.
You can create
your work feature backwards in a reverse order and as long as you remember the
sequence you can go back as much as you like. Start the work feature and then
right click and choose plane, axis, point which will pause the action and start
another sub-feature which will serve as the input for the first one in an
endless loop which will consume inputs nesting features one under another like
Russian wooden dolls.
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| Nested workfeatures are like russian dolls. |
Let’s try this
out see just what I am talking about. In the vessel below I need to have an
exact minimum dimension from the top of the nozzle to the tank. The tank is a
dished end stainless steel vessel and it’s not as easy as constraining the face
of the nozzle in regards to the tank surface, especially since I need this to
be calculated automatically when I change size and position (angle, or pcd) of
the nozzle. For faster/better results I am driving all the connection with
ilogic and forms so it makes sense to have the minimum distance calculated
automatically.
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| Min. nozzle dimension for clamping and access. |
The cut for the
nozzle was done on a planar sketch because we need the nozzles parallel to the
ground rather than perpendicular to the dished end surface.
In the planar
sketch I have defined a point on the tank center side of the nozzle cutout
circle which will always give me smallest positional distance but in order to
use this point, the sketch needs to be visible.
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| Getting the minimum distance point |
Normally you
would:
- Start work
axis command, and choose the point and the base plane.
- Start a work
point command and choose the previous axis and the dish end outside surface.
- Start a work
plane and choose the previous work point and the base plane. Alternatively you
could select the point and the axis.
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| Usual way of creating workfeatures. |
Now you have a
work plane which can be used to constrain your nozzle face against. You have to
restart the command 2 times before you get to the end and while you can have it
on auto-repeat I will now show you how to do that in one operation. You also
need to turn off the visibility off for all these work features because they
are not off by default as on the method I will show you next.
TIP: When you start a work feature command you can
right click and choose “Repeat command” which will keep the create feature
active when you finish doing one but to end it you need to right click and
choose Cancel or press the Escape key. You can also press Spacebar or Enter to
repeat last command just like in AutoCAD.
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| Right click for extended menu. |
Let’s do this in
reverse with a single command. I will do arrange it in a tab formatting for
better visual understanding on how this works:
1 - Start the work plane command (that’s the end
feature we’re after)
A – For the first plane input right
click and choose work point
o – For the
first work point input right click and choose work axis
> - Select
the sketch point as the first input
of the work axis
> -Select
the sketch for the planar direction
(or the base plane)
o – Click on the
dished end outside surface as the
second work point input.
A – Click the base plane (or the axis again) as the second input of the work plane.
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| Faster way of doing the workfeatures. |
So
now you have same work plane but the sub-features are hidden already. This is a nice trick but for many sub-features it can be daunting to remember the whole sequence.
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| Too many workfeatures in reverse can be daunting to create. |
Next
time I will show you how to author empty parts as tube and pipe fittings so you
can do your routing without knowing/having the final design for the fittings.
Later,
ADS
Photo credit:
Adivina donde estoy... , (license)
Topless grumpy , (license)
5098 Matryoshka , (license)
