Vault – Renaming Computer hazard

Ok, I blew it.  I recently had a fight with my domain server, and lost.  I ended up renaming my computer to work around it.  It’s never been a problem in the past.  Well, at least I didn’t realize it was.

ADMS is getting its content from an SQL server on a site.  That site is my computer, and when renamed, it was lost.  My entire ADMS and Vault was gone for all applications.

Autodesk had this to say about the errors

Issue

During the installation of Vault or Productstream Server (ADMS), you received the following pre-check error message:

The SQL Server instance you have selected is not enabled with Autodesk Productstream Replicator. To enable it, upgrade site '<computername>'. Contact your reseller for Autodesk Producstream Replicator.

Solution

This error is the result of renaming the computer or adding it to a domain while the previous version of ADMS was installed even though replication has never been enabled on this particular computer.

This can be resolved by uninstalling SQL 2005, using Add or Remove Programs (Windows), and then reinstalling it either manually or automatically using the Vault/Productstream Server installation.

Alternatively, you can run the ADMS Console in command line mode and use the -OSiteRename switch. For detailed instructions, refer to the ADMS Console Help menu (available by pressing the F1 function key).

oSiteRename

 

Inventor – Weld Gap nominal parameter

I’d like to see a way to get the Frame Generator tools to access the parameters.  I am a top down kind of guy, and like using extrusions and dependent sketches for my frame skeletons.  I derive almost everything to keep all my parameters centrally located. 

The design I am currently engaged in was started without some specs, and after receiving them I find that he builder does not want any weld gapping.  So I have to run through every weld and remove the gaps.

It would be nice to set the gaps a local parameter that is factored from a derived parameter, like ‘NomWeldGap = MatThickness * NomWeldGapFactorl’ or something similar.  This way I can change the NomWeldGapFactor in the skeleton, and all the gap would alter in relation to their individual material thicknesses. 

Inventor – iFeatures provide a quick fix

This weekend I was up to my neck in a problem with having to rebuild a fast and dirty project.  It was built for pretty only.  The problem was that a weekend build did not cover enough time to do the job right. Shortcuts lead to failures in Inventor.

I had constrained latches of a door in the door assembly, and then reversed my build and snapped the cut edges off the latch in the door part, and cut out the hole.  It was fast and I didn’t need solid build, just fast.  Hmmm, sounds familiar.  Don’t have time to do it right, but always have time to do it over….  And do it over you will.

I started the job with a skeleton containing the global resources, and the overall shell.  This worked like  champ.  Eventually as I began to run out of time, I started to cut corners.  Portions of the projected geometry began to fail for one reason or another (because of the shortcuts).  Everything was fine until I had to make a change.

So was tired of recreating my ‘shortcut’ doors, and decided to get a better shortcut.  The latch plate had to recut for each change. 

Use the iFeature to reduce repetitive steps

Rather than create it for the third time (eventually even I learn from my mistakes), I created an iFeature.  This part however had no geometry and was just the solid model.  Fine.  I created a cut extrusion from sketched cut edges, an sent it out in all directions.

Inventor – Creative Design With Autodesk Inventor 2010/2011™

I am very pleased to announce that I am working with Dennis Jeffrey at Tekni!

He has assembled a team of experts to create the new Web Based training series titled Creative Design with Autodesk Inventor 2010.  Many training programs just ‘throw the information at you’; we (authors)  don’t want a repeat of the status quo, non-intuitive and inflexible methods sometimes employed.  We are developing a complete training course focused on real world application, and a start to finish methodology.

The Creative Series is designed to give the student a better sense of direction and confidence. Students work at their own pace and receive mentoring when needed.  Furthermore we have spent a great deal of time focusing the lessons around solid ‘real world’ design practice. Details, notes, and exercises detail why certain steps are counter-productive, and what can be done to create more efficient and flexible designs.  As the students move from one lesson to the next, they will have developed an awareness of some things that could go wrong in the current lesson, and are conscious of these while studying the steps.  This allows the student to gain more self-confidence as they verify that their cultivated concerns were substantiated. 

While nothing can replace real world practice, this course was designed to put the student a step ahead of the basic (and some advanced) problems that traditional lessons can’t identify.  The result is with designers and engineers that have more self confidence about applying solid design practice in their workplace, what to do when something does go wrong, and how to use that knowledge in an adaptive way at your company.

Tekni web site

I have spent numerous days on each of my segments in the series, going through each portion and applying the lesson to the examples provided.  I focused my troubleshooting skills on creating powerful examples that work well and are easily adaptable.  Bulleted lists of commonly known issues and new insights are furnished in the lesson so that the student gets the benefit of past and present research and adaptations.

The Creative Design series is scheduled to be available by the end of 2009, but we will begin releasing packaged segments earlier.  Check in with us in the mean time as things become available.

Inventor – Garin’s hole article

I was going through my RSS feeds, that are backlogged, and I ran across Garin Gardiner’s page again.  Sometimes they have him so busy that he cannot update his page often, but when he does, there is usually something interesting in there.

This time Garin’s decided to find a way to use a sledge hammer to drive a thumb tack.  Why not?  I guess I do it all the time. Get your sledge hammer ready.  Let’s find out just how efficient this process was.

Garin wanted a shaft with a chamfered hole in it.  Perhaps using a Design Accelerator is overkill, but in many cases people are not comfortable using the Shaft Generator, and don’t know there are added functions and options like a through hole. I will run through it both ways: as a simple extruded part, and Garin’s Shaft Generator.  I am mostly interested in how long either process will take.

Inventor – 2010 The install that just won’t give in

7/1/2009

About a WEEK ago I decided to reinstall everything.  I push the limit with space and implementing new things, so my OS gets flaky sometimes.  It’s the cost of doing business.  Last time I got nailed with a virus.  Now we have a sonic wall and keeps me pretty clean. 

This time it was Autodesk Licensing.  I blue screened, and everything seemed to operate fine afterward, but the licensing component started freaking out, and eventually would not let me into Autodesk products.  That’s kind of a problem.

I’ve got a bright idea, ‘lets reinstall Vista’.  Any engineering OS older than 6 months is gravy.  We’re due for the pain and misery.  I kept thinking, “we have this down to a science, no problem.  I‘ll come in at 4 am, and by 8 we’ll be functional”.  How many of you are laughing now?  At 8, I was not laughing.  I’m still not laughing. 

Autodesk 5, John 0

This week I have installed Vista + updates twice, Civil 3D 2009/2010 twice, Inventor 2009 once, Inventor 2010 5 times, Vault server twice, AV and authoring software suites twice as well. 

As of last night, Inventor 2010 would not work (properly).  The long and short is that the install would blue screen right about when it would shift over to the Language Pack, every time.  It’s hard to say exactly because no one can sit there and stare at the 1.5 hour install.  All I know is the items in the en-us folder were missing, and she wouldn’t run.  More on that later.

I’ll go through some of the key things that did and did not work.  Maybe you IT guys and Managers can pick out something useful.

Design Review – 2010 Hot Fix 1

7/1/2009

Volker, Thank You! 

For all those that may not have experienced the PDF output from DR 2010, I’d like to say “It sucks”, but that wouldn’t be polite.  True, but not polite.

Instead I’ll just say “Thank You Volker! and DR people”.  Autodesk released a Hot Fix June 19th, 2009.  I must say that Volker’s team is very dedicated to fixing problems, and reviewed a few of my issues with me.

I have tried to adopt the Autodesk DWF idea.  A couple of years back at AU, a British Autodesk fellow introduced me to Buzzsaw. (I apologize as I cannot remember his name).  I saw the publishing possibilities in both and decided to push forward, but Buzzsaw is just not cost effective down here in the trenches, so I had to stop working the angles on it.  I have however stayed fixed on DWF. 

I use it as a point of reference for a final product.  Once the job is completed, I use DR to review, markup new revisions, or to distribute.  It serves as a central publishing point as well, whether hard copy, direct email, or PDF.

Since most of my clients use PDF, and are still not on the DWF band wagon, PDF is what I most often publish.  However, since 2010, I have been pulling my hair out, and even considered going to PDF for my publishing platform.

Thank God for the fix.  Now if I can just get something to help AutoCAD get the lead out of it’s direct PDF output.

You can read Volker’s article and community comments here.

You can download the Hotfix and (very important) the instructions here.

Inventor – 3D Axis Calcs Part 2

When we left off the last part of this session , we had discussed the cone plane intersection, where the cone angle had to be calculated from a non radial intersection.  This wasn’t the end of the world, we had one angle to deal with, the pocket angle.  We even discussed how to do the job with less trig, and more Inventor Work Features.

This time we will cover throwing 2 axial rotations at the cone intersection:

The Insert Angle and the Axial Rake Angle

Last time we discussed having the reference point to axis relationship vary as it rotated on a plane.  What happens when we rotate the plane they are on?

We will cover the following topics:

• Another Angle
• More Trig
• The Results

Another Angle

Take a piece of paper, and stand it up in front of you, bottom edge flat on a table, arms out in front. Now rotate the paper to the left, keeping some edge or corner of the paper touching the table (that was our Insert Angle from last week).  The upper left corner’s height off the table has dropped.  Hold that position.

Last week that height was the key to solving our cone angle. 

Now rotate the paper away from you, while maintaining the side angle.

The height of the upper left corner off the table is continuing to drop.  Inevitably, when the angle away from you reaches 90° flat on the table, that corner height will be 0.  Keep in mind that the known Insert Angle from last week has not changed, yet H is now 0°.

 

Inventor – Sketch Block Webinar

I received the invitation to the Autodesk Inventor Users Group webinar a bit late today. 

…During any event there is that guy that shows up after everything gets rolling, and tries to slip in unnoticed…….That was me today.

It was worth it.  John Krause gave a great presentation.

Some of the highlights I felt like mentioning were:

• Sketch Blocks
• Flexible Block option
• Make Components
• Layout Constraints
• 3D Kinematics

John Covered Sketch Blocks quite well, and touched on how these ease the interaction of new users coming from the AutoCAD environment.  Considering the limited timeframe, he covered this topic very well.

In case anyone was a bit behind, Sketch blocks allow the user to create blocked rigid sketches that exist in the fluid sketch environment of Inventor.  Each block is designated separately in the model browser, and are held in place by various sketch constraints, allowing the rigidity (and usefulness) of blocks, with the dynamics of constraints.

Using the combined constraints and block’s flexible option in the 2D sketch environment allows for dynamic and fast design concept modifications.

Inventor – 3D Axis Calcs Part 1

I often get wrapped up with ‘having to know the solution’, and I’m a sucker for a design challenge. My wife just loves it. If I just learned some equations, I wouldn’t understand the process.  That’s only useful in 1 instance, and not adaptable.  I gotta know how and why. Like when I was figuring center of gravity while calculating the direct material volume replacement for differing densities to achieve a target combined mass. That was the pinewood derby, using Inventor. (I established the equation using linear vector intersection,  and yes it is linear)

That’s what brings us to our current discussion, “arriving at the resulting angle of the edge of a cone as it passes through a plane that is neither radially or axially orthogonal to the centerline axis of the cone”. The farther off plane you get, the narrower the angle becomes.

We will cover the following topics:

• The Angle
• The Facts
• Model References
• The Trig

The Angle

I need to cut a truncated cone out of the head to create a skirt.  it needs to lie exactly on the edge of the dashed construction geometry line at the base of the pocket. 

 

We know that the Insert is angled at 30°, so why not feed that to it. So we will.