Publish Content for Bolted Connection Part 2

Back to Part 1

iPart

iParts are method of creating Library Contents for similar parts. When you create an iPart, a table is placed in the part, that will contain the individual members of the library.  These members are contained in rows of the table, with the key differences edited for each member.

The table contains various fields that represent the parameters that shape the iPart members.  The iPart members can have identical values as needed, with the exception of 2 fields.  The Part Number and Member name.  A lot of care should be taken in planning the Part Number and Member names, as the future file name of library contents is tied to the Member Name, and the Part Number gets fed into the BOM.  However, the Content Center Editor can apply variables from the table to concatenate a Part Number automatically, which we WILL do later.  For now, we will prepare the table in the following fashion.

Under the Tools Menu, select Create iPart.

The iPart Author dialog will appear, revealing the structure and rows that will appear in the iPart table.  Currently there is only 1 row in the iPart table, seen at the bottom of the dialog. This row is fed from the current parameters contained in the part.

 

Publish Content for Bolted Connection

Everyone knows I love Design Accelerators, Content Center, User parameters, derived components…..Ok I just love Inventor.

The Bolted Connection Generator is a fabulous tool. It creates a filter criteria using diameters found in the selected thread type. It then uses that to filter the Content Center selection to create a list of fasteners.  The holes and recesses are created from geometry in the separate data.  The list of possibilities however, has some limitations.  I’d like to show you 1 way to get more productivity, working within the limitations. 

If I can get the job done with a Design Accelerator, then why would I want to prep everything without it?

This discussion is a workflow I performed recently to get some new fasteners into the Bolted Connection Generator.  Again, the theme has to do with wood, as I found a lot of people asking about wood, and little assistance was available. 

This workflow will take us through the following topics:

• Thread.xls
• Sample Part Modifications
• iPart
• Content Center Category Review
• Component Authoring
• Content Center Family Editing
• Bolted Connection Generator