New to Inventor

[Guest]

Hello,

 

So I get to learn Inventor. I will be getting traditional training through the company I am working for, but it will not be until October (unfortunately). So to get a jump start I have found a large book & some tutorials on the internet, which all seem to be quite helpful. While I am familiar with the Auto CAD stuff, the Inventor is just plain different.

 

I am attaching some of my first few models that I did in Inventor, based on what I have learned so far. It is very difficult to check my work, since I have nothing to judge it against & no 'expert' to talk to. I am hoping that somebody who has a few min, could check them out to see if I am using the proper techniques for modeling efficiently. It seems that it would be easy enough to do, since the history is all listed in the drawing.

 

Be as critical as you want.

 

Thanks in advance.

Anchor Slide.ipt

Alignment Bracket.ipt

Hopper Flange.ipt

[JD Mather]

I only looked at the first one - and noticed that your sketches aren't fully constrained.

The message of dimensions needed is a little misleading since if you add geometric constraints like Tangent, Colinear ...

notice that a fully constrained sketch changes color.

You might want to read this document http://home.pct.edu/~jmather/skillsusa%20university.pdf

Also, you should state what version of Inventor you are using as the files aren't backwards compatible (iProperties indicate 2011).

[Guest]

Thanks JD.

 

I did notice the color change on some of my sketches as I was working on them, though I don't know if I attached any of them. Please forgive my ignorance, but how does a fully constrained sketch help in the grand scheme of things? At this point I am trying to get used to the right process. The models that are attached I can model in Auto CAD in 1/8th the time. I am sure that repetition of the process will make things go a lot faster.

 

I did look at your page you always suggest for new users, but it was a while ago, when i was using Inventor 2008. At that point, on the hardware I had even drawing a simple circle in Inventor crashed the program every time. Now that I have had a chance to work through some tutorials, and get a better feel for the program, I will take a look at it again.

 

As you mentioned, I am using 2011, but at some point there will be an upgrade to 2012, once everyone else in the office gets a hardware upgrade.

 

Thanks for the suggestions.

[Guest]

So for an additional question,

 

Lets say I have a client logo, which would need to be reverse cut out of steel, I should use the auto-constraints to fully constrain the logo? With my first attempt at this, for one of the easier logos, it took about 5 min for my computer to figure out the constraints. Is this the best practice?

 

Thanks.

 

Edit: Attached Screen Shot for example.

Edited August 5, 2011 by Secretagdan
Attached Screen Shot

[JD Mather]

Can you hide the dimensions so that I can see the geometry?

For something like that - that isn't going to change, it is not necessary (and probably not worth the effort) to fully constrain.

Otherwise I recommend breaking up complex sketches to no more than 7-10 enitities.

That would be a lot of sketches for this - but far more robust if any changes need to be made.

 

Also, I only know of one Inventor "pro" in the world who hasn't turned off the grid. Just clutters up the screen.

[Guest]

It esentally consists of a lot of little line segments, all of which were exported from an AI file. The geomety is imported into Auto CAD as splines, which I flattened to get the segments, as seen. In Auto CAD it is easier to manage in that format.

 

Is it better to use the spline geometry for this?

[JD Mather]

If I were going to do it, I would simplfy with lines and circular arcs done in Inventor.

It looks to me that the font is simple enough that the number of entities could be significanlty reduced.

[Guest]

Sorry for the delayed response, working with inventor is on the back burner.

 

While modifying the elements seems appealing, I feel as though changing things like that would be a big no-no. The companies that we work with have 100 page legal documents on what can & can't be done with their logos, modifiying them in any way shape or form, is not to be done. While chances are that it would go un-noticed, if things were checked the company I work for would get sued.

 

Is there a way to center something like that on a given space, with out fully constraining the 'logo', or is it best to just eye-ball it?

[JD Mather]

You could use a construction line rectangle with at diagonal line.

I forget what version of Inventor you are using - but in 2010 or later I would turn the logo into a Sketched Block (with the suggested rectangle and diagonal line) for easy placing and or scaling as needed. By using as a Sketch Blocke you don't have to worry about constraints or dimensions.