Autodesk Inventor

[#1]

Hello,
     I'm using Inventor frame generator to build all my frames and it
it's been a great tool for me. At some point I found that I can Demote
members with it. The whole idea is amazing because I can make infinite number
of subframes driven by one 3d sketch. See screenshot attached, in this example I
have 3 frames based on one 3d sketch. The only problem with it I cannot add
new members to my demoted subframes... I can open the subframe and manually add parts
to it but I can't drag and drop new frame generator members as I normally do
with parts and assemblies.
     Please, let me know if you have a solution for this problem or need more
clarification.

[#2 · Accepted solution]

Hi ivanmarchenko5879,

You can't add new members to the demoted assembly because that assembly doesn't have a Frame Reference Model in it.

I suspect the developers did not copy the Frame Reference Model down into the new sub assembly because it becomes too difficult to predict what the users will do past this point, and risks the issue of creating copies of files that then get abandonded and/or creates some situation where Inventor begins to chase it's tail trying to update based on updates, etc. And it all just becomes a mess in general.

So, what I typically do if I need to add members to the demoted subassembly is to add them at the original level with the goal of then demoting them also. But as you might have noticed you can only Demote frame members to a new assembly. You can't demote them to an existing assembly by dragging and dropping in the browser, like you can with standard non-frame genrator components.

So what I've had to do is promote everything from demoted subassembly and then discard that sub-assembly. Then demote everything again into a new subassembly.

So the take away, is to demote at the final stages of the design. Up until then what I prefer to do is place the frame members in browser folders (select them then right-ckick and choose Add to Folder). I'll name the folders with subassembly names, and then demote them to actual subassembly files as a last action once the design is complete.

I hope this helps.
Best of luck to you in all of your Inventor pursuits,
Curtis
http://inventortrenches.blogspot.com

[#3]

Curtis,

thanks a lot for your reply!

yeah.. this is all makes sense.

"So what I've had to do is promote everything from demoted subassembly and then discard that sub-assembly."

the only problem I found with promoting everything back is I can't delete the old subframe.. delete is just not an option.

thanks.

Ivan. 

[#4]

We are doing a similar thing which seems to be working ok, however, when demoting to a lower level assembly it is only possible to select frame generator parts, so if we have stiffener plates, brackets etc that are 'standard type' parts these have to be dragged and dropped in a second step. This essentially deletes any constraints between the frame generated components and the 'standard type' components...

Anyone have any ideas of how we could get around this? Other than adding the standard type components after the initial demotion that is.

Cheers.

[#5]

Hey Curtis I kind of have a question in relation to this post. When you demote parts of a frame generator is creates a sub assembly right? If so, then how can I revert it back to the original frame? Also when I place my frame generator into a .idw, along with the sub-assembly the balloon only shows once pointing to the assmenbly and does not break out the parts list of that sub assembly. I can kind of see why this happens. So now I want to explode my subassembly back to my main frame generator. I just dont see any easy way around this one. Once you create the sub-assembly, you cant go back right?

[#6]

Hi Cool_Breeze_Jr,

When you demote parts of a frame generator is creates a sub assembly right?

Correct.

If so, then how can I revert it back to the original frame?

You can't.

Also when I place my frame generator into a .idw, along with the sub-assembly the balloon only shows once pointing to the assmenbly and does not break out the parts list of that sub assembly.

Change the subassembly to have a phantom BOM structure.

I hope this helps.
Best of luck to you in all of your Inventor pursuits,
Curtis
http://inventortrenches.blogspot.com

[#7]

That worked! Thank you sir!