Autodesk Inventor

[#1]

I logged a defect against Inventor 6 SP1 yesterday... strange one.

This surfaced while I was creating our own courseware for Inventor Project
and File Management. I was working on a section that dealt with replacing
components via the Design Assistant. The documentation for DA states that
if iConstraints are used to constrain the components, and the identical
iConstraints exist in both the replaced and the replacing component, then
the constraints will be maintained. Well, almost...

I created a dataset consisting of a standard male-to-male power connector
found in any PC. The connector, being plastic with metal connectors inside,
was a subassembly with iConstraints. The four wires (yellow, black, black,
red) were a subassembly with matching iConstraints. In Inventor (not DA
yet), I replaced both of the male connectors on either end with their female
counterparts. Bang. The assembly updated just fine and all the constraints
were correct.

Then I tried it in DA. I replaced the male subassembly with the female
subassembly and clicked Save. DA told me that the updates were successful.
I opened the assembly in Inventor. The male connectors were replaced with
the female connectors, and the iConstraints were maintained, but they were
wrong. One of the iConstraints defined how far the wire is inserted into
the back of the connector (the crimped end). This constraint, although
Inventor did maintain it, was updated incorrectly and the only way to fix it
was to delete the constraint and reapply it.

Strangely enough, however, instead of working with the connectors as
subassemblies, I tried deriving them into parts. This worked fine in both
Inventor and the DA.

So it would appear that there is a small problem with replacing
subassemblies while maintaining iConstraints in the DA. If anyone would
like me to post the dataset to CF so you can see what I'm talking about, let
me know.