Autodesk Inventor

[#1]

Hi guys,
 
I am looking for solution for my problem which concerned placing a lot of standard elements in assembly. The assembly is a frame which consists of standard profiles and those elements are standard fasteners. All from item24. I have 3-5 fasteners in library (about 200 of every kind in assembly) which are placed in standard way (three constraints). The frame is a normal assembly, not a frame generator, unfortunately. What I want is a way or functionality for placing those fasteners in fast way with ability to choose proper geometry of profiles and other parts (holes).
 
The best way would be to use it like bolts and washers from content center with idrop/i-drop functionality. I have never published my own library to Content Center, but yesterday I spent a lot of time reading that its hardly possible to use this i-drop for personal purpose. I found only opinions, but no examples.
 
Another nice thing would be the ability to have constraints preloaded at the moment of placing element in assembly and select only proper geometry of profiles and parts in proper order. I'm thinking of i-mate with only one half (I haven't use them much). Unfortunately I haven't managed to do that using i-mates - they start working only when there is another part with i-mate in assembly and pair with them. I couldn't find any materials about how to use i-mates in a way I have described. I don't want to use alt+drag.
 
Can anyone help me with that problem? Is there a way to speed up placing 3000 constraints in several projects?
 
I am using Inventor 2011.

[#2]

If some of your frame holes are patterned, you can constrain your fasteners into the first hole, then use the Component Pattern tool to populate the rest of the holes in that pattern.

If you are using more than one fastener per hole (bolt & nut, or screw & washer, for example) and a number of holes are the same depth, you can assemble the fasteners together as a phantom assembly and place the assembly rather than individual parts.

I'm curious why the iDrop or Bolted Connection functionality wouldn't work with your own library fasteners.  I haven't tried this, but I would think that copying and altering a default library fastener would give Inventor everything it needs to use those tools.

Sam B
Inventor 2012 Certified Professional

Please click "Accept as Solution" if this response answers your question.
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Inventor Professional 2013 SP1.1 Update 2
Windows 7 Enterprise 64-bit, SP1
HP EliteBook 8770w; 8 GB RAM; Core™ i7-3720QM 2.60 GHz; Quadro K4000M
SpaceExplorer/SpaceNavigator NB, driver 3.16.2
still waiting for a foreshortened radius dimensioning tool in Drawing Manager

[#3]

Thanks for your reply,

As far as iDrop (I found now it is auto drop ) and bolted connection concerned they would work as You said but only if my component would be bolt, nut, washer, or bearing (or something similar with appropriate set of parameters and imates (number and type). I have read that this functionality only works with standard content center components from Autodesk and those which are copied from content center, modified and appropriate published in content center. The problem is my “fasteners” are not bolts, nuts, washer and so on. During publishing to content center I can not use standard component family because of different set of constraints I want, and different parameters (which can be add). I have found information that it is impossible to add your own content center family with auto drop functionality, because Autodesk did not provide such function. Only standard libraries, and copied standard libraries which do not match to my fasteners (as far as constraints set concerned). Unfortunately I haven't checked that because I am in hurry with another project. I only know that I couldn't publish my part with imates as a bolt. That is why I am asking about any idea how to obtain that.

Those fasteners are combinations of brackets, fasteners, bolts and what is most important T-nuts. They are ipt parts or iam assembly so they are as a one component. Profiles have t-slots and some my parts have holes for bolts to fasten them to frame. For example those fasteners are placed to frame profiles but usually only two constraints are used. Third one is used to fasten my parts. Other example is fastening two profiles with appropriate fastener. Hardly ever they are placed in any pattern (of course I use component pattern where I can) Here are examples of fasteners (there is info about mounting in “additional information):
http://www.item24.co.uk/en/home/products/product-catalogue/productdetails/products/automatic-fasteni...
http://www.item24.co.uk/en/home/products/product-catalogue/productdetails/products/angle-bracket-zn/...
http://www.item24.co.uk/en/home/products/product-catalogue/productdetails/products/angle-bracket-al-... .