Inventor 2013 - Moving parts in my assembly

[mitchell3010]

When I place parts in my assembly they are stuck in the position I place it and can only be moved once I mate it to another part of my assembly. I have only recently encountered this problem, as usually when I place a parts in an assembly I am able to simply click on the component and drag/move that part around to put it in a place that suits before I use any constraints.

What is the problem, have I clicked on some function unknown to myself which has disabled the ability to move parts/assemblies when I place them into an assembly?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[SBix26]

Easiest way to get this diagnosed is to post a small assembly that illustrates the issue (zip the parts and assembly together, roll up End-of-Part markers of individual parts if necessary to get it small enough to post).

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

[mitchell3010]

I have checked and this issue appears to be with just this one assembly which is a rather large assembly.

Also it appears that when I actually place the part in the assembly I can drag/move it around, however the problem arises when I place one constraint on the component.

For example the part may need approx 3 constraints for it to be positioned correctly, however when I put the first constraint on it I am then unable to move the component in any direction. I have been working with this assembly for a week or two now and this issue has only arose in the last day.

Any Ideas?

[SBix26]

Do some searching in this forum-- this issue, or something very similar, comes up pretty regularly.  I don't think anyone has discovered a specific cause of the problem, but several have posted methods by which they worked around it or fixed it.

Sam B
Inventor 2012 Certified Professional

Please click "Accept as Solution" if this response answers your question.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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

[blair]

I would look for "sick" constraints in the assembly. This seems to create a simular issue on my machine.

[RossSapienza]

Has anybody ever come up with a solution to this issue? I'm using 2014 and this is happening to me also with a large assembly file.

[stephenson513]

This happens a lot in 2015 also. Just try ground a bunch of components until the one you want to move starts to move.

They really should fix this

[RossSapienza]

they really should

[ampster401]

I'm leaning towards blair's comment.  Just last week in 2014 I was experiencing the same thing where I would place parts in an assy and after the 1st constraint nothing would move.

I tried all sorts of things but when I noticed the Design Doctor symbol highlighted and took care of what it was reporting, then everything worked as expected.

The problem is the Design Doc doesn't always seem to report problems when they are found or so it seems.

[johnsonshiue]

Hi! Could you show me an example reproducing the behavior in R2015? I am not aware of any pariticular change that could lead to components lock up for no apparent reason. Could you post it here or send it to me directly? I can set up a secure account for you if the dataset is greater than 20MB.

Thanks!

[RossSapienza]

I do not think Design Doctor is the problem (not for at least). I know all of my constraints are correct. I can set ONE constraint a free part and it instantly becomes locked. And when I try dragging it, a long list of constraint "interferences" pops up and I have to cancel for them to go away. And now, all of the sudden, it stopped happening so I can't get a screen shot for your viewing pleasure.

Is it possible that the latest 2014 SVP will help? Could it be I do not have enough GPU or CPU? Please help.

Thanks.

[stephenson513]

As soon as I get it again. I know all my constraints are good. sometimes its on such simple assemblies. I also still get ghosting and when trying to 'cut' a whole but of circles, i have to zoom in and out to get the selection to work or I have to click profile again and again untill I notice that the circles become more circlular. I generally know that I will have problems selecting the circles if they look jaggedy. its like inventor hasnt loaded the circle graphics properly.