Parameters Automated Drawing

[MaxOtis]

Hello everybody,

First of all, I am new to Inventor, I have been using SolidWorks and Catia in the past, and I have recently join a company who use AutoCAD LT 2012 and Inventor LT 2012 for their drawings. At the moment, there is absolutely no standards for the drawings of the company and my job is to build a standard and automated catalog of the products. Since our product only differ by dimensions, I am trying to make one universal drawing and makes hundreds of drawing with it.

So, I have an Excel sheet with the dimensions of all our products, and I am trying to find a way to automaticaly link the values of each product to the ipt file and make all the dwg files with it. (VBA will probably be needed for it, but I am not sure if it is available with the LT version.)

If possible, we would like to stay with the LT version, but will upgrade if necessary.

Regards,

Max

[Cadmanto · Accepted solution]

Max,

Welcome to the forum.

I am going to list a few items that you should research and look into and get familiar with before starting down this path.

In Solidworks there was toolbox.  Inventor calls it Content Center.  Look into how to add and configure CC parts.

In Solidworks there were design tables creating configurations.  In Inventor they call them factory and iparts are created from them.  Look into how to create the factory files and set them up.

In Solidworks there were the settings in tools>options.  In Inventor there are application options.

In Solidworks they had the customize portion when you RC'd on the top toolbar.  In Inventor while you can do similar things as what I just mentioned, they have something called the "Styles Editor".  Here you can setup custom BOM's, dimension styles, text styles etc. 

If you research all of these things I think you will have a clearer understanding of where you need to go and do.

[JDMather]

---

@Cadmanto wrote:

In Solidworks there was toolbox. ...

I don't think there is a SolidWorks LT comparable to Inventor LT.

Does Inventor LT even do drawings?

[Cadmanto]

JD,

You are correct that SW does not have a light version.

With him being new to Inventor, I thought it might be useful to draw the comparrisons.

[MaxOtis]

Thank you Cadmanto for your reply !

I already started playing with some of those features and slowly getting use to them 🙂

I believe that what I need is iPart, I am giving the dimensions of the products to an excel sheet linked to iPart.

My boss asked me to create a DWG file of every product (So basicaly, one dwg per iPart). I haven't found any way to make one standard dwg file linked to my iPart that will automaticaly create all the drawings, each in a separate dwg.

Is it possible ? 

Regards,

Max

[Cadmanto]

Max,

I am glad that helped you.

The closest you can come to the one drawing file would be to create one drawing file with multiple sheets.

One for every ipart you need.

[MaxOtis]

Interesting, how would you do that.

I only see how to create dwg one at a time: When I insert views on my dwg, it asks me for ONE iPart.

I don't want to manually create one sheet per iPart, how can I tell Inventor: This is how I want all my iPart on differente sheet.

Regards,

Max

[Cadmanto]

Max,

Here is where you would add additional sheets.

As far as selecting the individual iparts, if you go to the "Model State" tab you will see all of your iparts to select.