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Save Parts as New Subassembly

6 REPLIES 6
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Message 1 of 7
JavaLodge
8970 Views, 6 Replies

Save Parts as New Subassembly

Hello all.  I have lurked around for quite a bit on the forums, and have learned so much already just from observing.  I've only been using Inventor for a few months but have rapidly grown to like it.  I learn new things pretty much every day.

 

Here's my question.  I've done a bit of research on it and I don't believe this particular question has been asked before.  I know from the title it might look like I just want to create a subassembly from parts already in an assembly, but it's a little more complicated than that.  What I need is to take some parts from subassembly A, some parts from subassembly B, and save those parts as a completely new assembly C.  I don't want the assembly->subassembly relationship in the original file to be affected, I just want to create a new subassemly file without having to place and constrain all the individual parts again.  

 

Additionally, some of the parts I need to do this with are design accelerator parts.  Will this have any affect on saving as a new subassembly?

 

I'm open to suggestions for doing this another way, I just need a way to create an exploded view from components already in place but in separate assemblies.  I don't want to post any files here from my actual project.  If any are needed I will try to demostrate what I need in a smaller demonstration file.  Thanks in advance.

 

In case any of this information is needed, I use:

 

Inventor Professional 2014

Windows 7 Professional 64-bit

Dual Core 2Ghz Intel Xeon CPU

4 GB RAM

____________________________________________________________
Slow is good and good is fast.
6 REPLIES 6
Message 2 of 7
jbennett_pc
in reply to: JavaLodge

Perhaps you can just save the original assembly as a new assembly and simply remove the unwanted parts.  The relationships between the leftover parts would be retained, though you may need to apply new relationships if certain parts were held together by removed parts.

Message 3 of 7
cwhetten
in reply to: JavaLodge

Hi!  Glad you joined us from lurking in the shadows.  Smiley Happy

 

It seems that the most logical way to approach this would be to use promote and demote.  However, doing this on your existing subassemblies will modify them, which you specifically said you don't want to do.

 

One idea I had was to save copies of subassembly A and subassembly B.  Then place them in a new assembly (just a temporary one).  Then you can promote the components from the copies of A and B, then demote them into a new subassembly C.  This will remove the components from the copied subassemblies, but since they are only copies, you still have your originals intact and all is well.

 

You may still have to fix a couple of constraints, as promoting and demoting can do some funky things with existing constraints (Inventor does its best to read your mind to know what you want it to do with the constraints, but sometimes it gets it wrong).

 

Once you have your subassembly C, you can delete the two messed-up copies of subs A and B, and delete the temporary assembly you used to perform the promote and demote functions.

 

Cameron Whetten
Inventor 2014

Message 4 of 7
Cadmanto
in reply to: JavaLodge

Welcome to the forum.

I have never done this and I have to say that I don't remember seeing this question posted here before.

So, what I think you are asking is to take various parts from certain sub-assemblies and marry them together to formulate yet a different sub-assembly?  This in Inventor world is called "Demoting".  While I have never done what you are specifically looking to do, I did just try it (grabbing different parts from random sub-assemblies) and I was able to RC and select demote with the dialog window coming up allowing me to choose a name and location.

Try it and see if you get the same results.

 

check.PNGIf this solved your issue please mark this posting "Accept as Solution".

Or if you like something that was said and it was helpful, Kudoskudos.PNG are appreciated. Thanks!!!! Smiley Very Happy

 

New EE Logo.PNG

Inventor.PNG     vault.PNG

Best Regards,
Scott McFadden
(Colossians 3:23-25)


Message 5 of 7

Hi JavaLodge,

 

When I've had a need to do something like this, I simply create a new subassembly_C in the top level assembly, and then save the top level assembly. Then I demote or drag and drop the components from subassembly_A into subassembly_C, then drag and drop the components from subassembly_B into subassembly_C. Then I click the Save button while in the top level assembly and set subassembly_A and subassembly_B so that they will not save. So in affect the only changes that are saved are to subassembly_C and the top level assembly. I then close the top level assembly (without saving changes) and reopen it.

 

The result is that components in subassembly_C are all assembled in place and ready to go. Most often when I'm doing this I'm removing subassembly_A and subassembly_B from the top level assembly, so I delete them from the assembly at this point. It might help to set the subassembly_A and subassembly_B files to read-only before starting this process,  just to be safe.

 

I'm going from memory on this process, so you might need to run through cautiously the first time to see if I've forgotten something.

 

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

 

 

Message 6 of 7

Success!  I wish I could mark all of your posts as solutions because I essentially used elements of each to get my new file.  

 

I forgot to mention a couple things which was rather stupid, because they are important details.  I'm not just dealing with two subassemblies.  What I have is one major assembly, consisting of a collection of parts as well as some subassemblies.  What I did was save this assembly a new one, and then delete everything I didn't need.  Then I saved temporary versions of the subassemblies I had and then used component->replace to input the new subassemblies.  Then I simply promoted the components I needed.

 

The whole thing was rather painless, and a good enough workflow for my needs.  Thanks again everyone, you really helped.

____________________________________________________________
Slow is good and good is fast.
Message 7 of 7
Cadmanto
in reply to: JavaLodge

You can select more then one posting as the solution.  You can even give multiple Kudos.

Your choice!!!  Glad you were able to find resolution to your issue.

 

check.PNGIf this solved your issue please mark this posting "Accept as Solution".

Or if you like something that was said and it was helpful, Kudoskudos.PNG are appreciated. Thanks!!!! Smiley Very Happy

 

New EE Logo.PNG

Inventor.PNG     vault.PNG

Best Regards,
Scott McFadden
(Colossians 3:23-25)


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