Working with Inventor 2011 BOM, Cut lists, Units Displayed, custom Iprops, etc.

[ARCross]

I am using Inventor 2011.  Most of my work is in steel frabrication and erection.

I am having some trouble with my BOM.  I have models that use structural members generated with the frame generator, sheet metal parts and purchased parts.  I need a BOM that contains the following columns:

• Part #
• Stock #
• Item Quantity
• Length (Base QTY)
• Total Length (QTY)
• Sheet Metal Extents - (custom iproperty with ipwFlatExtentY x ipwFlatExtentsX that only displays for sheet metal parts)
• Sheet Metal Area (ipwFlatArea)
• Description
• Comments (Sheet # where item is detailed)

All of the length units must be fractional feet and inches.

Some of the problems I have had are:

(1) If I format a column in the Parts List to display fractional feet and inches - unitless parts are displayed as 1".   This is very confusing.  I would prefer the cell empty or to display the word 'Each' instead of 1.  I have used iPropWiz5 to format my exportable properties and this works fine for Sheet Metal Extents and Model Extents but it does not change how 'Base QTY' or 'QTY' is displayed. 

(2) Sometime I find it easier to model structural steel in a mult body part environment.  I then derive these solids into multiple assemblies.  However, I still need the length data for that part in my BOM.  I have tried to acces the ipwModelExtentsZ using a custom iproperty but sometimes the length of the part is not along the Z axis.  I have yet to find a way to change the orientation of the UCS in a part so that the Z Axis is orientated correctly and displays the correct length in the BOM.

A few other things I would like to do but do not think the functionality is yet in Inventor 2011:

Item Numbers that are intrinsic to the part or assembly so that I can generate both Parts Only and Structured Parts Lists and the Item # remains the same for each part.  As it is now, I have had to stop using Item #'s and only use Part #'s in my BOM and Parts Lists.

To create a custom I-prop that recognizes where the part is detailed (Dwg #) and on which sheet (Sheet #) and have it automatically update when the sheet number changes.

I apologize for the long post.  Ive been beating my head against this problem for a while now and finally decided to go for help. 

[Mark_Wigan]

hi ARCross,

i think you will be doing well to achieve all that without some programming or manual work after the exporting of bom's etc.

just quickly though, on item 1, which field are you trying to populate?

on item 2, getting length / extents on a dumb solid, i would have probably made a sketch on the face of whatever i had to measure if there was no parameter to be able to obtain a reference dimension. i know you can edit the coordinate system of a sketch but not sure about the actual environment like in autocad for example. i am vaguely recalling some new tool or even some code that i may have seen that can do this. if i find it i will let you know.

on keeping the same item no. whether in parts only or structured: , i think you will need to have some code done. i am working on some at the moment for a slightly related topic so if i get it sorted i should be able to adjust it to suit your scenario.

on the last item, comment vs sheet #, i would be interested to know more on your idea. i would have thought it would have to be extracted with some code but i am curious as to your own thoughts.

[ARCross]

Thanks for the reply Mark.  I think I will do as you suggested and add a sketch to the part with a driven dimension that will be an exportable paramater labelled 'CutLength' 

I was looking at another posting and the suggestion there was to not use G_L instead of Base QTY.

http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/Autodesk-Inventor/Length-base-qty-unit-qty-from-content-center/td-p/26...

I will substitute 'CutLength' for 'G_L' when that paramater is available.  This will solve my formatting problems and allow me the flexibilty of including both structural steel and any part with the 'CutLength' paramater in my BOM.

So those are two major issues solved! 

Referencing drawing details to sheet numbers continues to be one of my major headaches as the shop wants a ballon on the layout dwgs that displays part# and the sheet# where the part is detailed.  I usually go through my dwgs at the end and manually add sheet# as a custom property but invariably I will be asked to add a sheet in the middle of my set throwing all of my sheet#'s off by one!

[ARCross]

I am still curious if there is a way to reorientate the UCS in a part and make it the origin.  The ability to do that would be very helpful at times.

[pauldoubet]

 I saw your post today and was wondering if you are still needing additional help with these issues?

Thanks, Paul