is there any better way to add and remove participants to weldment preparations?

[stephanbotes]

currently the best way i can find to update weldment preparation participation is the add participant context menu item. while this "works" it is hardly the a good solution as it can take a long time to individually add or remove all participants affected by a change. this is particularly an issue when the members affected are part of an occurence pattern as it can mean a lot of clicking after any parameter change.

not really sure what alternatives there are but id particulary be interested in an ilogic solution so that i can incorporate the participation update in the rules controlling the occurence pattern...

i saw there have been a variety of similiar threads over the years but none of them seem to have much in the way of solutions.

[Curtis_Waguespack]

Hi stephanbotes,

My preferred method for doing this sort of thing is to select only the components involved in the preparation cut, and then use Isolate to "hide" everything else, then create the cut, then use Undo Isolate to bring everything else back. See this link for a more complete description:

http://inventortrenches.blogspot.com/2011/05/isolate-before-assembly-features.html

You might give this a try and see if it speeds things up in your situation.

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

[stephanbotes]

Thanks for your prompt reply. I see the value of the method you linked when it's a one time edit but it doesnt quite do what im looking for. i attach a picture of the application so you can get a better idea of what im trying to do.

i have a bunch of crossmembers in a frame. they need holes drilled through for conduit runs. the number and spacing of crossmembers is controlled by a number of individual occurence patterns using an ilogic rule to set the number and spacing. this rule references external parameters in an excel spreadsheet.

every time the number of crossmembers change i need to manually include each new member in any preparations it should be part of. 

maybe the issue here is that i should rather be using iassemblies than regular assemblies? currently i just have a single assembly that i simply change the parameters in the external control file for to generate whatever configuration i need. would switch to iassemblies potentially force the preparation to be individually generated for each configuration thus avoiding the necessity to change participation of the occurence members?

[Curtis_Waguespack · Accepted solution]

Hi stephanbotes,

I didn't have the time to work with this, but you might be able to use the sample at this thread to come up with some iLogic code:

http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/Inventor-Customization/adding-a-sub-component-as-a-participant-in-an-a...

Edit:

I took a few minutes to look at the code while waiting on someone to call me back. Here is a quick example iLogic rule that will add the first component occurence of the assembly to the first assembly feature.

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

Dim oDoc As AssemblyDocument
oDoc = ThisApplication.ActiveDocument
    
Dim oExtrude As ExtrudeFeature
oExtrude = oDoc.ComponentDefinition.Features.ExtrudeFeatures(1)
    
Dim oOcc As ComponentOccurrence
oOcc = oDoc.ComponentDefinition.Occurrences(1)
MessageBox.Show("Now the rule will attempt to add " & _
oOcc.Name & " to " & oExtrude.Name, "iLogic")

oExtrude.AddParticipant (oOcc)   

[stephanbotes]

Thank you that is precisely what i was looking for