Hole feature - threaded hole minor dia

[acad-caveman]

Guys

  Is there a way to tell Inventor to use the mean value for threaded holes?

As it is IV always puts the Minor-min value for the hole size, which is a PITA for any and all CAM softwares.

The thread data can be extracted in CAM, but the hole size still remains what it's modeled as.

I know I can edit the spreadsheet and cheat it, but that isn't exactly the correct way to go about it.

Thanks

[SBix26]

Document Settings > Modeling tab > Tapped Hole Diameter.  You have a choice of Minor, Pitch, Major and Tap Drill.

[acad-caveman]

Thanks, but that's just it.

What I'd like the ACTUAL size to be is the MEAN value of the minor dia.

IOW let's assume a 1/2-20 thread. It's minor dia is .207--.196. Out of the box, Inventor uses the .196dia as the feature size (when minor is selected in the document options )

While this is OK for design and drafting purposes, it is all but useless when the part goes to manufacturing since noone in their right mind would machine a feature ( ANY feature) to it's upper or lower limit as a target.

What I'm asking is if there was a way to instruct Inventor to calculate the MEAN value and use that as the feature size?

[Curtis_Waguespack]

Hi acad-caveman,

I think you meant 1/4-20 in your previous message, but I think what you're looking for is the Thread.xls file.

If you go to Application Options > File Tab you'll see a path for Design Data, in there a file called Thread.xls that can be customized. (the default install path is something such as :C:\Program Files\Autodesk\Inventor XX\Design Data

It's a good idea to save off a backup copy (Thread_backup.xls) before you start making changes.

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

[acad-caveman]

Curtis

  Yes, I did mean 1/4-20, but I am a TFS sufferer.

And yes, I know about the XLS file, but I'm kinda hesitant to edit it because it is in fact correct in all other ways and doing so would be cheating it into shape.

I will look into the possibility however to change the tap drill diameter and use that instead.

It is still cheating, but the drill info is not very often used anyway when creating programs through CAM.

[acad-caveman]

Ok, just a quick update.

I've edited the spreadsheet by changing the explicit drill size column to a formula of

(minormax - Minormin) / 2 + Minormin

I've then changed the document default to use "tap drill" for feature size.

I did get a warning about graphical representations of the thread feature might not be correct, but otherwise it is working exactly as I intended it to.

Thanks folks!