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How Complex of an Assembly Can Inventor Handle?

12 REPLIES 12
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Message 1 of 13
JohnnyKash
1588 Views, 12 Replies

How Complex of an Assembly Can Inventor Handle?

I'm wanting to model something rather unusual. It's simple and complex at the same time. I've already got the most important part to make it modeled, and I can toss the others off quickly (they're just sticks at different scales), so it will be easy--I can handle tedious work if it's making something I enjoy.

 

But I don't want to waste a whole day putting it together if the program can't handle it. Can Inventor handle something like this? http://www.frc.ri.cmu.edu/users/hpm/project.archive/robot.papers/1999/NASA.report.99/9901.NASA.S5.ht...

 

I'd only make it to six levels of branching, so 243 end fingers. It'll look much like the 5th image up from the bottom of the page, but I'll be putting the fingers on a joint that is rather more complex than a ball-and-socket: 11 moving parts.

 

So in total it will have . . . 2,673 + 243 + 891 + 81 + 297 + 27 + 99 + 9 + 33 + 3 + 11 + 1 = 4,368 movable parts.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

12 REPLIES 12
Message 2 of 13
JDMather
in reply to: JohnnyKash


@JohnnyKash wrote:

 

So in total it will have 4,368 movable parts. 

 


What is your purpose for having the parts movable?
If this is simply artistic sculpture you want you can simplify by grounding the parts.
I see no discussion of motion control.


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Message 3 of 13
JohnnyKash
in reply to: JDMather

I want to be able to reposition the fingers to make them look like they're grasping objects, or just put them into interesting poses.  

 

I am going to ground the trunk-stem. These fractal hands are going to be placed on the ends of articulated arms in another assembly, which are in turn going to be attached to a robot body.

 

No motion control. I've just been selecting the smaller assemblies inside the larger assemblies and repositioning them one at a time. Since they're constrained, everything up the chain from the repositioned assembly follows to where they should.

 

 

Message 4 of 13
JohnnyKash
in reply to: JDMather

I'm stuck right now. I've had all the different scales of components modeled for at least a week, but when I start putting them together and testing it, there is a major problem. For some reason, when two or three parent-assembly files that have different names, but are otherwise clones of each other, are placed together in a larger assembly file, the daugher-assemblies mirror one another's movents even though they're in completely different parent-assemblies.

 

Why is this happening, and is there anyway I can fix it? I need these assemblies-in-assemblies-in-assemblies . . .  to be like matryoshka-dolls: a change at one scale in one doll won't affect other dolls of the same scale that are inside different parents.

Message 5 of 13
JDMather
in reply to: JohnnyKash

Depends on how you created them (don't use Windows Exporer to copy/rename).

Also - they will need to be set to Flexible in the main assembly (but it sounds like you already did that).


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Message 6 of 13
blair
in reply to: JDMather

You don't list any system hardware spec's, a decent spec'd machine should be able to handle it. I wouldn't want to try it on a Core 2 duo machine with 2Gb of memory and an integrated graphics card.


Inventor 2020, In-Cad, Simulation Mechanical

Just insert the picture rather than attaching it as a file
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Message 7 of 13
JohnnyKash
in reply to: JDMather

I copy/renamed them in Inventor from the get-go.

 

Just to make sure there's no misunderstanding: the daugher-assemblies do share the same name between parents. Inside the smallest scale parent-assembly (1/16th), there are three daughter-assemblies: 1, 2, and 3. Their actual names are much longer and more descriptive than that, but the numbers on the ends tell them apart.

 

1, 2, and 3 packaged inside Parent A shouldn't, if everything was working right, affect changes to 1, 2, and 3 inside Parent B when A and B are both in a larger assembly, correct?

 

 

 

 

Message 8 of 13
JohnnyKash
in reply to: blair

4GB RAM, 2.1 GHz processor.

 

This hiccup is happening when I'm mating the 1/16th scale assemblies to the 1/8th scale assemblies. There's not that many parts at this level. It's not having difficulty processing the changes when I move parts; I don't think it could be that.

 

 

Message 9 of 13
JohnnyKash
in reply to: JohnnyKash

I've tried so many different things into the early mornings on several days, and nothing works. Is there no way to get it to recognize the nesting of the assemblies, and not cause changes between them? Building the bush out of individual elements would be nuts, like building a tree one twig at a time. I need to be able to clone assemblies, nested in assemblies, nested in assemblies, over and over, so I don't have to constrain almost 700 sub-assemblies (half of which are assemblies in their own right).

What can I do? Can the program even do this?
Message 10 of 13
JDMather
in reply to: JohnnyKash


@JohnnyKash wrote:

What can I do? Can the program even do this?

Most likely the only way to get a definitive answer is to have an experienced person take a look at the assembly.


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Message 11 of 13
swalton
in reply to: JohnnyKash

Each time you use a sub-assembly with the same file name, sub 1, 2 or 3 in you example, you create a dependant copy of it.  For every sub-assembly that needs independant motion, you need an indpendent iam file.

 

in your example, you should structure you iam like this:

top level iam

  Sub assembly A

     Sub assembly 1A

       Part 1

       Part 2

       etc

     Sub assembly 2A

       Part 1

       Part 2

       etc

     Sub assembly 3A

       Part 1

       Part 2

       etc

  Sub assembly B

     Sub assembly 1B

       Part 1

       Part 2

       etc

     Sub assembly 2B

       Part 1

       Part 2

       etc

     Sub assembly 3B

       Part 1

       Part 2

       etc

 

Once you have your Sub Assembly A built and working correctly, you can copy it to make Sub Assembly B.  I think Design Assistant will let you copy Sub A to Sub B and make Sub 1B, 2B, 3B at the same time. 

Steve Walton
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Message 12 of 13
JohnnyKash
in reply to: swalton

You're right.

 

I haven't been able to find a tutorial explaining how to do what you describe (renaming it and its children all at once), though I've web searched for hours, and tinkered around in Assistant looking for how to do it--nothing. All I can find is changing the names one by one, which is, of course, a nightmare in this scenario.

 

 

Message 13 of 13
JohnnyKash
in reply to: swalton

Please, does anyone know where I can find a tutorial or anything that will explain how to do this? I've looked for about five hours today, and can't find anything. I'm getting really stressed out, up against a deadline.

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