Can I place the same part in a assembly with different values?

[Anonymous]

Good day all.

I need a solution for a challenge that I've been having for a while.

If a place a pipe piece with a length fro example 350mm and I place another pipe piece with a length of 400mm. Is there a way to place the same part with the two (or more) values? I did try the iPart route and to create a multi value in my part parameter for the length equation but in both cases you can only select a length and all the parts in the assembly updates to the new length selection.

Thank you

Gerad.

[JDMather]

Is there a reason you can't use Frame Generator for this?

More information is needed.

[Anonymous]

Unfortunately it is not for steelwork. It is for flanged pipework. We do not use routed systems when we do our piping. The main reason for that is our companies piping standard is set up differently than what Routed Systems can offer. We run a sweep feature and then manually populating the sweep with our fittings from the content centre.

The way our standard is set up for example on a 25m pipe run. We will populate it with 2x 9m Flanged Spool Pieces, 1x 6m Flanged Spool Piece that leaves me with a 1m gap which we will replace with 1,5m Flanged Closure Piece. (Our Closure Pieces is available in 500mm increments raging from 500mm to 3000mm.) In this case we will use a 1,5m Closure for site adjustment.

But now the problem is that we will have more than one 1,5m Closure in a pipe run (especially on Pipe Racks) so now our folder were we would save that specific pipe runs parts will have more than one 1.5m closure saved in that folder and that is where the confusion starts.

What we are currently doing is instead of saving the closure as a 1,5m Closure Piece, we are saving it as the actual length (In this case 1m Closure Piece) but the iProperties still shows is as a 1,5m Closure Piece (For my Bill of Material) but the problem with that is that if the original run changes from 25m to 25.25m we can manually update the length but it is still saved (the File Name) as a 1m Closure Piece. We can delete the original file and place a new closure piece from the content centre with a length of 1,25m but then we lose all the information we attached to that part on the Isometric Drawing like the dimension and the Parts List Balloon and most of the users in our company are too lazy to do it the long/correct way around.

If there is a way to have one part with different lengths I can save my file name as a 1,5m Closure Piece. We can play around with the closure length as the pipe run increases or decreases and still keep the intelligence on the isometric drawing.
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[cbenner]

JD can correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe the short answer is no.  One part cannot be in an assembly multiple times with different lengths.

From your description, I still cannot understand why you are not using Tube & Pipe for this.  We do flanged, lined steel piping all the time with T&P, I just had to create a custom pipe conduit in the Content Center that has flanged ends.  With the T&P styles, you can establish rules for min and max length, and increments.  The system is highly flexible,... far from perfect, but from what you wrote, I think it would save you a lot of time and work.

[Anonymous]

If I understand you correctly, you might want to save it as a custom part when inserting, not a standard content center part. This way you can give it it's own name, change the size and update the name to match without loosing any of your information already set within it. This should not be done on every occurance, but only those that you know will probably end up changing.

You can also use the replace from content center option or change size option by RMB the standard CC part which will not be available on a CC part set to custom. So there are drawbacks. Have you tried the replace or change size options instead of deleting and inserting a new one? They almost always keep the baloons and such attached to the part that previously existed.

[Anonymous]

Thank you for the reply.

We did use T&P on one of our projects a few years ago on 2009 Inventor Pro on all our welded/screwed pipework but we had endless trouble with constrains and routings jumping all over the place when equipment is moved. Please keep in mind that we could not receive to proper training for routed systems from our software provider. However the pipelines on the pipe rack worked fairly well with T&P because once the rack is positioned and you got your basic route to get the spacing correct between pipe lines is a breeze. However we normally use flanged pipework on pipe racks because for easier construction, the project we did on T&P was project specific and that was n request from the client to use welded pipework.

Unfortunately the experience we had from routed systems (2009 Pro) and the limitations we found for flanged pipework made us change to the more stable route which was the manually populating a sweep. I did however hear that there was a lot of improvements on the T&P but I am not convinced that it will work for our needs (Especially flanged pipework). We have more than one standard pipe length with more than one type of closure piece and each one with its own mark number. I will look into that again once we upgrade to 2013 sometime soon. Hopefully.
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[JDMather]

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@Anonymous wrote:
.... made us change to the more stable route which was the manually populating a sweep. I

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I still think Frame Generator might possibly be a solution.  You can add your own profiles.  Frame Generator is nothing more than a sweep tool with pre-defined profiles and a few editing enhancements.

Might be worth investing in Routed Systems training as well.  I don't have a lot of experience in that area of the product, so not sure what might have been causing the problems you experienced or if training would solve those problems.

I think the difference between a Frame Generator solution and Routed Systems is how the sweep paths are set up.
In Routed Systems it should be a bit easier, but care needs to be taken to get a robust solution.

In Frame Generator you would have to create a skeleton file of sweep paths in a more manual way, but not all that different.

[Anonymous]

swhite wrote:

If I understand you correctly, you might want to save it as a custom part when inserting, not a standard content center part. This way you can give it it's own name, change the size and update the name to match without loosing any of your information already set within it.



We do place the closure pieces as a custom part and we add the length we require from the content center. The problem comes in when you want to change the length a second time. Then the length that is shown in the model is not the same as the length that is saved in the file name description.

One thing that I did find that works and I do not lose the information on my drawing is that instead of deleting the previous closure piece, I use the 'replace from content center' command. It is not exactly what I want. I still need to have more than one of the same iproperties part but at least the file name corresponds to the length in the model.

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[Anonymous]

Granted, your name will not update itself if you set it to a custom part, but you can easily retype the partname to match on a custom part which cannot be done on a standard part, except as an overwrite on the drawing parts list. If you have a length field in your part try in the name field to put for example "3/8"Ø x <your length field> Flanged Pipe". This will always put the current length in the name, although you might do that manually on your custom parts as am not sure if it would allow a variable for a standard CC part in the name field.

[Anonymous]

JDMather wrote

I still think Frame Generator might possibly be a solution. You can add your own profiles....


I did not think of that. I will experiment with this. My initial concern will be by mixing Tube & Pipe parts with Structural Shape parts it will open up a new can of worms for me with new problems.

The problem with our software provider regarding the training is that we knew more about the T&P than they did by just playing around with different ideas so when we got to a problem they could not help us.
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[cbenner]

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@Anonymous wrote:

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@Anonymous wrote:
.... made us change to the more stable route which was the manually populating a sweep. I

I think the difference between a Frame Generator solution and Routed Systems is how the sweep paths are set up.
In Routed Systems it should be a bit easier, but care needs to be taken to get a robust solution.

In Frame Generator you would have to create a skeleton file of sweep paths in a more manual way, but not all that different.

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The main difference for the way I use Routed Systems vs FG (I use both) is that Routed systems will break the piping around a fitting placed inline, creating 2 spools where there was previously one.  This may not be what you need to do, I'm not sure.

The routes are basically 3D sketches and can be constrained just like such.  But, as JD said, if you go that route... get some basic training.  We were trained in Pro Engineer piping, so the swithc back to Inventor wasn't much of a leap.