Link two very similar parts?

[Cnoj]

I have two parts - negatives of mold cavities used to derive molds - and the only difference between them is one dimension in one sketch.

Up to now, when I need to make a change I just change part A, SaveAs part B then edit that one sketch dim in part B. I then derive my two very slightly different molds from my two slightly different negatives.

Is there some wa to have just one negative and derive my two molds from it, but with that one sketch dimension in the negative changed for one of the derives? Alternatively I wouldn't mind keeping two negatives if the second would auto-update when I change the first.

Hope that makes sense. please say if it doesnt.

Thanks,

Jon.

[Cnoj]

Ok better explanation hopefully:

I need to create mold A and mold B (pic below) and they have almost identical cavities. The depths (d0 in the sketchs) are the only difference.

My problem is if I want to add an identical feature to both cavities I have to modify both neg A and neg B even tho I want them identical in every way _except_ that d0 dimension.

Up to now I'm modifying neg A then saving as neg B then fixing the d0 dim in neg B.ipt.

It works OK but it's not very intuitive for anyone picking this up in the future and I'd feel much happier having just one master negative. Any ideas how?

(All models attached hopefully.)

Thanks,

Jon

[Curtis_Waguespack]

Hi  Cnoj,

Linking part parameters might be the way to go

If you can view youtube.com, here is a quick video by Thom Tremblay showing the steps to link parameters between parts:

http://youtu.be/Q8Qt5hs7xpE?hd=1&t=1m43s

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

[JDMather]

Look into Derived Components as well.

[ampster401]

those are JD, I had a msg posted here suggesting that as well but deleted it once I seen the parts the OP posted.

[Cnoj]

Well I looked into linked parameters but it didn't really get me there. I need neg B.ipt to be identical to neg A.ipt in every way except for dim 'd0'.

Can I derive neg B from neg A but then alter the 'd0' in neg B to always be 10mm more than the 'd0' in neg A?

That way I'd only ever have to edit neg A.ipt and my changes would proliferate through neg B without me manually doing the 'saveAs neg B' thing, giving me just a single 'master' to edit which is my overall goal.

[Curtis_Waguespack]

Hi  Cnoj,

Attached are two of your example files that have been linked together ( it looks like you're using Inventor 2010, so these were modified in that version).

The common parametes in neg_A are linked into neg_B, so that if changes to the common parameters are made in neg_A they push all the way through to mold B - derived.ipt.

You could also derive neg_B from neg_A as JDMather suggested, or use a Multibody part approach, but since you have the files already created, linking the parameters works well, unless I'm missing something.

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

[Cnoj]

Still not really what I'm looking to do.

Say I add a hole to neg A: I'd then like an identical hole to appear in the 10mm taller neg B. To achieve this I've been editting neg A, saving it as neg B then editing that dim 'd0' in neg B  to make it 10mm taller again.

I'm trying to remove the saveAs and edit of neg B steps so I only ever have one file - neg A - to edit.

I know it all sounds a bit trivial with my posted example but I'm actually working with fairly complex geometary and trying to make the model as intuitive as possible.

Just for insight, here's one of the multi part molds I'm deriving from negatives.

[Curtis_Waguespack]

Hi  Cnoj,

Adding a feature does give this a bit of a wrinkle. I think I'd look at iParts for this maybe? You'd have one parent iPart factory called neg_1 and then two members of the iPart factory called neg_A and neg_B. Then you'd suppress or compute features as needed, and set dimensions for each member separately as needed as well.

see attached example

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