Place an iAssembly in a master assembly

[prc21]

Hi All,

I have been working on creating an iAssembly that contains 6 different assemblies. When I place this assembly in to another master assembly, I choose which subassembly to show. My problem is that I have iLogic that allows me to change the parameters of the subassemblies as well. When I change the parameters of the newly dropped assembly, it also changes the parameters in the factory assembly. Is there a way to save the subassembly that I picked and all of its components in the new assembly's location?

[johnsonshiue]

Hi! Did you place the iAssembly factory or iAssembly member in a new assembly?

Thanks!

[JoyceZhou]

Would you mind sharing the dataset to me so i could take a look at it? please contact me: jinghua.zhou@autodesk.com.

Thanks,

[prc21]

I am placing the factory into a new master assembly.

[johnsonshiue]

Hi! Placing an iAssembly (or iPart) factory into another assembly is not a recommended workflow. The reason is that the occurrence of such file solely depends on the active member on author table when the factory file was last saved. The factory file is supposed to be treated like member author and member generator. It should not have been directly referenced as a component.

Could you tell me why you want to use this workflow? How does it help accomplish your design goal?

Thanks!

[prc21]

Thank you for the reply.

I have 7 variations of hydraulic cylinders (assemblies). My company gets these cylinders custom made, so I have a bunch of parameters within each assembly that can be changed. I want to configure them in a way that I could open one file, select the cylinder that I want, modify the parameters, and then save that assembly as a new assembly to be used in the future.

I have tried using iAssemblies and iLogic but I always seem to run into a roadblock. For example, I made an iLogic code that suppressed and deleted the assemblies that I didn't pick and then I would do a "pack and go" with the chosen files. The problem with that is that you can only do it once as the assembly must be saved before the "pack and go" and thus saving with assembly with 6 cylinders deleted completely.

Do you have any suggestions?

I really appreciate your help!

[johnsonshiue]

Hi! I need a bit clarification here. I am trying to understand the requirement better. So you have 6 variations of custom-made cylinder component. You want to place one variation in another assembly. Then you want to use some parameters in the top-level assembly to drive which variation to be used in the assembly. Is this fairly accurate in terms of the requirement?

If yes, I am not sure why iAssembly member (variation) plus iLogic code could not fulfill the requirement. If no, could you give me a more clear description of the requirement?

Thanks!

[JoyceZhou]

Hi

I take a look at the iassembly "all_cylinders.iam", and i find the design is a little complex, i want to clarify it with you.

The top iassembly "all_cylinders.iam" includes 7 members from different sub-iassemby. And each sub-iassembly member only have one member in  its iassembly table to set "Stroke" value. The 7 sub-iassemblys have different components  which all refer to a parameter part whose Part Number is "SR_Parameters", but file name is different.

And the top iassembly "all_cylinders.iam" have 14 ilogic rules, 7 to set one special True/false parameter to True, and the other 7 rules is to set the original referred parameter part's parameter value when one special True/false parameter is True.

So I assume you design workflow is as follows

1. Create the SR_Parameters.ipt, then save copy it 6 times as other names, e.g DR_Parameters.ipt

2. Create other components under SR folder, e.g SR_Bearing, link the SR_Parameters.ipt in Parameter dialog, then create features by refer to the linked parameter. Save copy as other 6 names.e.g DR_BEARING.ipt. 

3. Save copy as other SR part files.(in SR iassemby, i find several components share the same Part number.)

4. Create SR_Assembly.iam, link the  SR_Parameters.ipt in Parameter dialog, then placing the SR components.  change it to iassembly, add the  "Stroke" parameter in iassembly Tab.  

5. Save copy the assembly to another 6 names, then replace the SR component with other names,e .g DR_xxx. 

6. Create the the All_cylinders.iam, then place the 7 sub-iassemblies. change the top assembly to iassembly. then create the ilogic rule to control the original linked xxx_Parameters.ipt's parameter value.

Is the workflow similiar as yours?

If yes, i think there is something we could consider:

• Parts  use different Part number
• Use one unified sub-iassembly which have 7 members to illustrate the 7 veriations.

Hope for your information.

Thanks,

[prc21]

Thanks for taking a look!

Yes my workflow was similar to what you described. One difference is that the XX_Parameters.ipt in each cylinder assembly is different because each cylinder has different features on some parts. Also, I put the "stroke" parameter in the XX_Parameters.ipt so it is not controlled by the iAssembly any more.