Reducing processing time for large asm's

[mrlegoman]

Our large asm's usually consist of 3-400 parts along with 2-300 fasteners. We use a lot of socket head cap screws and they seem to be pretty detailed with chamfers and hex cutouts in the heads. So we may have 30 different screws called out 2-10 times each.
How much memory/video processing time could we save by deleting these extra features in our hardware?
I know patterned components and coils are a memory killer. But when we add a fillet edge to a washer that is called out 200 times in a model, how much are we hurting ourselves?

Is Inventor modeling that washer 200 times? Or is it only holding one instance of it in memory and repeating that instance 200 times?

Bottom line, our models are taking forever to open, crash at least one to two times a day and some of our idw's are 10-15mb's each. We need some simple suggestions on how to simplify our models.
Thanks!

[mcgyvr]

Computer Specs???

[Josh_Petitt]

for your IDWs here is something I have found that helps.

Lets say you have a top level sub-assembly created from a number of sub-assemblies. The sub-assemblies may have further sub-assembies and or parts.

Split the drawing up as follows:

- Make the master drawing with only views of the top level sub-assembly. You can section, detail etc...

- Make a secondary drawing with views of the sub-assemblies, but do not put in a view of the top-level assembly anywhere in the drawing.

- If necessary make a third drawing detailing parts. Do not put any views of top-level or sub-assemblies in this drawing.


This has dramatically improved speed of opening and switching pages in our drawings because each drawing has less sheets, and the two drawings w/o the top-level sub-assembly do not have to worry about updating a complicated view if your model changes.

[mrlegoman]

Depends.
I'm got a Dell Optiplex GX260
P4 2.8 GHz
2GB RAM
Win XP Pro SP2
NVidia GeForce FX 5200 128MB

Others in the office have:
Dell Precision 670
Xeon 3GHz
2GB ram
Quadro FX 1400 128MB

[mrlegoman]

We do tend to keep out drawings to a single sheet. Each part has it's own idw. And then each sub-asm has it's own idw. And then our master asm's and layout drawings usually have one to two sheets pointing out the sub-asm's. It's these master drawings and any of our base plates with hole charts that tend to get really big.

[mcgyvr]

legoman, we do it exactly the same here and I too find that they tend to get to be large files and really slow. (also only 1 or 2 sheets) Its just seems inventor doesnt seem to handle large assemblies quickly at all. But even then our files size for the largest one I have 700+ parts is just over 2.5megs (lots of screws/fasteners also)

I would dumb down your screws/bolts,etc.. unless you need to detail the drawing/part for fabrication I try to make screws pretty undetailed, just the head/shaft with no thread image.

If the only thing R12 improved was overall speed I would be a happy man.

[mcgyvr]

maybe try and do a test drawing saving and checking file size along the way to see where it starts to get huge.

[Anonymous]

Will it be possible for Autodesk to obtain your dataset to look into it and
understand the issue.

To answer your specific question, Inventor does not model the washer 200
times. It has one part in memory and multiple instances of the same part.

Thanks,
Prabakar.

wrote in message news:5200349@discussion.autodesk.com...
Our large asm's usually consist of 3-400 parts along with 2-300 fasteners.
We use a lot of socket head cap screws and they seem to be pretty detailed
with chamfers and hex cutouts in the heads. So we may have 30 different
screws called out 2-10 times each.
How much memory/video processing time could we save by deleting these extra
features in our hardware?
I know patterned components and coils are a memory killer. But when we add a
fillet edge to a washer that is called out 200 times in a model, how much
are we hurting ourselves?

Is Inventor modeling that washer 200 times? Or is it only holding one
instance of it in memory and repeating that instance 200 times?

Bottom line, our models are taking forever to open, crash at least one to
two times a day and some of our idw's are 10-15mb's each. We need some
simple suggestions on how to simplify our models.
Thanks!

[mrlegoman]

Good to know. Some in the office suggested taking hardware out of the models completely, but it sounds as though that wouldn't really help a lot.
I wouldn't mind Autodesk taking a look at some of our asm's, but that decision would not be up to me. If I had some contact info I could pass it onto our lead process control personnel.
The biggest problem we have is that all the parts are controlled within "AM-Meridian". If all the parts and asm's are packed on a single disk or harddrive, then opening time is cut dramatically. I know Meridian is 99% of our problem. I was hoping to find a few solutions to implement with our current setup.

[mrlegoman]

oh yeah, currently running I10.

[mrlegoman]

As soon as we place an asm in a drawing it's 500K, then every view we do adds another 3-500K. We never do any solid views.
But the simple act of hitting the save button adds 50K to the file everytime. And for a base plate, as soon as we contruct a hole table it jumps to 2 megs and slows way down. (I hate Inventor hole table btw).
I know it used to be a problem with earlier versions of Inventor saving previous versions, but we're running I10 so I do not understand why the file sizes grow larger everytime we hit save.

[Anonymous]

Even if you have a data management software such as AM-Meridian you will be
having a readable cache of your data in a local or a network drive right?
Can you elaborate on your overall workflow, basically where the parts and
assemblies are stored, is the open always using a network? If you want to
get in touch with me directly to discuss these issues please send me a
e-mail at prabakar.murugappan@autodesk.com.

Thanks,
Prabakar.

wrote in message news:5201058@discussion.autodesk.com...
Good to know. Some in the office suggested taking hardware out of the models
completely, but it sounds as though that wouldn't really help a lot.
I wouldn't mind Autodesk taking a look at some of our asm's, but that
decision would not be up to me. If I had some contact info I could pass it
onto our lead process control personnel.
The biggest problem we have is that all the parts are controlled within
"AM-Meridian". If all the parts and asm's are packed on a single disk or
harddrive, then opening time is cut dramatically. I know Meridian is 99% of
our problem. I was hoping to find a few solutions to implement with our
current setup.

[Ronnie_m]

"I know Meridian is 99% of our problem" ???

I use Teamworks the little brother of Meridian with much bigger assemblies and don't have any problems.

Are you using local workspace with Meridian and are all your libraries etc in Meridian. If using workspace the files are copied onto your local drive and you should be able to access them quickly. I'm regularly opening 5,000 to 20,000 part assemblies without much problems.

Ronnie

[mrlegoman]

We are using local workspaces. But still, it seems to just chug and chug and chug. It is 100% better then it was a year ago in which it took an average 15 minutes to open a 500 part asm. Now it usually takes less then 3-5.
And after the asm is open, when you go to place a parts, the system freezes for about two minutes to "executing replace constraint" and "loading thread table data".

I am told there is a IT/Engineering team working on converting us to a new system in the near future. I do not know the full details.