Spawn Parts on a coordinate within an Assembly with EXCEL.

[CharlieElbakry]

I have a list of parts in excel with type, location, and rotation.

Is there a way to spawn the right type part (Either A,B,C,) of a premade part in Inventor to a certain location?

Part A ->  X,Y,Z, + Rotation

Part B ->  X,Y,Z, + Rotation

Part C ->  X,Y,Z, + Rotation

Part A ->  X,Y,Z, + Rotation

Part B ->  X,Y,Z, + Rotation

Basically to tell inventor to place a part on a location defined by an excel list.

Help would be much appreciated!

[Curtis_Waguespack]

Hi CharlieElbakry,

I don't know of anyway to place components in an assembly straight from the Excel data with the standard tools. But I think you would be able to do this with some custom iLogic code. Have you used iLogic in the past?

If you provide an example of the Excel file and some more details about where the parts are located, etc. then I think someone might be able to work up an simple example code.

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

[johnsonshiue · Accepted solution]

Hi! If you are VBA or iLogic savvy, there might be ways to do that. The closest workflow out of box would be iMate. You will have to manually define iMate in each component document based on the specification listed in Excel. Then, make sure the hosting assembly has the corresponding iMate ready (unconsumed). Then, on placing the components to the assembly, they will be snapped to the desirable location with the specified transformation.

Another way to do that is to use UCS. You can create a parametric UCS in the component with the specified transformation. For example, if you want subassemblyA to be located (10mm, 5mm, 3mm) and rotated 45 deg around X-axis. There are two ways to accomplish this using UCS.

Option A: Create transformed UCS in the hosting assembly.

1) Open the hosting assembly.

2) Link the Excel table (assumed formated properly) to Parameters.

3) Create as many parametric UCS as the number of the subassemblies you need to insert.

4) Make sure each UCS' X, Y, Z, and roatation parameters are linked to the linked parameters.

5) Open each subassembly and create a UCS at origin.

6) Place the subassemblies.

7) Create UCS constraints between the transformed UCS and the subassembly UCS.

Option B: Create transformed UCS in the subassembly.

1) Open each subassembly to be inserted.

2) Create a UCS and make sure the X, Y, Z, and rotation parameters are opposite to the spec (-10mm, -5mm, -3mm with rotation of -45 deg around X).

3) Open the hosting assembly.

4) Create a UCS at origin

5) Place the subassembly and create UCS constraint between the transformed UCS in the subassembly and the origin UCS in the hosting assembly.

Let me know if more information is needed.

Thanks!