Unable to open a STEP assembly, Assistance greatly appreciated.

[charlie]

Hi Everyone,

Firstly I would like to thank anyone who take a few moments to help me with this, its causing me great problems. A large engineering company has sent me a selection of these files as 3D models and I have been unable to get them to open. I have tried in Inventor 2012 as well as Inventor 2015.

They tell me to open the STEP assembly file and say that all the other parts should just come into the model - but they don't. When I open it, I simply get a couple of lines on my screen as part of a 3D sketch.

Can anyone suggest how I might get them to open?

The file is shared here: https://onedrive.live.com/redir?resid=CEB2E96A40322F5A!151&authkey=!ADKzoKj5g_NWzQw&ithint=file%2czi...

Its about 30MB - so quite large. The Assembly file in the zip is z13529_asm.stp

Regards

Charlie

[JDMather]

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@Anonymous wrote:

They tell me to open the STEP assembly file....

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They told you wrong as they don't understand CAD files.

They did not save as an assembly - but rather as 400+ individual part files.

You will first have to open each one of these part files to translate into Inventor.

It might be just as well that they saved in this manner, as Inventor might have had trouble opening 400+ parts from one file.

Once you get all the parts transalated, then try the assembly file.  (But I suspect because of the way they saved this - you will have to re-assembly all of the parts.  Good luck with that!)

[charlie]

I have looked at it some more and I don't doubt you, the file that they say is an assembly file ("z13529_asm.stp") references all the other parts in this directory though - so it appears to be a genuine assembly of all the other parts.

So is it just inventor that won't open it?

Something must open it as they are distributing this to their worldwide customer base!! (All the models are in this format!)

[JDMather]

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@Anonymous wrote:

So is it just inventor that won't open it?

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That isn't what I wrote.

Inventor opens STEP files just fine.

How much experience do you have with Inventor or Pro/E.

Did you not understand that you must open every file?

[JDMather]

Depending on you use - some of the parts will need to be repaired as they don't pass Quality Check.

This fillet has a convoluted twist in one corner.

[charlie]

I wasn't doubting you, I just wondered why this assembly file lists all the parts if you have to open each part individually. They are saying it should work and I couldn't make it work, it just seemed bizzare to have this file if it's not really of use.

I don't have any ProE expirence at all, I use inventor Daily, but in a sheet metal context only and for sheet metal assemblies - so experience importing parts is limited. The off stp file I have had has been fine.

I think it was all exported from ProE, but if that won't use this assembly file either then no hope. I wonder what everyone else has done then.

[JDMather]

There are two ways to save the STEP file.

Individual parts and assembly each in a separate *.stp file  (which is what you have if you examine the extracted zip folder contents)

or

one *.stp file containing all the part and assembly files in one STEP file.

The second option would open in one click if they had saved it that way.

Why do you say it is of no use?

Inventor will open the files just fine.

[charlie]

I completely understand what you are saying, but the file I mentioned before that they claim in an assembly file, what use is it?

I see all the other parts are individually saved and I have seen the more normal route of a single stp file (which as you rightly say is very easy).

I am just intrigued as to why they think this assembly file is the key as it's not a part, it lists all the other with various settings that I assume are positions / colours etc.

[JDMather]

If the assembly file was within the step file - it would assembly everything, but since it is outside of the step....

I will try this in Creo (Pro/E) tomorrow, but I don't expect the behavior to be any different in Creo, and I am quite certain I will have to open all the part files before opening the assembly file.

I suspect they need to learn how to handle neutral format files as it sounds like they expect it to exhibit the same behavior as native format (Pro/E) part/assembly files.

[charlie]

Thank you for that explanation, if it works I ProE I can get it and use it to get them into solid steps and feed back to them why what they have done is wrong!

Thank you for the help, it is most appreciated!

🙂

[charlie]

Rather than be lazy and wait, I opted to download the Creo demo last night and see what happened - it opens the assembly file first time and produces this model! Excellent.

Never used Creo before, it seems nice. Would you say it is better/worse than inventor? (Especially on sheet metal?)