Welding Work Geometry Error

[alexmende]

Once ANY work geometry is constrained to a feature made on the Machining Process of a Weldment.iam, no more welds are able to be added in the Welding Environment unless the Work Geometry's "sick" mates are manually suppressed. Once the sick mates are suppressed, welds can once again be added to the Weldment. When returning to the top level, the errors must be accepted and the previously sick mates must be unsupressed.

It wouldn't let me post my file, but I hope these images help.

The following is an example of the work flow I have used in designing parts in the past:

I need to make a weldment. Let's start with two parts and weld them together. I'm not sure if I can put weld on the surfaces with the angled hole so let's try hold that with a groove weld on one surface until I am more sure.

Great. Now I have the part generally how I want. But wait! I just found out that it's better to do a fillet weld all the way around the top block. Let's try and edit that. I click on the Weld process as seen in the next picture.

Oh no! I'm getting the following error when I go to the Weld Process.

I'm going to click "Accept" any way because I know a way around this silly error. That geometry that is no longer available because it is defined during the Machining Process with respect to a feature made in the Machining Process. Let's explore this.

You can see that "Mate 2" is the culprit of the error. In fact that axis is completely headed in the wrong direction! That axis is supposed to be in line with "Hole 1." "Hole 1" was made during the Machining Process and therefore, cannot function in the Welding Process. Below is how "Work Axis 1" is supposed to look.

 

Let's get back to the problem though. While in the Welding Process, I cannot place down any new welds while this work axis has an error.

Well that looks good. It's got a nice preview and everything, but let's click "OK" and see what happens.

It does not allow you to put the weld in when the error message pops up. You can either edit the weld or cancel. Either option will not get you the weld. Let's try and fix our current process so that we are no longer working in a "Sick" model. To do this and not lose our Machining referenced Work Geometry, we need to suppress the guilty mate (mates).

After the sick mate is suppressed, the Welding Process that we are currently in is no longer "Sick." Let's add a fillet weld for fun.

Now I am going to "Return" to the top level. Once we accept the error and unsuppress "Mate 2," our drawing will be as happy as can be.

And the drawing is happy once again.

This process should be avoided in order to edit a Weldment.iam. I recommend either making Work Geometry process specific, automatically suppressing these type of errors, or making Inventor a little smarter so that it does not do this.

Thanks. If you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask!! 

http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/inventor-general-discussion/can-t-add-welds-after-adding-machining-fea...

[inv.ideareview]

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