topic Re: T&P Pipe materials in Inventor Forum

T&P Pipe materials

Anonymous — Fri, 12 Jul 2019 12:49:33 GMT

I have created Pipes, elbows in the content centre to make Tube and piping styles. I made Stainles steel ones in 304 & 316. I did it by creating 1 material and copying the rows in excel and change the material. What I experience is that I can only choose SS304 and not SS316, and I do can select the elbows in both variations.

Is there a difference in pipes and other fittings?

What would be the best way to have bothe material available in CC to make T&P styles? Maybe just copy the base ipart, change the material there and threat it is seperate pipes...? Or should I use the material guide for both pipes and elbows...?

Re: T&P Pipe materials

Anonymous — Sun, 14 Jul 2019 14:08:29 GMT

@salariua @cbenner Can you guys give some recommendations?

Re: T&P Pipe materials

cbenner — Sun, 14 Jul 2019 17:38:45 GMT

@Anonymous

For standard fitting that get used in tube & pipe styles, only one material is allowed. It will always select the first material it finds. In my opinion it is best practice to keep materials separated into different families anyway, if for no other reason than to minimize the size of the family table. You CAN mix materials in tables that are NOT part of your T&P styles, but not elbows, flanges, gaskets or couplings.

Good luck!

Re: T&P Pipe materials

Anonymous — Sun, 14 Jul 2019 18:56:46 GMT

Thank you @cbenner

So are you saying to use the "material guide" function and create seperate categories? Or start from different iparts and create each elbow-category with diffrent materials?

Re: T&P Pipe materials

cbenner — Sun, 14 Jul 2019 19:23:35 GMT

@Anonymous

If the parts are the exact same geometry there is no need to use a separate ipart. The material guide works well, but I often will simply save a copy of the family table with Save Copy As. Then just edit the new table and change whatever value needs changing, like material and part number for example.

Re: T&P Pipe materials

salariua — Mon, 15 Jul 2019 09:43:02 GMT

This was quite a while back when I was working in TP, so I can't remember having multiple-materials families of fittings in Content Center but I thought there was a way of selecting the exact fitting you want in your style rather than the generic family.

If you can't have more than one material then I would use material wizard as it links families and editing one will alter all of them (except materials).

.....

Did a few more tests and it seems to be working. You can have multiple fitting configurations in same content center family.

In the TP styles dialog choose the pipe first and then expand the elbow family and select the desired material member.

DON'T just select the whole family but expand down and select the specific member.

Here is the content center test family.

Here are the results when selecting the UPVC member. Don't just select the family at point 1, expand it and select the exact member you wan't at point 2. It will list all the members matching your fitting type, angle, diameter.

Here are the results with SS fitting from same family.

Each member has a unique ID (hidden by default) but that is what tube and pipe style uses to identify the exact member to place. If you edit your family table in excel and you un-hide all rows you can see the unique ID of each member.

I have exported the style to xml and it seems it reports the elbow by "family ID" then "member ID".

Last part after the # is the member ID I have in excel family table.

Re: T&P Pipe materials

Anonymous — Mon, 15 Jul 2019 10:22:57 GMT

@salariua

Thanks for the testing. It works for me too with fittings (elbow), but I have a stainless steel pipe (the component were you begin with in T&P) and assigned 2 materials to it (1.4301 SS304) and (1.4401 SS316). Only the SS304 version seems usable...?

Re: T&P Pipe materials

salariua — Mon, 15 Jul 2019 11:09:57 GMT

Try the filter field... in the library browser..

This happens because you have same StockNumber for both of them.

Members are listed by the stock number and you need to have different values or to use the material filter.

Remember that the material filter in the TP style uses the values from your material library and if your family has a custom typed in value then it won't find it on the drop down.

---------------------------------
EDIT #1:

I do seem to get a pop-up error now but I must have messed up my CC family. Give it a try and see if that works on your end, and I will jump back to do some more testing if need be.

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EDIT #2:

I can confirm that it is working. Have fixed the family and it is now error free and working on my end.