topic Re: iPart factory mass override not propagating to members in Inventor Forum

iPart factory mass override not propagating to members

t_tasner — Mon, 02 Jul 2018 04:26:27 GMT

Is there a way to set a mass override either for each factory member separately or for all factory members together?

I've attached a screencast where I override mass for the factory, but mass of the members is not overriden. Am I doing something wrong or is there a bug?

Re: iPart factory mass override not propagating to members

Xun.Zhang — Mon, 02 Jul 2018 07:45:28 GMT

Hello,

It is not supported currently since the iPart member is not able to own the property by itself and there is no way to override the mass property right now.

The current solution more like leverage the Factory's mass property instead, however, the mass in partlist is a problem left.

Please cast your votes to existed ideas in ideastation.

Add Mass Override to Content Center parts

Add mass override to iParts

Hope it helps!

Re: iPart factory mass override not propagating to members

t_tasner — Tue, 03 Jul 2018 07:11:34 GMT

BOM is not such a big problem. The problem is with mass of assemblies containing that part, COGs and so on...

I still think that that is a bug, considering that when you override mass, the correct density is automatically calculated. This density is the same for all members including factory and the properties not present in iPart table of all members plus the factory should be the same.

As a workaround I changed the factory material density to the density that is calculated when you override the mass, which works for me, as all the members have exactly the same 3D model.

The only reason why I use iParts is to represent different characteristics of the model - in my current case hydraulic symbol of the hydraulic valve, description and order code. Or is there a better way to do that without using iParts, because using iParts with Vault and revisions can be sometimes a very big pain?

Re: iPart factory mass override not propagating to members

johnsonshiue — Tue, 03 Jul 2018 22:15:13 GMT

Hi! This is indeed a missing functionality. iPart was designed to create library components. Its definition is totally driven by the factory part. Overridden mass property applies only to the factory part itself, not to its members unfortunately. If you want to override an iPart member like a regular part, you may want to create custom iPart. You simply make one of the columns a custom parameter column (edit the table -> right-click on the column -> check Custom Parameter Column). After that, the iPart factory becomes a custom iPart factory. When you place a member into an assembly, the custom iPart member will behave more like a regular part. You can override the mass. You can add new features but the main body came from the iPart factory.

Many thanks!

Re: iPart factory mass override not propagating to members

t_tasner — Wed, 04 Jul 2018 08:19:47 GMT

I am familiar with custom iParts. But I suppose that I'd have to override mass of the part after placing it into an assembly, which is not acceptable. Or is in this case mass override taken from the factory?

Re: iPart factory mass override not propagating to members

Anonymous — Wed, 04 Jul 2018 10:29:09 GMT

I think it is possible to do to some extend.

The way I did on our parts is you create a dependancy- a formula for your weight calculation in PARAMETERS tab (user defined parameter). Or you may even create several weight parameters, say WEIGHT1, WEIGHT2, WEIGHT3, etc...

Then you would have to create an iLogic.

Mine iLogic is rather simple because I use only a formula to calculate the weight once I change the part geometry in through iPart and formula looks like this:

mass = iProperties.Mass
iProperties.Mass = Parameter("weight")

So maybe you could create an IF statement, saying that IF your iPart is this, then it should use WEIGHT1 for mass calculation. This will override part weight from calculating it based on your density- then it will just manually overrride the mass.

And last thing you will need to do is to add an Event Trigger. You will place your iLogic rule under PART GEOMETRY CHANGE. What it does is that it will automatically override your mass calculation once you change your geometry or change your iPart from one to another.

Re: iPart factory mass override not propagating to members

t_tasner — Wed, 04 Jul 2018 10:42:05 GMT

I already tried the same thing on standard iParts, but it didn't work as iLogic does not propagate from factory to members when using standard iParts.

Maybe your solution works with custom iParts - I add a dummy custom parameter column just to make the part custom.

I'll give it a shot.

Re: iPart factory mass override not propagating to members

Anonymous — Wed, 04 Jul 2018 10:52:04 GMT

Not sure what do you mean by Factory and Members?

Whenever I place our components mass properties are overrided correctly and it seems to work. One of the important things to do is to create Event Trigger, otherwise your weight will not change after you have changed the component geometry.

Re: iPart factory mass override not propagating to members

t_tasner — Wed, 04 Jul 2018 10:58:10 GMT

Factory = ipt containing iPart table

Member = ipt created with parameters of one of the rows in iPart table

I've set a trigger to BeforeSave when I tried it a while ago. The code worked when saving the factory. When generating members the trigger was fired, but Inventor always threw an error that the rule "UpdateMass" could not be run because it doesn't exist. But I tried that with normal iParts and not custom iParts.

Re: iPart factory mass override not propagating to members

Anonymous — Wed, 04 Jul 2018 11:18:05 GMT

I personally don't see how Factory or Member scope will change behaviour of the iLogic.

Just one question- I assume you work between Factory and Member scopes just to have some features to be suppreses on some of the iParts, right? My epxerience with iParts and especially working between Factory and Member scopes is very little- I always use Factory. But can't you just suppress features in factory scope and achieve same thing like in Member scope, but persist part being "factory" scope? If that makes sense? 🙂

Re: iPart factory mass override not propagating to members

t_tasner — Wed, 04 Jul 2018 11:25:51 GMT

I think we misunderstand each other here. You are talking about scope, but I am talking about files.

Say you have:

factory.ipt which has two rows with member names member1 and member2

when you generate the member files you get two files in subfolder

factory\member1.ipt

factory\member2.ipt

But iLogic does not exist in member1.ipt - because it is a standard iPart member and not custom.

Re: iPart factory mass override not propagating to members

Anonymous — Wed, 04 Jul 2018 11:42:25 GMT

Yeah, I definitely miss something. I think I will learn something new today.

Can you explain me how and why would you have parts on a "lower level" than your FACTORY.IPT? I wonder especially- how can you place a component under the .IPT level?

Or you mean when you create a FACTORY.IPT and that part is an iPart, then you place it into the Assembly? In that case, yes- it will create a member as a separate file.

But in that case the solution I explained in the first post will work, as it works for me:

I have an iPart in our content center. When I place it into the assembly it generates member file, but iLogic rule persists and my mass properties do change depending which one of the components I am placing from the Content Center Library. And I believe it should work if you have your FACTORY.IPT and it's members in the VAULT.

I think you need to make your iLogic rule work on the .IPT level first- when you go through your iPart table and generate geometries and then use Event Trigger to trigger your iLogic rule right after the part geometry change, or what is more relevant to you, but not before the save.

Re: iPart factory mass override not propagating to members

t_tasner — Wed, 04 Jul 2018 12:07:23 GMT

I have the factory file in vault and haven't pushed it to Content Center. I am thinking of putting all of the factories in content center. Because when you publish the files to the Content Center the generated members behave as normal parts.

When I generate a member it is always placed in a subfolder relative to the factory. This subfolder is named same as the factory.

When I open member file, I can not edit anything, even the iProperties are disabled. See the screenshot below.

Re: iPart factory mass override not propagating to members

Anonymous — Wed, 04 Jul 2018 12:21:38 GMT

Yeah, I see.

But when you make changes to the Factory (mail .ipt) file- wouldn't those changes reflect on member files after the "update"?

If not- I don't see a reason to place iParts into the Vault then.

Re: iPart factory mass override not propagating to members

t_tasner — Fri, 06 Jul 2018 06:14:04 GMT

Yes of course the members update, when you either generate member files manually or when you place a member into an assembly.

Re: iPart factory mass override not propagating to members

Anonymous — Fri, 06 Jul 2018 06:22:23 GMT

But you shouldn't even open member files explicitly. All changes, even iProperty changes should be done through Factory Part. And I still think that iLogic should be able to help you solving mass calculation issue, even though the part is in the Vault and not Content Center.

Re: iPart factory mass override not propagating to members

t_tasner — Fri, 06 Jul 2018 07:42:39 GMT

I know, I have just opened one member file as an example, that they can not have their own properties.

I have tried the following code.

iProperties.Mass=CDbl(iProperties.Value("Custom","MassOverride"))

I've set a trigger to BeforeSave. The code is executed - i added a line to show a message, but it has no effect on standard iParts.

I had more time playing around with I logic, I found out that the above line does not work because it reads iProperties instead of a parameter as pointed out by n00kie.tdc! Thanks. And therefore worked only with custom iParts. That is because even though the parameter is marked as exported it doesn't change on standard iParts.

I've created an external iLogic file called massOverride:

'overrides mass on iPartMembers
Dim MassString As String
MassString = Parameter("MassOverride") 'read parameter iProperties.Value("Custom", "MassOverride") does not work

Dim MassDbl As Double
MassDbl = CDblAny(MassString.Split(" "c)(0)) 'split parameter by space and return first part - this excludes the unit
'uncomment line below for debuging
'MessageBox.Show("Setting mass override to: "&CStr(MassDbl), "Mass Override!") 'show message box to make sure the code is executed
'set mass override
iProperties.Mass = MassDbl

and set a trigger to BeforeSave!

Thanks to anyone for the contributions.

Re: iPart factory mass override not propagating to members

t_tasner — Thu, 19 Jul 2018 06:18:42 GMT

Small update regarding this issue. I started adding the code in my above post to iParts located in our Library, but I have run into an error which I haven't found a solution for yet.

When I want to generate the member files I get the following error:

Error Message:

Error in rule: massOverride, in document: KQ-022.ipt

Unspecified error (Exception from HRESULT: 0x80004005 (E_FAIL))

More info:

System.Runtime.InteropServices.COMException (0x80004005): Unspecified error (Exception from HRESULT: 0x80004005 (E_FAIL))
   at System.RuntimeType.ForwardCallToInvokeMember(String memberName, BindingFlags flags, Object target, Int32[] aWrapperTypes, MessageData& msgData)
   at Inventor.MassProperties.set_Mass(Double )
   at iLogic.CadPropertiesInRule.set_Mass(Double value)
   at LmiRuleScript.Main()
   at Autodesk.iLogic.Exec.AppDomExec.ExecRuleInAssembly(Assembly assem)
   at iLogic.RuleEvalContainer.ExecRuleEval(String execRule)

I think this error has to do something with the Library parts (my folder in which the components are stored is marked as Library in Vault).

I have read here that there are problems with iLogic and library files. The actual member file is not set to Read Only (when checked from windows file properties) so it looks like Inventor is refusing to write in the file because it somehow knows that the file is stored in library folder or something.

Is anyone aware of a workaround, as I don't want to reconfigure the whole Vault??