topic Re: Tube and Pipe - Authoring custom parts in Inventor Forum

Tube and Pipe - Authoring custom parts

Tim.Malkowski — Mon, 29 Aug 2016 15:06:38 GMT

i all,

I have been working on generating content to be used in tube and pipe. This initially has not been hard. The pipe system I am creating parts for is a metric tube socket weld system.

The content centre did not have the tube i wanted. So I created an i part for all the tube sizes i wanted authored it. then published it to the content centre applied my material library. then I add a couple of columns to the family table that i use in the part lists. This seemed to work and when i used it in a "tube with bends" style it worked great.

So my next stage was to create the 90, 45 and straight socket weld fittings. I followed the same procedure as with the tube i had previously created. Once they were in the contents centre I went to make a rigid pipe with fittings style. This is where I hit my first issue. When I added in the 45 elbow to the style it would no longer let me save the style. So I went and checked how I authored the fitting to make sure all was correct and it was. I re-authored the fitting then re-published it to the content centre. this did not change anything.

So I ignored the 45 then tried using the style i had just created in tube and pipe. I made on route that consisted of to pipes at 90º to each other. See Pic below. What comes up is an error and I am not sure why.

So the 2 question i have are.

Would there be and reason why tube and pipe would not like the 45 elbow i am trying to assign? As it does not flag up an error it just simply refuses to save the style.
The error states self intersecting pipe and from the pic it is clear that it is self intersecting. I thought tube and pipe trimmed the length of the pipe to suit the fitting in the style. Is this the case? Also Would I have authored these incorrectly?

Re: Tube and Pipe - Authoring custom parts

Mark.Lancaster — Mon, 29 Aug 2016 16:56:05 GMT

@Tim.Malkowski

Without seeing your model and styles its hard to determine what is causing both issues.

Can you create an Autodesk screencast showing the styles issue? Do a step by step of creating the style from scratch. Link to screencast is my signature.

Same thing you may want to show us a screenshot of your pipe run/route that self intersecting...

I will also tag @cbenner for his input as well.

Re: Tube and Pipe - Authoring custom parts

cbenner — Mon, 29 Aug 2016 17:14:35 GMT

@Tim.Malkowski

First thing I noticed was that you said you created a tube ipart, and published it as tube. Is this the conduit you used in creating your rigid tube & pipe style? If so, I would recommend using a bent tube style, even if you intend to route it as straight. That, I think, would behave better with your tube conduit, and leaves you the option of adding bends in the place of fititngs.... if you should choose.

Other than that, I agree with @Mark.Lancaster, we can't really tell much without looking at the files or at least some screen shots. A video would be awesome, it usually shows exactly what went wrong.

Re: Tube and Pipe - Authoring custom parts

Tim.Malkowski — Tue, 30 Aug 2016 07:42:42 GMT

Hi,

Thanks guy's for taken the time to look at my post. link below to a screen cast.

https://knowledge.autodesk.com/community/screencast/34dccb8f-4d7e-491c-a6ca-1ec2232de895

http://autode.sk/2c1ugqB

At the end of the cast i have shown a pipe route i created using a tube with bends style. Which i added the fitting i created into it. that works fine for adding the fittings but when i make the fittings invisible you see the pipes are not correct.

One thing i am struggling to understand is how the engagement setting when authoring effects the route. Also the pipes do not seem to finish on the nodes some times and the offset seems to be completely random to me.

Any help would be great,

Tim

Re: Tube and Pipe - Authoring custom parts

Mark.Lancaster — Tue, 30 Aug 2016 12:11:50 GMT

@Tim.Malkowski

A few things that I saw...

1. Not saying what you have is incorrect in your T&P authoring but you should be using the variable ND for nominal diameter and SN for schedule information. Its kind of the standard.

2. In the authoring of your elbows you are defining the insertion point at the bottom of the socket (which is okay), but then you are telling the min can go 100% of that which is based on the alignment of the other authoring point. (But @cbenner can correct me if I'm wrong on that interpretation). Which I believe is leading to your self-intersecting. Meaning I would just set the min to be 0% of the max. Same holds true for your piping as well. If you made the authoring at the beginning of the elbow (instead at the bottom of the socket) then you could use different information there to adjust the depth going into the elbow. One final thing... Are you looking for accurate pipe segment lengths? If so then you will not achieve it with making the pipe bottom out in the socket. The problem with socketweld type elbows, you are unable to push the pipe always to the bottom of the elbow. My last company we just model the pipe at the bottom out in the socket but in theory it never did in the "real" product. So our cut lengths were for reference only and it had to be hand-fitted.

3. Your ipart tables have rows that show units where other rows don't. When it comes to T&P.. All the information/format must be done the same way. It can be picky when selecting the elbows in styles.

But to fix the problem you have now you could right mouse click on any elbow and select "edit fitting connection" and adjust the connection depth so the pipe would cut back and stop the intersecting problem you have.

Re: Tube and Pipe - Authoring custom parts

cbenner — Tue, 30 Aug 2016 12:23:12 GMT

@Tim.Malkowski

@Mark.Lancaster nailed it. The 100% engagement on socket fittings, when the socket bottom is chosen as the connection point, will easily cause an over-engagement, and this can quickly lead to self intersecting routes. Looks like I chose the right guy to co-teach a Tube & Pipe class with at AU2016!