topic Bolts in large assembly in Inventor Forum

Bolts in large assembly

hEINSTEIN — Thu, 06 Apr 2023 20:44:55 GMT

I have a large assembly where I need to make a fastener list. The models are modelled from different contractors (not all holes where created with hole features but rather with hole extrudes)

I have tried the first assembly, I think its just too much holes to compute. IV keeps on crashing.

I was thinking of making a simplified model and add the bolts to that model. Is it possible to add bolts to a simplified model? IV does not give me this option in the simplified model. Is there a setting I'm missing?

Or if someone has any good advice for doing this kind of exsersize.

Please and thank you

Oh and I'm running IV 2023

Re: Bolts in large assembly

johnsonshiue — Fri, 07 Apr 2023 00:02:01 GMT

Hi! A simplified assembly is a part. Bolted Conn does not work within the Part environment. It is only available in the Assembly environment.

Regarding the crash, please send me an email johnson.shiue@autodesk.com. I would like to take a look at the crash report and understand the crash better.

Many thanks!

Re: Bolts in large assembly

cadman777 — Fri, 07 Apr 2023 01:07:06 GMT

I've had this scenario a few times in the past. I didn't find any convenient solution to it. But maybe someone else has a way to do this using iLogic/VBA/VB.Net? You can inquire in the Inventor Customization forum. Otherwise, this is how I handled your scenario in the past:

1. Manually list all holes and note where they occur in the model

2. Manually make one fastener group consisting of the bolt, washers, nuts and whatever are needed for each kind of bolt group.

3. Use the above fastener assembly as the basis for all other sizes of fastener. In other words, copy that bolt assembly and rename it with words that identify the fastener size, length and parts. For example: 'HB.75uncx3.5Lg,FWx2,HN'.iam.

4. Then begin placing/constraining the fastener groups into their appropriate holes in the assembly.

5. Then make all the fasteners Invisible.

6. Then make a Representation with all fasteners Visible.

7. Then on separate drawing sheet/s use the ViewRep with the fasteners Visible, and with a PartsList showing only the fasteners.

8. Then make Detail views of the various places where the fasteners occur, Ballooning them for ID in the PartsList.

Usually it takes me a full day to do a big job that has more than 50 different fastener assemblies.

Showing fasteners is one of my most disliked tasks, b/c Inventor doesn't have an out-of-the-box solution for this.

Note: I NEVER use the BoltedConnections utility on the Design tab b/c it has too many problems downstream.

Maybe someone in the Customization forum can help you with some code to ID all the holes and automate the above work-flow or something similar? The late Kent Keller had a small add-on that worked something like that called KWiKSert_64.