Existing constraints are lost when replacing part with iPart

[cass8435]

Existing constraints are lost when replacing part with iPart. 

I have an existing assembly that I wanted to convert a few parts to iparts. I opened the parts from the assembly, converted them to iparts, saved them, and then did a component replace in the assembly, and all the constraints related to that part are now broken.

Is there a solution to this that does not include me just redoing all the constraints?

[Gabriel_Watson · Accepted solution]

Apparently this is still being investigated:
https://www.autodesk.com/support/technical/article/caas/sfdcarticles/sfdcarticles/Existing-constrain...

More discussion here, but no actual solution for the case, aside from simply re-doing the constraints:
https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/inventor-forum/ipart-losing-their-constraints-after-repalce/td-p/6784...

[CCarreiras]

Hi!

Have you tried to that models with MODEL STATES?
Model states is a new workflow to replace iParts. The advantage is, you only need one file, while iPart you will have the main file, but all the children will be also a separated file... and maybe is because of that is missing the constraints...

[cass8435]

Dang... I'm feeling like a 2 year investigation means it wont be fixed anytime soon. This is unfortunate, but thank you.

[cass8435]

Unfortunately, since model states cannot be edited through a spreadsheet like iparts can, I wont be able to use that for this particular project. Thanks though.

[Gabriel_Watson]

Model states can be edited in a spreadsheet:
https://help.autodesk.com/view/INVNTOR/2023/ENU/?guid=GUID-85FDBAB9-7618-43B5-AE6E-F8D21F5FB22B

[johnsonshiue]

Hi Folks,

If I understand how iPart/iAssembly works correctly, this is actually a limitation. The reason is that the associativity between files in Inventor is based on the unique Document ID. For example, when a Face-Face Mate constraint is established between PartA and PartB, the constraint does recognize the faces from PartA and PartB. If you replace PartA with PartC (a different file), the constraint will fail (unless PartC was a copy of PartA).

Though iPart members derive from the same iPart factory, each member file is a unique file carrying different Document ID (created from scratch). As a result, replacing member1 with member2 will lead to constraint failure. The same behavior can be seen on Replace Model Reference in drawing workflow.

Model States will behave better since all members are stored within the same file, which has the same Document ID.

Many thanks!