How to Export an assembly from Vault without Linking back to Vault

[stephen.tecce]

Hello all,

At my site we use Inventor and Vault for just about everything, I've only been here about 3 months and all my prior CAD experience has been in Solidworks. I am a Manufacturing engineer, so I do very little actual modeling in Inventor, however I use presentation mode regularly to make assembly procedures with clear exploded views since the normally assembly mode is somehow incapable of this function.

Since I am not doing any actual modeling, having links back to the vault is not only pointless for me, it is also potentially dangerous if I were ever to accidentially check something out. When I did work similar to this with Solidworks I could just use the "pack and go" function and it would export every single part/assembly and they would be their own, independant, locally saved files on my machine totally isolated from their source and only linking to eachother to preserve mates, nothing else would link back where they came from at all. I am looking for a way to accomplish this in Inventor, which I can't figure out to save my life.

The reason this is so necessary for me is a rather large domino effect caused by inventor. It is very common for me to throw assembly fixtures into the models to show them in my procedures, and since you can only have one assembly in a presentation at a time I cannot put the fixtures into presentation mode without also adding them to the main assembly, which I cannot do without checking it out of vault, which simply isn't an option for me. 

When I use inventor's pack and go function it exports copies of the files like with Solidworks, but it continues linking to the project and to the vault, which I don't want. I can work with this, however it gets exceptionally annoying because for some reason inventor gets really confused and gives me pretty constant errors that i'd really like to get rid of if I could.  

Thanks!

Steve

[johnsonshiue]

Hi Steve,

If I understood your request correctly, you want to create a brand new set of files completely independent of the ones in Vault, right? I believe Pack&Go is the way to do it. Try this. Close Inventor and go to File Explorer and find the target top-level assembly file -> right-click on the file -> Pack&Go -> select the proper project and set the destination folder -> include all necessary files -> Ok. You should be able to get a copy of the data set. This set will not have anything to do with the one in the Vault.

Many thanks!

[CadManagerMoffatNZ]

Steve

the problem is the "Project" file that is created by the PNG process

You will need to edit it and change it to "Single User".

You can edit the Project in Inventor (with no files open) or thru the Project Editor utility.

Hope this helps

[Cadmanto]

When you used Solidworks, were you using it in conjunction with PDM?  If so, what was the procedure there?

With Solidworks not using a project file I understand it might be a little easier.

@CadManagerMoffatNZ  is right in that this is a project file issue.  Sounds like you might want to create your own project file that checks into a completely different working folder then everyone else.

What I would like to know is seeing you have access to the Vault, which version are you using?  Basic, Workgroup or Pro?  With the later 2 who ever is the admin to the Vault can set permissions on your login so that you can just view files.  With that, someone else who has the permissions can do a copy design with in Vault for a similar but different model that is exclusively for you and maybe in its own directory within the Vault.  Then you could take this model and work with it.  I have outlined a couple different scenarios that might work for you.  All depends on your work flow.

Windows 10 x64 -16GB Ram
Intel i7-6700 @ 3.41ghz
nVidia GTS 250 - 1 GB
Inventor Pro 2020

[stephen.tecce]

I managed to get it figured out, I finally got in touch with out resident Inventor guru here, the issue came primarially from the Project file. As others mentioned, Solidworks did not have any equivalent to project files, so that was something totally new to me. I was shown how to create a new project file for just me and assign it to that project when i do the pack and go, this seems to have fixed the issue, though time will tell.

As for the person who was asking about the solidworks pack and go/vault function in my past lives, yes we used the PDM vault, and once you did a pack and go there was literally nothing that would ever indicate that the file had ever been anywhere other than the target location for the pack and go. It was like you made entirely new parts and just saved them there directly the first time they were ever saved, 100% fresh copies utterly unconnected to the originals in any way.

I think that is what I have managed to pull that off at this point, the test logs about where they were before concern me a little, but I think I'm good overall, if not I'll be back here haha.

Thanks,

Steve

[Cadmanto]

That person is me.   I use both Solidworks and PDM as well as the Inventor and Vault.  Using both I can confirm it is the project file as I indicated in my other posting.  

I am glad you figured it out and it is working for you.  So, fair to say this thread is resolved?

Look forward to seeing you back here.  We are always here if you need a resolve to your issue.  

Windows 10 x64 -16GB Ram
Intel i7-6700 @ 3.41ghz
nVidia GTS 250 - 1 GB
Inventor Pro 2020