Importing step files from Altium Designer

[meke42]

I regularly design PCBs in Altium designer and want to import them later in my CAD drawing in Inventor. I had to deal with this several times now and every time it ended up being a major disaster, where the problems are the following:

- There is no option for a live update. I usually export the step file of the PCB from Altium and import the step file in Inventor. Every time the PCB changes, I have to export and import again. As far as I found out, there is no way around this, right? Please correct me if there would be a solution for this.

- Importing the step file in Inventor often causes minor troubles which become continuously annoying on the long run:

--- Many (often larger components) of the PCB show up "translucent". Why is that and how can I get rid of this?

--- When I import the step file in Inventor it automatically generates an assembly. Since the origin of the assembly usually ends up on some arbitrary place I would like to move the PCB such that the center planes of the assembly are located in the middle of the PCB. However, some parts of the imported PCB are usually grounded and I can't deactivate that:

--- Despite the grounding I tried to use a mate constraint between the assembly's origin planes and the (grounded) imported PCB. To my surprise, the PCB actually moved, i.e. it accepted the mate constraint. However, all the components that belong on the board stayed at their location, i.e. I ended up with the PCB around the assembly origin and all the components floating around somewhere else. Is there a way to get all of the components to move with the board (constraining all of them to the PCB individually is of course not a reasonable solution)?

A general solution on how to deal with PCBs would be highly appreciated. How would you properly deal with this issue? I'm always somehow able to find a ugly workaround, but I'm looking for a "proper" (i.e. efficient and reproducable) approach to bring my PCBs into my assemblies.

[JDMather]

All of this would be much easier to demonstrate if you made up a simple dummy board and Attached here.

To get associative change update - use Reference Model rather than Convert Model...

Transparent parts are most likely surface bodies rather than solid bodies.  

Simply open the part file and right click and turn off Translucent.

or

Figure out why they are not translating as solids and Repair the issue.

The grounded part is in a sub-assembly.

Open the sub-assembly to unground.

Open Board_110.iam to unground that part, but I suspect this is not really what you should be doing...

You should be using this imported board as a sub-assembly (which will them move as though it were one part - just like in the real world) when placing in the top-level (or higher level) assembly.

[meke42]

Ok true, I will try to make a dummy example (I'm not allowed to share my current project data here unfortunately) and also include what I produced as a result from the Inventor import. This could take a few days until I'll find time to do this.

I forgot to mention: the reference model I already tried, but the problems got more since I wasn't able to uncheck translucency anymore (that you can turn off translucency I already found, but I'd like to avoid that during import already).

[JDMather]

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@meke42 wrote:

I forgot to mention: the reference model I already tried, but the problems got more since I wasn't able to uncheck translucency anymore (that you can turn off translucency I already found, but I'd like to avoid that during import already).

---

That will probably turn out to be the most difficult issue - figuring out why some of your geometry is not importing as solid bodies.  This will go back to a source issue.

[NigelHay]

I have the same with models created in-house in Altium by others. I typically now create a new part, finish the sketch & import the PCB step file. I usually have at least 1 translucent part which you can turn off as JD said. If you do import the step file into a new part, you can select the 'stitch' option which avoids the translucence & mostly converts surface features to solid. I've found that the origin planes are whatever was created in Altium. If your PCB components do not move with the board I would assume that you have saved it as a multi body part instead of composite.