Inventor 2017 - Mirror Assembly

[NachoShaw]

Hi

So whats going on with the mirror function in an assembly? I have a LH assembly and i need a RH version of it using the same parts (all parts are just steel poles).

When i mirror around the plane, i get the exact same handed assembly, just upsidedown. Thats not mirroring.

Here is a screen shot

[jhackney1972]

You are going to have to do a pack and go and post the assembly and parts so everyone can take a look at what is happening to get an accurate answer.  Otherwise everyone is just guessing.

[Xun.Zhang]

Hello Nacho,

Just saw you are leverage Reuse to mirror the components and you will file there will be the same instances are listed in the browser and this is how mirror command works right now. 

Not sure what's the incorrect here from you, are you talking about below item?

https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/inventor-ideas/treat-quot-mirror-quot-in-an-assembly-like-a-pattern-m...

Hope it helps!

[johnsonshiue]

Hi Nacho,

I have seen this behavior before. It is related to how the source assembly was built up. When mirroring the assembly as a whole and all components are reused, Inventor is not yet able to flip individual parts to get the mirrored side. It simply transform the entire assembly to the mirror side.

There isn't a very straight forward workflow to mirror and reuse components in Inventor at the moment. There is a less straight forward workflow and use it at your own risk. Here is what you could do.

1) Go to browser and expand the frame subassembly.

2) Copy all the frame members and paste them to the top-level assembly.

3) Comp Mirror -> pick the pasted frame members as source -> select a mirror plane and set all to reuse.

4) Delete the source mirrored frame (the pasted members).

5) Demote the mirrored members to a new subassembly.

Could you try it and see if it works for you?

Many thanks!

[NachoShaw]

Hi

I'll try your method. In the meantime, I removed the patterns and mirrored it 'ok'. The parts were it true mirrored and mostly were either inverted or the wrong orientation. In the end, I copied the parts to a new assembly and constrained it opposite manually.

It's a shame IV cannot fully mirror an assembly yet. Why is that? It would be great too mirror an assembly to reuse the parts but an exact opposite mirrored entity

[johnsonshiue]

Hi Nacho,

Indeed, it would be great if Inventor could do this. The main reason why it is not available yet is that depending on the geometry and the mirror plane, some occurrences may not be mirrored correctly when reused. For example, the part is not symmetrical in any direction (like there are holes on one end but not the other). In the Mirror Comp dialog, there is a button showing you the list of occurrences which cannot be reused and mirrored correctly.

Many thanks!