linking assy with welds to same assy without

[MikeKovacik4928]

Hi all out there worldwide

I am now doing assemblies without the welds first, and then saving as, and putting the welds on in another assy.

This for one main reason - The 2d projected views are extremely confusing and unreadable with all the extra lines showing from all the welds, but the 3d views are okay with the welds showing.

I have been on this forum before, to enquire how to make the welds invisible in certain views and visible in others and it turned out to be so complicated that I have ended up doing it like I mentioned above.

One problem however is that if I change the non welded assembly, I have to go in and make those same changes on the welded assembly. Is there any way of linking the assemblies, so that the welded assembly is a "derived assembly" of the non welded assembly (ie just the welds added on), so that when I change the non welded assembly, the welded assembly updates itself?

Michael Kovacik

Inventor Pro 2021, Vault Pro 2021, 

South Africa

[swalton]

I might try the following:

1. Create bob-no-weld.iam as a normal assembly
2. Create bob-welded.iam as a weldment assembly
3. Set bob-welded.iam to the Phantom BOM type
4. Place an instance of bob-no-weld.iam in bob-welded.iam
5. Add welds in the bob-welded.iam as necessary
6. Create bob.idw
7. Place views of bob-no-weld and bob-welded.iam as necessary
8. Place a Parts List and tie it to bob-no-weld.

[karthur1 · Accepted solution]

When I read what you are trying to do, the first thing that comes to mind is a "View Representation".  You can control the visibility of the welds with a view rep.  Then on your idw, its is just a matter of selecting the VR for your view.  You can set it to be dynamic so that changes later will be reflected on the idw.

Not really sure why you would rather create another assembly that you have to maintain just for the welds when you can easily do it with a VR. In the screen cap below, I have a VR named "No Welds Shown".  Notice on the Welds node, the "Visibility" is toggled off.

 

[MikeKovacik4928]

Thanks

This works well so far. I have already swopped from having 2 assemblies, one welded and one not welded.

This is much simpler and quicker.

Mike

[karthur1]

That's the way it is intended to work. 😁