long constraints list

[mat_hijs]

I have lots of assemblies where I constrain almost every component to some kind of frame part. This works perfectly, but the bigger my assemblies get, the longer the list of constraints in the browser gets. It's getting to the point where I'll be scrolling for minutes for every constraint I want to make.

Is there a good way to prevent this? Or is this really just something you have to deal with?

[JDMather]

In the real world is this assembled as one massive assembly, one part at a time, or are there really sub-assemblies that are brought together to make the main assembly?

Even if in the real world it is one part at a time, can you cheat in the digital world and group into logical sub-assemblies to make management easier?

[tyas.swinnen]

I use Joint-connections a lot more than Constraints. These joints can reduce the number of constraints drastically...

for example:

if you want to constrain 2 plates together. Most people mate the 2 touching surfaces and than use flush-constraints on 2 parallel faces.

This you can do with only 1 rigid joint.

Create Joints Reference 

[mat_hijs]

To try and clarify a little bit, I'm talking about pretty big curtain walls. This means the actual real world assembly would be the whole curtain wall, which would be way too much for Inventor to handle. This is why we split it up into modules, each module being one mullion, the transoms connected to it and everything inbetween that. This worked pretty good, but was time consuming because you have lots of assemblies to make the full curtain wall. Now we would like to expand the assemblies a bit, for example, 10 mullions, the transoms connected to them and everything inbetween. This should still be small enough for Inventor to handle, but would make for less assemblies in total.

So what I'm saying is, splitting it into multiple subassemblies would be going back to where we came from. If that's the only option, so be it, and we'll have to decide wich would be most efficient.

Also, I'm using workplanes and workaxis to constrain everything. I have thought about using Imates, because usually the workplane in the component has the same name as the workplane in the frame part, but this is not always the case.

[swalton]

I work on 5-10k component assemblies.

I don't bother looking at the Relationships folder.  There is not any point once I get more constraints than will fit in the browser without scrolling.  

The constraints are also listed under each component node in the Assembly browser.  I am already expanding and collapsing those nodes to get to the origin folder, so I just scroll down a bit to get to the constraints section.

I use component patterns frequently.  I also use sub-assemblies.  I've normally have 5-10 layers of sub-assemblies below my main top-level assembly.

I've never gotten comfortable with joints.  I find it is very hard to predict how the geometry selections will drive the assembly behavior.  

[mat_hijs]

I don't really look at the Relationships folder either, but as you said, the constraints are also listed under each component node. And that's my problem, because everything is constrained to the frame part, every constraint is listed under that node. Whenever I want to add a new constrain I have to scroll through that whole list to get to the workplanes that I use to constrain.

Also, just like you said, I'm also not very comfortable with joints.

[swalton · Accepted solution]

You might try changing your browser from the Assembly tab to the Modeling tab.  That should hide all the constraints, and show you all the features under each component node.

That way you should see just the workfeatures, sketches, and other modeling details, but not the constraints that tie all the other components together.

Doesn't help much when you have to edit existing constraints, though.  In that case, I'd select the object attached to the skeleton frame, not the skeleton frame, expand its node, and have a list of 3-5 constraints to focus on.

[mcgyvr]

I'm really not sure I understand the problem.. I can see how if you have a main "frame" and it has tons of constraints applied to it then the list of constraints below that part when its expanded to show those will be rather lengthy. 

I guess I would need to understand why you can't just press the "-" to collapse that item thus hiding all of the constraints. 

Maybe you need to have it expanded to be able to access origin planes/workplanes,etc.. to constrain too.. 

What about switching to the "Modeling" option vs the "Assembly" option at the top of the model browser. 

That will remove constraints from the browser only leaving the modeling features. 

[tburtonD9T8B]

you can put those parts into a phantom assembly and mate the phantom assembly. I find this to do generally what you're describing. this allows logical combination of parts, but when creating a parts list (for example) of the parent assembly, it lists all of the parts of the phantom assembly, instead of just listing the phantom assembly.