Make a copy of an assembly without affecting original

[Anonymous]

Hi all,

New Inventor user here with a basic grip of the functionality and features used,

however I have been struggling a lot with the file management side of things.

I am working on an assembly with multiple parts and sub assemblies within, 

I was hoping to make a copy of the overall assembly (call is Assembly 2 for example) and save it into another folder away from the original.

The end goal is to work on two very similar assemblies with some parts or sub assemblies different. At the moment I am creating copies but they seem to be linked to the original so any changes I make on Assembly 2 is also made on Assembly 1.

I am also struggling to understand Design Assistant as parts I copy through that seem to have the same functionality as when i copy using the file explorer. 

Any help is much appreciated!

Thanks in advance,

Dylan

[Mark.Lancaster · Accepted solution]

@Anonymous

There are numerous ways to copy an assembly.. 

Check out this article https://cadsetterout.com/inventor-tutorials/copy-an-autodesk-inventor-design/

[mdavis22569]

Going to add one more way in addition to what Mark mentioned ....

Do a PACK and GO. Then you'll have everything you need in that zip. 

From there you can do as you need with the files.

[Cadmanto]

Dylan,

On top of the other suggestions, in my humble opinion, if you have Vault, the copy design tool is the way to do this.

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[Anonymous]

Thanks all! appreciate all the methods you have provided to do the same job.

I think I have managed to do this by using the design assistant (although it took a while),

I copied around 10/20 items from one assembly to a new one and it somehow copied some other parts such as wheels (which I did not specifically copy) to the new assembly.. Which is great for this instance but does this mean that these parts are still linked to the original? 

[Anonymous]

Hi Cadmanto, thank you for the pointer, 

I have seen a lot of mentions about the vault but the company I am at currently do not use this,

They are talking about eventually using it within the company but until then I have to find other ways around the issue,

It seems like a great tool for file organisation though and I cant wait to try it out!

[Cadmanto]

It is a great tool.  Been using it for 7 years now.  As a suggestion, As I have worked for companies that were reluctant to use it (not saying yours is) starting out with basic might be a good start to get your feet wet in it.  The basic comes with Inventor Pro, so no additional cost (unless you don't have a server to house it) is needed.

Windows 10 x64 -16GB Ram
Intel i7-6700 @ 3.41ghz
nVidia GTS 250 - 1 GB
Inventor Pro 2018

[Anonymous]

Hi Michael,

I thought this would be the easiest method as I have used similar Pack & Go features before,

but when I tried with this assembly, it either created too many sub folders which made the new location messy or placed all items (including frames and fixtures) into one folder which was a little confusing,

Also when I opened the new assembly, any edits I made were reflected in the original also, I couldn't see an option to 'un-link' the two but I'm sure it must have been something I was doing wrong 

[SBix26]

I think you have to first work on understanding what an assembly file is.  It does not contain any of the components-- they are all defined in their own part and assembly files.  An assembly file contains all the instructions for how components are placed and connected to each other, and links to the actual component files.

Therefore, when you copy an assembly file, that copy has all the same links and relationships.  If you change Part1, it is changed in every assembly that uses it.  Sometimes that's exactly what you want, and sometimes it's not.

If you want to copy an assembly and make changes to only its parts, then you have to also copy the parts and give them different names.  But if you give them different names, the new assembly doesn't know about them and continues to use the originals.  So, you need to replace all the original parts with the new ones.  You can do it manually (Replace Component), but for a large assembly this gets really tedious.

The various tools already suggested (Vault Copy Design, Design Assistant, etc.) are meant to help with this task by making it easy to copy the component files to new names and at the same time taking care of the linkages in the assembly so you don't have to manually do all the replacements.  Drawings are similarly linked to assemblies and parts and the same techniques apply to them.

An additional complication/option is project files (.ipj files), which define the file folders where Inventor will look for files.  It is possible to copy an entire assembly and all its components to a new location, without changing any filenames at all.  As long as you then switch to a new project file that limits its search to that new location, Inventor will have no problem working in the new assembly with the new components.  But this is not recommended simply because humans are involved, and someday someone will be working with the wrong project file and alter an assembly or component part that they didn't intend to.  Purely hypothetical, of course; I've never heard of this actually happening, let alone done it myself.....

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Sam B
Inventor Pro 2019.1.2 | Windows 7 SP1
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