Material Editor

[Anonymous]

So first, I think the material editor is a miserably clumsy thing that desperately needs updating.

The idea of having to have a part open to be able to use it, then having to save a local copy of the material, edit it, then remember to resave it to your library, seems ridiculous in the extreme.

I don't want local copies of materials, that's why there is a library. If for some reason I want steel to be different and a different name won't cover it, I'll make another library. Please fix.

So now onto the actual problem. I have been trying to clean up a lot of old assemblies, and get some accurate weights on our parts. I keep finding all of these bizarrely low weights.

A while ago I tried to merge our custom library into the Inventor library, with somewhat mixed results.

I've noticed that anything that originated in the standard Inventor Library just will not work, or accept updates.

I tried copying them out to a new custom library, and they still will not take changes to the density.

The common factor in the ones that don't work seems to be a lack of units, my custom materials say things like "0.098 pound per cubic inch"

Whereas the inventor ones all say things like .06, no units, less decimals, not sure why.

No matter what I do, type it in, copy it over, it just reverts back to this meaningless number, which in most cases results in a calculated weight of 0, or something ludicrously low. 

So when my centrifuge assembly tells me that it weights 3500 lbs, I get a little twitchy, since I know for a fact it should be closer to double that.

[Anonymous]

Also interesting I notice that things like "Iron, Gray" Do not work if I apply them to something, but Content center parts that are set to that material do calculate properly.

So it's not entirely broken, there just seems to be something wrong in between.

[blair]

This was one of the reasons for the split back in IV2013 of Materials and Appearances. Many people would like a different color of their part and rather than change the color they would change the materials itself and wonder why their mass was off. I've included a PDF on Material and Appearances that may help you.

Materials only affects the physical properties of the part, mass, thermal and other aspects required for FEA. Appearance only affects the color of the object which is now why most show "As Material" which is the default appearance of a given Material.

[Anonymous]

I'm really not bothered about appearances, they are easy enough to override if I need to change it.

I couldn't find much mention in the pdf about the physical part of the materials, that's really what I'm looking for.

[Anonymous]

Right, also forgot to mention, 2015 Pro.

[blair]

From IV2013 and forward the Materials and Appearances are the same. When you open a material with the Material Editor, you need to go to the Physical tab to enter/edit the information.

[Anonymous]

Yes, I'll take it you didn't really read my post at all.

That's Ok. I'll just make new materials.

[blair]

I did read your post, the only way you have incorrect weights is with incorrect Materials and Material Densities.

As to the Libraries, it's the same as with CC, you need to copy the Read-Only to your own library to make changes.

[Anonymous]

Right, and I did that, and changed the density, and it changed back, like I said in my post.

[Anonymous]

Having said that, I don't want to make changes to the out of the box materials, I just want them to work. And they don't.

Here is the point I was making above about content center VS made parts using the exact same materials.

[blair]

Not sure what the heck is going on with your system. If I open a part and change the materials my Mass in my part updates to the correct values, if I change the Material in this case from Gold to Broze,Cast the Mass changes to the correct value. You might need to look at your Material Library as this is where the properties are read from.

[blair]

You might have made a change to the Mass in the local document (part file that you have opened as these properties get loaded locally after you apply them).

Check the screen cast, as to the proper functionality and then check the Brass-Cast properties in the local document.

https://screencast.autodesk.com/main/details/1bd4757a-39b3-4cd5-8cfd-eede5a5d0274

[Anonymous · Accepted solution]

I found the problem, it is the lack of units in those materials in the "Inventor Materials Library"

I compared them against the ones in the "Autodesk Materials Library", so they appear to just be wrong, edited somehow?

Not sure, but at least my models are fixed now.