Mirror in Assembly creates double the parts in BOM

[Anonymous]

Hi i want to know if there is a way to show mirrored parts as one item in BOM,

i have an assembly with 60 cleats in it, so rather than place every single one and constrain them all one by one, i though it would be faster to place half in and then mirror the rest, it did save time until i came to calling out the BOM. Which ended up calling out the four mirrored items separately... i want the BOM to read ITEM-1 QTY=60 ETC?? like whats the point of using the mirror tool if you cant call out the one part? I know i still have a lot to learn so if there is a faster way to put ie 60 cleats in an assembly or fix the BOM i be keen to know?

thanks

[SBix26]

First thing: what version of Inventor are you using?  2020?

One option that you have in the Mirror Components dialog box is to Reuse components instead of Mirror them.  It looks as if you used mirror, which makes a mirror image copy of the selected component(s).  If you had selected Reuse instead, it would not have created the new files.

But I suspect that Mirror Components is not the best option for this modeling task.  If you post your dataset, or at least an image (please embed images in the message), perhaps someone here can suggest a different technique.

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Sam B
Inventor Pro 2020.0.1 | Windows 7 SP1
LinkedIn

[Anonymous]

Hi and thanks for the response, i am using 2020 inventor, i cant seem to see the reuse option in the mirror dialog box? do you have a screen shot? as that sounds like a good option, i don't have any pic as i over road the info so it would work and i could issued the drawings,

but i would like to know the best practice for adding repetitive parts to assembles in the future, Parts that are not always symmetrical. As it seems very time consuming at the moment, i only a basic inventor modeler at the moment but am trying to increase my skill level and work smarter.

thanks

[SBix26 · Accepted solution]

Here's what the dialog looks like in Inventor 2020.  The three buttons at the top are for Copy (which makes a derived mirror image part file), Reuse (which uses the existing part), and Exclude (which excludes that component from the mirror).

Again, if you post an image or data set, there may be a better way to accomplish what you're trying to do.

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Sam B
Inventor Pro 2020.0.1 | Windows 7 SP1
LinkedIn