Mirrored Sub-assemblies not maintaining original orientation

[timdown73]

Workflow and problem:

Multi-solid bodies in "template".ipt generating all ipts.

Left-hand Assembly.iam generated from template.ipt

.ipts in Left-hand assembly then demoted to subassemblies.

(Left-hand assembly finalized and drawings are made.)

Time to make Right-hand assembly.

In Left-hand.iam, left-hand subassemblies are mirrored on the YZ plane and show up on the right hand side exactly where intended. (Perfect!)

Make new Right-hand.iam to place newly generated/mirrored sub-assemblies in.

"Place component" command used to place at origin. >Problem!<

New Right-hand sub-assemblies come in rotated 90 degrees from where they should and did show up in original Right-hand assembly. Instead of being able to use 3 Flush constraints, I have to use 2 Mate constrains on the YZ and XY plane and 1 Flush constraint on the XZ Plane.

I do not understand why, when the subassemblies are mirrored in the original Left-hand.iam they appear exactly where they should, but do not in the new Right-hand.iam. I should be able to place the new right-hand subassemblies grounded at origin and they should show up where the did when generated in the original Left-hand.iam

I know there are other threads pertaining to mirrored assemblies but I did not see a clear answer.

Is this working as the devs intended?

Am I doing something wrong? 

Any help or clarity will help.

Thanks!

[b.mccarthy]

This does sound unusual. Can you post an example?

[timdown73]

Not right away. No time. This issue is really slowing me down.

[b.mccarthy]

That limits the assistance we can offer...

A couple options:

• In some past projects, I have noticed that Inventor will, on occasion, suppress constraints when mirroring an assembly. Check your relationships to see if this may have occurred. If so, un-suppressing them may fix the problem
• Mirror the solids in the multi-body part, and then generate the 2nd assembly and its components

HTH

[timdown73]

Thanks. Yeah, I thought about doing that but, the template multi-body.ipt is kept as simple as possible to hold down the complexity of it. So a lot of the features are added at the .ipt level. There's also hardware in the subassemblies.

[Gabriel_Watson]

Without seeing your models, I imagine you could have created Right-hand.iam inside Left-hand.iam, and dragged in the browser all the mirrored components that belonged to the right-hand side. This way they would have retained their orientation and position towards the Origins (planes and axes).

You created a new assembly and used "Place component" to bring in all the mirrored components, but that does not necessarily hold the relationships of subcomponents from the original assembly where they were from.

[timdown73]

Interesting idea and thanks for the reply. The assembly is too large to mirror in the same .iam and then sort out what's what. Some parts are mirrored and others are just reused, so I'm figuring that out as I go. 

I've read a lot of complaints about the mirror command, I think it's time for the devs to refine it to work more intuitively. I see no reason why what I'm doing should result in what I'm getting. Orientation to origin is key and Inventor is not maintaining it in this case.

[timdown73]

Actually, now that I think about it, what you suggested is what I'm doing but on a case by case basis. I mirror the part in the left-hand assembly and then I place it in the right-hand assembly. The mirrored subassemblies still do not maintain their relativity to the origin planes. I have even tried mirroring them around the other two origin planes and oddly enough they still come into the right-hand assembly the exact same way as before. So the different mirroring planes do not give a different result. It's so odd and unintuitive. I'm completely open to the idea that I may not be doing something correctly but, all I'm doing is mirroring the subassemblies from left to right in the same assembly, hitting save, then placing that new mirrored subassembly into the right-hand assembly (then deleting form left-hand). From there it should place at exactly the same spot as it did in the Left-hand assembly.

Edit/update:

I have several .ipts in the Left-hand assembly. If I mirror those in the Left-hand assembly, they exhibit the same odd behavior. BUT, if I open the .ipts and then mirror (solid) them in the .ipt and check remove original, I can then place them in my assembly and they come in perfectly placed where they should be. I am even able to apply 3 flush constrains without any errors. So this issue is somehow linked to mirroring items in the Top assembly (I think).