Promote / Demote feature to / from assembly

[0x3FA5]

Hi,

I have an assembly with a few parts, one of them has bolt holes.

During preliminary review it was decided to drill the holes after assembly (on assembly level).

Since all the drawings have already been created, as well as there are other features ( and mates) that are based on these holes, it is required to move the holes from part level to assembly level.

I tried to drag and drop the feature in the feature tree, but it hasn't moved.

I remember in SW it was a matter of simply dragging the feature to the desired location.

How do you do this in Inventor?

A link to a help documentation would be highly appreciated.

Thank you!

[JDMather]

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@0x3FA5 wrote:

I remember in SW it was a matter of simply dragging the feature to the desired location.

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I think your memory is faulty.

Sure you can drag and drop features to desired locations if you aren't violating any child/parent relationships, but otherwise, no.

Can you Attach your SolidWorks example.

[SharkDesign]

Think you're going to have to do the holes at assembly level by projecting the part holes.

Deleting the holes in the part will cause errors in your projections so here's a quick way to turn the projected sketches into holes and remove the associativity. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4NEFnn1_HBw

[0x3FA5]

The issue is not the re-creation of the holes in the assembly, but the fact that this will break all the mates and drawing relationships.

[0x3FA5]

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I think your memory is faulty.

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I highly doubt that 🙂

Unfortunately cannot attach the files here, they exceed the max size.

[0x3FA5]

Managed to attach,

Please take a look.

Thank you!

[SharkDesign]

Oh right. Sorry, think you're knackered in that case.
You can't move the feature, so unless you're going to bodge it I don't know
what else you can do.

[johnsonshiue]

Hi! I believe the closest thing is called "Feature Migrator", an add-in created by coolOrange.

https://apps.autodesk.com/INVNTOR/en/Detail/Index?id=4113747616755499758&appLang=en&os=Win64

The page shows the official support is on Inventor 2020 or earlier. If you are on Inventor 2021 or later, you can still make it work.

Go to "C:\ProgramData\Autodesk\ApplicationPlugins\coolOrange_featureMigrator.bundle\Contents" and find coolOrange.FeatureMigratorAddin.Inventor.addin. Edit the file in Notepad.

Change the "xx" in the following statement to 100.

<SupportedSoftwareVersionLessThan>xx..</SupportedSoftwareVersionLessThan>

Save and close. Now the Feature Migrator should work on 2021 and later releases.

Many thanks!

[0x3FA5]

Hi

Thank you for the reply.

I haven't got it to work yet, but are you sure this is what I need?

The description says: "The featureMigrator will allow Inventor users to more easily create part features from assembly features."

What I actually need is the opposite - move part features to assembly level.

[johnsonshiue]

Hi! Then I don't think it will help. Feature Migrator pushes assembly features to selected parts.

I suppose somebody knowing Inventor API well enough can create a tool to push part features to assembly level. It is tricky regardless. Inventor assembly features only allow sketch-based cut (machining) features like Extrude, Revolve, and Sweep. So, many part features will be disqualified.

I think you want the flexibility of defining features without the component structure. You may want to look into Fusion 360. It does support such workflows.

Many thanks!