Tube and Pipe Mass Change a Fitting Connection?

[dahavel]

Hi, I am using Tube and pipe and using Welded end connections. For some reason my pipes weld gap isn't showing up even though I have the it set to .125in gap in my pipe style. As a work around I am editing my fitting connection, but doing each one is a hassle. Is there any way to edit all Fittings selected on both sides to a specific user set valve in one go?

I am using Inventor Pro 2021 with the latest updates.

[A.Acheson]

I had a quick look at this last night. It seems if you create a style with flanges as couplings the gaps are corrected. But if you join a route to a fitting they are not. I am not sure what the normal behavior should be I would have thought anywhere a route is put a gap should appear at the connection. @cbenner any thoughts on this?

In our company we do not show weld gaps as the welder cuts the pipe to suit but this is not the workflow everywhere. Accurate cut lengths are a must I would have thought. 

[dahavel]

My last reply didn't work when I was trying to reply through email. Basically I tried out all different pipe run rules nothing seems to work and I actually may have cause another issue trying to work around this. Now on several of my pipe segments, if I go to edit the Fitting connections on those segments, it show no connections. On the elbows and fittings around them the pipe segment does appear but if I enter a User Defined engagement the pipe isn't affected if the pipe segment comes after the Fitting in the line. After I edit it, the engagement just reverts back to the fittings. These fittings are mostly from my Content center and so I can not edit them and adjust the authoring of those tube and pipe parts.

My workflow for creating the piping I believe is correct, but I might be doing something wrong so let me explain that. I set up my pipe runs and the place my fittings using either the content center or the Place Fitting to insert my fittings into my Pipe Run. I also set up my routed systems and Pipe Styles at this point so I can switch between adding the fittings and adding Pipe segments. I don't normally use auto route anywhere unless is a small segment I can control with the fittings and Dimensions on my other pipe segments. There are times I delete the Dim constraint after I make a pipe segment in order to get a autoroute to auto adjust on difficult to line up connections. This time I have finished my Piping routes and was trying to add in the weld gaps when my issues started piling up. This is the first time I am having issues with the fitting engagement.

Any help would be greatly appreciated as this is a time sensitive project.

I am thinking of deleting the Piping and redoing it but that would be pretty time consuming to try.

If worst come to pass I'll just delete the engagements I've done and add a generic note to my drawings to cut pipe

segments down .25" (.125" on each end) to get the correct pipe lengths.

[A.Acheson]

@dahavel 

From my observation. 

Fittings placed from pipe styles driven by the route cannot become disconnected unless the route is deleted and cannot have user defined engagement applied at the connection, this is greyed out see attached screenshot (1). You need to apply the weld gap in the style itself. See attached screenshot. (2)

If you have selected delete all connections on manually placed fittings the connections will be broken. Only manually placed fittings can have a user defined engagement  distance and to achieve a gap it must be a minus value say (-3mm )e.g

You can also create a user parameter (gap) in the route  itself and type this value in to the user defined engagement distance, it might save typing and ensure consistency. There is no drop down like in the sketch/model environment. 

If the behavior of fittings seems odd try and replace the fitting. Sometimes the fitting or routes become corrupt. Even copy the whole run and make adaptive and see if the behavior persists. 

Also if you find a fitting you cannot delete a fitting perhaps it has been copied and the delete option gets greyed out a known bug. You can run this external ilogic rule to delete the fitting occurrence. Worked great when I couldn't  delete corrupt fittings. Be sure to test it's functionality in a test assembly if you are not familiar with it's function. 

https://adndevblog.typepad.com/manufacturing/2013/11/do-selection-from-ilogic.html

Hope this helps

Alan

[dahavel · Accepted solution]

Ok I dug back into this, this morning. I figured out why it wasn't working. The way I connected placed fittings and were manifolding them was incorrect. I had conflicting placed fittings that couldn't change their engagement. I went back through and deleted my old piping segments after deleting my fitting connections.  Basicly to get it to work you need to add a auto route in between certain Routes that are fully constrained or the pipe won't be able to be affected by both fittings on both ends of the pipe. Nothing to do with the Tube pipe styles just a basic constraint conflict. The gap works on fittings being placed inside of autoroutes as it is supposed it.

Thanks for your help figuring this out.