Editing Bolted Connection Design Accelerator XML Data

[tdswanson]

Hey everyone:

I've got a strange situation regarding the bolted connection generator. For some background, I made another post a while back about editing the hole sizes for Flat Head Cap Screws so that the heads were below flush. That thread is here:

http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/Autodesk-Inventor/IV2012-Bolted-Connection-DA-and-Clearance-xls/td-p/3...

Basically, I increased the countersink diameters Clearance.xls and then found that the Design Accelerator doesn't use that spreadsheet for its data source. More research led me to this file:
C:\Users\Public\Documents\Autodesk\Inventor 2013\Design Data\Design Accelerator\Tables\Holes\Ansi Unified Screw Threads.xml

So I edited the diameters in this file and tested the design accelerator and everything was great. [I kept a backup of the original...]

Since then, another thing that has bothered me was counterbore numbers for socket head cap screws. The Cbore diameters don't match the tools that we have and the depths are always right on size. i.e. for a 1/4" SHCS, the bore is 7/16" diam x 0.250" deep. In reality our cbore tools are about 0.406 and we cut them about 0.265 deep to make sure the head is below flush.

No big deal, right? I went in to these two XML files and edited them (and kept backups):
Ansi Metric M Profile.xml
Ansi Unified Screw Threads.xml

The problem ==========>
Everything seems to be cool, except for one scenario. When I create a counterbored joint for a metric SHCS, the cbore diameter is always 16.00 mm diameter and too deep, regardless of its size. I searched the XML file and what it's doing *does not* match the data in the XML file. I monkeyed around a little more and could not get the counterbores to come out right.

So at that point, I renamed all the files to restore my original backups to the "factory" ones. I assumed that I screwed up the formatting or something in the data table and I'd just try it again. However, even after I restored my backups and removed my edited files, the metric counterbores are messed up.

What I don't understand is that changing the file "Ansi Unified Screw Threads.xml" *did* update the holes for English screw joints. But does the DA pull data for metric joints from somewhere OTHER than "Ansi Metric M Profile.xml"? And if it does use this XML file, why isn't it working? The original data has been restored, but the behavior is not behaving correctly.

Anyone have any ideas?

[tdswanson]

No one else has had this issue before?  Anyone have any advice to try?

[xiaodong_liang]

Hi,

Sorry I am not being helpful. It looks this is a question of product. Your other post is logged in the product board. Could you still post this question there? If your question is related with API, could you elaborate in more details about your code?

[tdswanson]

Yes, I can repost this question there.  However, would it not seem that the task of editing this data to suit my needs would fall under the customization board?  Maybe I'm missing something.

As for my code, there isn't any code.  I just took the existing XML data and change some of the numbers.

Thanks for your message

[xiaodong_liang]

Hi tdswanson,

editing XML is a kind of customization, but as far as I know, there is no document on the format of the XML data for Bolted Connection Design Accelerator. Once the format is known, it is actually a pure question of editing XML, which is not Inventor API specific.  It looks it does not work even though you have tried to edit something of the XML data. So it would be much better to check with the specialist on product board why the editing XML does not take effect.