Parts in An Assembly Linking to the Same File

[Nickefth61]

Hello All,

I am having a recurring issue in some of my iLogic Assemblies in Inventor 2015.

I have an assembly with two of the same parts. These parts are driven by iLogic rules built into both the parts and the assembly. I would like to be able to independently change the configuration of each part. For example:

                     Part 1A:                             Part 1B:

Length:         10 inches                          15 inches

Width:          32 inches                          32 inches

Height:         8 inches                            4 inches

and so on. No matter how I load the parts into the assembly, if I change the parameters related to one part, I do it for the other. Note that for each dimension, I have a User Parameter A and B such that:

User Parameter:

LengthA

LengthB

WidthA

WidthB

HeightA

HeightB

If I change Length A, both part lengths change to that value. Then if I change Length B, the part lengths change to length B. What I want is for the length of part A to be Length A, and the length of part B to be Length B.

To give you guys some idea of what I tried to fix this, here are descriptions of some of my attempts. Note that the main assembly and all its components are contained with a Project file of the main assembly name.

1. Copy and Paste two sets of the Part, and name one Part A and the other Part B. Place them in the assembly as such.

2. Replace Components for each part and link them to the proper location.

3. Create a project file each for Part A and Part B in the hopes that the project files will help keep them contained.

4. Make completely different file paths for Part A and Part B, contained in completely seperate places. Link them into the assembly from those paths.

Note that this happens for individual parts and subassemblies. When I try to place identical Ilogic-driven components into the same assembly, the parameters end up being driven the same way, no matter what I have tried above. The weirdest part is, on some of my assemblies this isn't an issue. 75% of the assemblies I build with identical parts contained have this issue, but 25% don't, and I don't think I'm doing anything differently (obviously I must be, but I can't figure out what it may be).

Can anyone offer advice as to why this may be happening? Has anyone run into a similar issue? I'm stumped.

Thanks to the Inventor-user community. This forum is a big help.

Nicholas

[NSBowser]

You cannot give 1 part two difference lengths and expect to get two parts out of it. You need to do a 'Save as' on Part A to make Part B. Then you will have 2 different parts, which have two different lenghts that can be controlled independently. if you want two nearly identical parts, built of the same deisgn intent, but with different inputs and characteristics i would suggest looking into iParts.

[MechMachineMan]

I'm still confused by your explanation. Maybe derived parts is a solution?

Are you just wanting to be able to drive 2 different parts' sizes from a top level assembly?

[Nickefth61]

Hey MechMachineMan,

Thanks for the reply. I apologize if my explanation was unclear.

I have to place a part (driven by iLogic) in an assembly twice, with different lengths. For visual purposes, let's say a pipe with the same diameter but different lengths.

What I do is I take the part, make two copies of it in windows explorer with different names, lets say part A and part B (note this is not in inventor. I have two completely different files), and reference part A and B in inventor to the correct files, respectively.

Now, when I change part A in the top-level assembly, part B still changes, even though it references a different file in windows. I have had varying success in nesting each part in seperate folders, but it doesn't seem to be a definate solution.

I hope that explanation is a bit clearer. I checked out derived parts and I'm not sure if that is a solution here. I wll try iParts and see if that works though.

Thank you,

Nicholas

[Nickefth61]

Hey NSBowser,

Thanks for the reply. I do think your suggestion of iParts might be the way to go. Right now I am using iLogic to drive the part but having the selection in a different format might be what I need.

I am not trying to give the same part two different lengths. Parts A and B are referencing two seperate files (yes, they are identical parts in the beginning, merely copies of eachother) but I was opening having A reference one file and B the other that I would essentially have two seperate parts.

Your description of the capability of iParts is what I am looking for. I am going to learn a bit more about how to make iParts and give it a go.

Thank you,

Nicholas