Inventor Errata

[Madison]

Okay, I'm finally getting the hang of this thing. I can't say that I'm doing everything right, but it is getting done. I don't really have a feel for what 'adaptive' stuff is just yet, but I plan on exploring it some this weekend.

So, with that said - I have some more questions:

1. - What kind of computers do you run this on?

I'm currently stuck with a 533 Mhz AMD K6-2, 312 MB of RAM, and a GeForce 2 MX. It flies on parts, but as my assembly gets larger, it begins lagging a lot.
In the future, I expect to have a laptop with a 2.0 Ghz P4, 512 MB of RAM, and a GeForce 4 420. Can I expect significant improvement? If I'm going to use this thing to design our robot, then I want to be able to work with the entire robot as a single assembly.

2. - Virtual Kit of Parts?

I didn't get in on this last year, and I haven't heard any mention of it at all this year. Is it coming back? Was there anything available from Autodesk that isn't available from Ed Sparks?

3. - Does anyone have a *.iam of the drill motors?

I've downloaded all of the parts for the drill motors, I think, from www.firstcadlibrary.com. I didn't see that black, conical looking clutch type thing, though. Still, I don't have the slightest idea as to how to assemble them and insert it into my drawings. Does anyone have this for me? I'll be your best friend.

4. - Can anyone point me to tutorials that explain how I can make these things move?

I think it'll go a long way toward helping me explain how stuff works.


That's all for now :) I'm sure I'll be back with some more questions as I start running into more problems. I still haven't figured out that extrusion. :-/

[sanddrag]

We use inventor on 1.8 GHz P4s running W2K Pro but it freezes all the time. Prolly because the computer is made by Comcrap I mean Compaq.

[Ed Sparks]

What kind of computers do you run this on?

I develop parts on the same class of machine you now have. Your laptop will make life better. I suggest you develop your robot as sub-assemblies.

Virtual Kit of Parts?

All models that were on the Autodesk site can be found on First Cad Library (http://www.firstcadlibrary.com). I haven't heard what the plan is this year but I suspect Autodesk will offer some parts.

Does anyone have a *.iam of the drill motors?

I never drew the clutch because we don't use it on our drive assemblies. I'll draw that part for you and build an .iam of the complete assembly this weekend.

Can anyone point me to tutorials that explain how I can make these things move?

You need to master "Constraints" before you make models move. The built in tutorials were enough for me to make a couple of movies.

Hang in there. There's a lot of things to learn in Inventor. It takes more than a weekend. I learn alot by dissecting models from other users.

[BoticsPUNK]

before you can move stuff around you'll need you master the
" constraints" command its prett much the same as the "object snap " command in AutoCAD. Your best bet it to read the tutiorials and mess around with it. if you need help message me

[Madison]

Originally posted by BoticsPUNK
before you can move stuff around you'll need you master the
" constraints" command its prett much the same as the "object snap " command in AutoCAD. Your best bet it to read the tutiorials and mess around with it. if you need help message me

I've gotten the hang of things now. I still haven't done much with movement, but I think I could if I had a little while to play with it.

I still haven't quite overcome the tedium of designing parts, but that's really not Autodesk's fault.

Oh - for what it's worth - I ran across an amazing website (www.cbliss.com) that has iParts for all sorts of bearings and fasterners and structural shapes (including 8020). That could be useful resource in addition to Ed Sparks' www.firstcadlibrary.com .

Also, www.tradeparts.com offers, if I recall, a free 30 day trail and some free models - Bosch Extrusion being among them. I'll have to check that out today.

[Gope]

Originally posted by sanddrag
We use inventor on 1.8 GHz P4s running W2K Pro but it freezes all the time. Prolly because the computer is made by Comcrap I mean Compaq.

Little tip man...nothing from AutoCad runs worth crap on Win2k, and I mean nothing! Try WinXP or 98, you'll see a signifigant drop in number of crashes.

[rbayer]

Originally posted by Gope
Little tip man...nothing from AutoCad runs worth crap on Win2k, and I mean nothing! Try WinXP or 98, you'll see a signifigant drop in number of crashes.

Then you're stuck with XP because Inventor won't run under 9x-based computers. This means I've got to run it in XP Pro and it's INCREDIBLY slow, even though I've got an Athlon XP 1700+ w/ 256MB of RAM and a GeForceDDR (faster than GeForce2MX).

[Gope]

Thats odd that inventor would run slower on XP because most other graphics related programs(granted inventor is geared more twoard functionality than graphics) like Photoshop, Illustrator, Bryce, and Poser all run alot faster on XP.

I dunno, I've never been a fan of anything that AutoCad has EVER made.

[AJ Quick]

I haven't noticed any slow down of the Inventor software while I'm modeling, or assembling. It does, however, take about a minute to completely load up.

I'm on a 1.3ghz, 512mb, GeForce2, and WinXP.

And, Ed has since updated the site and mentioned a 2003 kit of parts, so such a thing will be arriving sometime soon.

[ChrisH]

Originally posted by AJ Quick
I haven't noticed any slow down of the Inventor software while I'm modeling, or assembling. It does, however, take about a minute to completely load up.

I'm on a 1.3ghz, 512mb, GeForce2, and WinXP.



My laptop is same except slightly slower processor and half the ram. Inventor runs just fine for me. Occasionally it will bog down if I inadvertently have too many models open at the same time. If that happens then I have to exit the program and restart it and the problem clears up.

One of the keys is the GeForce card. It was chosen specifically because it uses OpenGl. This was recommended by AutoDesk.

[Madison]

I've been running Inventor on my laptop for a week now, and though I haven't gotten into terribly huge assemblies, it's notably faster than my desktop had been.

The laptop is a 2.4 Ghz P4-M with 512 MB of RAM and an ATI Mobility Radeon card.

I ran into problems with Inventor crashing after I had installed Microsoft Office 2000. I uninstalled Office 2000 and installed Office XP and Inventor is working flawlessly.

[petek]

I run Inventor 5.3 under Win2000Pro on a 1.7 GHz IBM Xeon, 1 GB and have almost no problems. I can't remember the last time it acted up.

Despite what Autodesk says, memory is critical with Inventor. I have always had problems with it on any PC with less than 512 MB RAM.

YMMV

[Jeremy_Mc]

check the autodesk site...they will eventually have optimizations for intel processors. i know we used them on our p4's last year with 3dsmax and they REALLY helped the performance.

also, try eliminating background clutter by closing explorer if you aren't going to be running anything else along with inventor. that'll free up about 11 megs of memory. that can be quite a chunk in a 128 MB or 256 MB machine.

the best advice i guess is to pile the memory in...

*jeremy