Weird glitch

[gckid333]

I haven't been experiencing this myself, since I don't CAD for my team, however the person that has been doing it has relayed to me a glitch that happens every time he loads a file which makes him have to re-do half of the robot all over again. I offered to look for a possible solution for him while he re-CADs the robot again, but I'm stumped and this isn't my area of expertise.

Basically every time he loads the file with the entire robot on it, all of the separate parts are moved around and not where they were supposed to be. Things are taken apart and moved around and no matter what he does, it keeps happening. At the end when he's finished he groups everything together, however when he tries to load the file again, the parts are all scrambled.

I'm sorry if I'm not describing this very well, I'm just trying to help him out since he's been working really hard and I don't want this to stress him out. Has anyone experienced a problem like this before or know how he can solve it?

[ProgramLuke]

What CAD program are you using?

[gckid333]

Autodesk Inventor 2011, or whatever came in this year's KOP (but I'll have to double-check)

[ProgramLuke]

Sorry, I only know ProE, hopefully someone else can help!

[lscime]

I only know SolidWorks, but I assume that AutoDesk isn't too different. When your teammate puts the parts in the assembly does he mate them or constrain them (I'm not sure what the AutoDesk word would be) together, or is he just "putting them next to each other." e.g. does he click a face of one part say "be coincident" with the face of another part (or something similar)? If he is not doing this then that could explain the problem; parts need to be constrained in assemblies.

I hope that helps,

-Luke

[2611.Shooter]

in addition, if any of the files are moved, renamed, etc. then inventor will mess up. so, ask if he has renamed any of the individual parts, changed them in the .ipt file, or anything else of the sort. and again, tell him not to just drag, but to use constraints to assemble an .iam files. hope this helps.

[gckid333]

Well as for moving files, I think this may be the problem. Multiple people have been working on various parts and systems on the robot at school. Then they give their files to my team mate who took them home this weekend to put it all together at home. Could this be what's causing him all the trouble?

And I'm pretty sure he does use constraints. He's had quite a bit of experience with Inventor (he takes a class on it at school).

[Duke461]

You have to be very careful with editing the full robot assembly. two people should never have the same file up unless they are very experienced. on top of that, be careful with changing files. You should be fine as long as those file locations aren't put in a place not everybody can reach them, otherwise it wont load the parts and assemblies you need. So for instance, we have at our school what's called a Y drive, a student common drive, and a Max drive.
The Y drive is every students personal "folder". The student common is a drive that everyone can access, and the max drive is for robotics people only. So lets say Bob is CADding the arm assembly on his "Y" drive, and then when he's done, he transfer the assembly file to Joe's flash drive. Joe will not be able to load that file because the parts making up that assembly are located in Bob's "Y" drive. But if Bob saves everything into the student common or Max Drive, even if you only have the assembly, inventor will recognize this and try to help you locate the parts, which you could do if they were in a "student common" folder.
Hope this helps,
if this wasn't the answer you were looking for or if you have any others questions, just ask,
good luck,
-Duke
P.S. i understand what he's going through, i've CADded almost the entire robot myself this year also using Autodesk Inventor 2011; so i can answer very specific Autodesk questions as well.

[gckid333]

I understand what you are saying. I am not sure where everyone is saving their files however I don't believe that is the problem. Either way, I will relay this back to the team because that is a good practice that we should follow. Our IT students and mentors are working on creating a special server just for this kind of application.

He's done with the CAD and every part is there (he emailed me pictures). It's not that Inventor can't locate the files for each part, because apparently it has. The only problem is that at times when he loads the file again, everything gets moved around.

I'll get more info on this issue once he emails me back.

Thanks a lot everyone for all of your help!

[Duke461]

Ok. for now all i can say is check all constraints. But let me know when you get back info from him

[voltage5]

Yeah, double check the constraints. We had problems sharing robot parts in one communal folder because the individual parts only load on some computers. Inventor can get really glitchy when you're making complex designs.

[gckid333]

He says he uses constraints. He also said that he would never make it without constraints because that would be terrible practice. So it's not the constraints.

It just seems like some sortof glitch in the program. I was hoping maybe someone else had ran into this issue before but I guess not. One of our mentors just said that Autodesk must hate him

[wkalsafi]

Hi, I'm the CADder in question and I would like to thank all of you for your help.

I have some more things to ask you though:

1. so would this still occur if you copy pasted all of the iam files and its corresponding iam and ipt files and then when you opened up the iam and clicked on all of the corresponding files when it asks you for them.

2. Would this also happen if you were using a non-autodesk file (for example if you are importing an .STP file from andymark)Because whenever I place one of those in an assembly it says that Autodesk can't use this type of file but lets me place it anyway, but these files are the ones that get messed up the most.

As for a shared folder, we have tried to get one on the school network which is unsuccessful, but it is difficult to work with any of those computers as they only have either 1.5 or 2 gigabytes of ram and really terrible GPUs. So, I pretty much have been forced to work on most of them at home and transferring them (with a great deal of failure).

[Duke461]

Originally Posted by wkalsafi

Hi, I'm the CADder in question and I would like to thank all of you for your help.

I have some more things to ask you though:

1. so would this still occur if you copy pasted all of the iam files and its corresponding iam and ipt files and then when you opened up the iam and clicked on all of the corresponding files when it asks you for them.

2. Would this also happen if you were using a non-autodesk file (for example if you are importing an .STP file from andymark)Because whenever I place one of those in an assembly it says that Autodesk can't use this type of file but lets me place it anyway, but these files are the ones that get messed up the most.

As for a shared folder, we have tried to get one on the school network which is unsuccessful, but it is difficult to work with any of those computers as they only have either 1.5 or 2 gigabytes of ram and really terrible GPUs. So, I pretty much have been forced to work on most of them at home and transferring them (with a great deal of failure).

1. shouldn't be an issue
2. STP files shouldn't have a problem

What method did you use to download Inventor? CD (not chief delphi )? off the website? Also are there any files you have issues downloading that are generic like mecanum wheels or toughbox nanos? because my CAD has those and i could post the inventor files for those on here.
Good luck dude, I understand your pain w/ Inventor. But when you get it all figured out, it's one of the best programs out there. The stress tests and whatnot can prove to be very helpful

[David Guzman]

STEP files do not have constrains in them. The best thing to do with them is to save them Inventor files. When you do this, Inventor will automatically create a sub folder inside your working project and will save all the components as parts or assemblies depending on what they are. Next thing you should do is open up any assembly that was derived from a step file and either ground all the components so they can't move or constrain them properly. This should resolve your links and also prevent the assembly from "exploding".