help on inventor

[JCharlton]

Originally Posted by Cody Burd

our team is having a hard time using inventor. any help will be great.

The tutorials are great, you could start with those, but some things are so easy to do you can jump right in.

Here's a two-minute tutorial:

Start by creating a 'Project', this organizes all the files into a folder
Click 'Projects', then the 'New' button.
Select 'New Single User Project'
Change "ProjectName" to something like "Test 1"
Click 'Finish' and say OK to creating the project path
Now double-click the project in the 'Projects' window This makes it the active project.
Click 'Done'

Now make a simple part.
Select 'New', then Standard.ipt
You start in a 2D "sketch" mode.
Pick 'Rectangle' and click in two places to draw a box
Click 'Dimension', then right click and click the 'Edit Dimension' setting if it's not already checked. (This makes it easier to edit the dimension when you create it.)
Click on a line and then click to place the dimension anywhere convenient.
Type in the dimension you want, like "28 in" for the width of the robot.
Pick the other side and make that side "38 in".
Right-click and pick 'Done' (Finished with the Dimension tool)
Zoom to fit the whole rectangle with the 'Home' key on the keyboard.
Finish Sketch (top right), now you're in 3D mode.
Click 'Extrude', your box profile should be selected. Make it 7 inches thick and click Ok.
Voila, a robot base.

Now add a tower:
Click 'Create 2D Sketch' and pick the top surface of your base.
Draw another rectangle.
Go to 'Dimension' again, and pick a side of that rectangle and the side of the robot and give it a value.
Finish 'Sketch'
Extrude this to, say, 36 inches.
Admire your robot. Click on the cube in the top right to see it from different sides.

Take some measurements:
From the 'Tools' menu, pick 'Distance'
Pick a corner of the tower and the front edge of the robot.

Needless to say there's a lot more you can do with Inventor! Its power really comes from assemblies. If you found my quick little tutorial interesting PM me and I'll add a quick how-to on that. Also very easy.

Even if you aren't planning to CAD the whole thing ahead of time it REALLY helps to have even a simple 3D model to check dimensions before you make big mistakes.

Good luck!