Okay, I’m trying to model the frame of our robot in inventor. We are using 30x30 IPS extrusion, so I’m using the 30x30 drawing from Ed Spark’s library.
I “Add Component” to my assembly four times, 3030.ips, one for each side of my rectangle (29inx35in). Here is the problem: When I extend one of the pieces (with edit: extrude) the other three are extended too! I can disable “Extrusion 2,” but then all four pieces are the starting length!
I can’t figure out how to get different lengths in there! I had some one tell me to just make seperate parts (.ips) of the right length. This seems really really inefficent to me. There has to be a Better Way! Does anyone know of it? 
Off the top of my head, I think that there should be a “Save As” or maybe “Save Copy As” function under the file menu. If you need the same cross section to be four different lengths, save it as four different filenames. That way, modification to one component does not affect the others…
Jon,
Each unique component must have it’s own part file. So as Daniel suggested, use “Save Copy As” to create these seperate part files.
If two or more components is your assembly are identical, then use copy and paste to place them in your assembly (or just drop multiple copies when you place the component). As you experienced, parts that are copies of a single part file will ALL change when the part file is changed.
Hrmm… that isn’t terribly intuitive… but I guess it does make sense. Does Inventor support assemblies of assemblies? I guess that’s what parts are for? It’s going to take a little while to get used to this madness! 
Thanks for the help.
Yes, assemblies of assemblies are allowed (and I would encourage you to use them. You can save yourself a lot of time this way).
You can have assemblies of assemblies …
Jon, yea you can insert assembiles into an assembly.
My chasis assembly had 4 assemblies and something like 42 parts in it.
Assembiles can get big FAST, I recomend if your making something large and complicated break it into small groups and then assemble those later. Rather than put it all together at once.
Ah! Okay. This sounds much better than I was thinking. So a chasis could be an assembly, and an arm could be an assembly, and good things like that. That makes more sense.
80/20 has an “AutoQuoter” program that is supposed to have all of their extruded aluminum products in it for designing. The only problem is that they say it needs AutoCAD, so I’m not sure if it will work with Inventor.
“Understanding AutoQuoter:”
http://www.8020.net/peace/autoquoter.asp
“Using AutoQuoter:”
http://www.8020.net/peace/usingaq.asp
Good Luck!
Also, IPS has a program called “ProfileCAD” that apparently does the same thing. Unfortunately, they also say that it needs AutoCAD, so I’m not sure if this will work on Inventor either. 
It’s under the “Downloads” section at:
http://www.industrialprofile.com/
You can import Autocad drawings into Inventor…
The problem is the 3d models of them aren’t quite right.
Autocad 3D Models are best translated by way of ACIS files.
Export the model form Autocad using FILE, EXPORT, and select ACIS(.sat).
Then open the ACIS(.sat) file in directly in Inventor.
You can then do a FILE, SAVE COPY AS, to save the file as an inventor part, inventor assembly, STEP file, IGES file …
