Hey, I tried looking for an answer to this somewhere but wasn’t successful please don’t flame me if this has been asked previously… 
Anyway I need to model some working springs for an assembly that I’m doing, I’m trying to use the Design accelerator but I don’t know a lot of the spec’s it’s asking for (I know the spring constant (Lbs/in), length, material, wire diameter, and outer diameter). Is there another way to do this? Anyone care to help me?
Thank you very much!!!
I don’t think it’s possible to actually compress springs in inventor. I haven’t used the new features to 11 yet, but you can’t do it in Inventor studio. You could try using the different features but I don’t know how helpful they’ll be.
It’s possible, but I don’t remember how to do it. It’s a big mess of adaptivity and non-specified dimensions, though.
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just curious, how’d you guys learn all your inventor skills?
i’ve been teaching myself with the bundled tutorials, but they dont always go into enough detail, or at least that’s my take on it…
I first learned with the tutorials. After that, it was experimenting, and a ton of experience (this is my fourth year working with Inventor now, so you kinda pick up on things as you go along).
Well by working springs you mean like when you manually move a part it compresses, then it is possible. Inventor has a new mode that simulates mechnical movement. That is the good news. The bad news is i don’t know how to use it yet. When you are in finished sketch mode on you tools bor where it says sd tools click there and you will see the new modes there. I guess you can play with it.
The way i learn inventor is though school my school is a Project Lead The Way school so it is a pre-engineering course. So in those courses I selected Inventor. But also i mess around with the program alot.
Experience is key. This is my second year working with the program, but I’ve spent many hours in school when I had time (tech ed classes) just fiddling around with the many properties and tools it offers. Basically, just work with what you know now, and if want to try to learn something new, do it.
That’s what I was referring to before. One of our other teammates is working on learning that. I just remembered it’s name. Dynamic Simulation.
It’s actually pretty easy to make a flexible spring in Inventor. It does use adaptivity, but it’s a very simple application of adaptivity. If you just want to model and animate (works in Inventor Studio), you don’t need Dynamic Simulation.
There’s a tutorial on the Autodesk Student Community (http://students.autodesk.com - here is a link if you have a username and password). The sample part and assembly files are attached to the post. The tutorial itself is too large to attach to a post here, but if you PM me or email me at [email protected], I’ll email you the tutorial.
A quick description: create two parallel planes where one is offset from the other, make a coil between two planes where the height of the coil is dependent on the offset distance between the planes, right-click the plane feature (the one with the offset from the other plane) in the browser and make it adaptive, then constrain the planes in the spring file in an assembly, and make the spring part adaptive by right-clicking the part file in the browser. The spring will change length as the assembly parts change position.
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showthread.php?t=51157
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showpost.php?p=550428&postcount=3
Base_of_spring.ipt (151 KB)
flexible_spring.iam (140 KB)
Base_of_spring.ipt (151 KB)
flexible_spring.iam (140 KB)
I learned CATIA V5 through school, and from there I fiddled around with inventor. I don’t know a ton about it, but I can do the basics. I think the best way to learn is probably experience, and/or having someone who knows what they’re doing to help.
It’s great to have you guys helping Sarah and I as it’s our first year on Inventor.
Thanks!!!
Well, I started out by teaching myself, then moved on to the course they offered at school. Now I’m taking college-level stuff, and that is sooooo cool. So anyways, just take the course at school.