Managing Constraints 1

[oneilldm]

Later this year we are supposed to upgrade from v7 to v11. Maybe I'm just missing something, but constraints in Inventor are a pain in the a$$. Have there been any improvements in working with constraints? Give me hope!

 

[DesignerMike]

Constraints have not changed much.

They are so simple currently and really the basis for an assembly.

If you have some specific problems, please post them and we will try to help.

There are some free add-ins that will help. kwiksert is my favorite (

http://www.kwikmcad.com/icode/addins.asp

) and you can also look at i-mates for automatic constraining.

Angle constraints take a little bit of practice to be able to predict behaviour.
Also, you can use insert for many other things besides bolts, or a shaft. anything with a radius will allow an insert constraint.

Another great timesaver is to model the part around the origin axis and center point and use these features for quick and unbreakable constraints (even when you do a lot of changes on the part the origins are always unchanged)

 

[oneilldm]

Thanks for your reply DesignerMike! I guess if I had been more specific about my Constraint Issues… that would be helpful.

My problems right now have to do with assembly constraints. Placing a Constraint is easy enough. I know the Alt-drag tricks. It's the managing and solving conflicts that seems cumbersome.

It seems that constraints for a component should be available thru the right click, pop-up menu. I shouldn't have to navigate from the pop-up menu (or whatever) to the components in the Feature Tree (browser) an then find the constraint. It just seems awkward.

Also, if there is a conflict, it should show me the 2 constraints that conflict and not just the last one I put in. I more than likely want to delete the earlier constraint.

Finally, it doesn't seem to graphically highlight the constraints (in "Recover") very well. Sometimes they show up and sometimes they don't.

I appreciate the help.

 

[DesignerMike]

Unfortunately there isn't an easy answer. I still run into this problem myself. I know some users that rename their constraints to something that makes sense...but that would really add a bunch of time if you ask me.

You can highlight a constraint in the browser and hit "other half" and it will show you the other half.

It is much easier to see the contraints if you change the display to wireframe while working on it.

There are also some new selection tools that I have not used which will give you all the parts that are constrained to the selected part.

The angle constraints really tend to trip me up in this situation, and it seems to help to constrain to the assembly origin if you can. I also get tripped up with trying to move grounded parts.

Experience is probably the answer....skilled constraining will allow for easy editing without un-expected results. I figure I have about 5 years until I get to that point. Hopefully they have more helpful tools by then