NON-EXISTENT REFERENCES

[tmox]

I have been given a model as a reference. Since that time i have renamed, replaced and constrained each item in the assembly. Now, weeks later, there is a problem resolving the model with part names that have never been in this model assembly. (They MAY have been in the original reference model from where the items were copied and re-named.)
How will i ever be able to resolve this model when it is calling for parts that are not in the tree. I can't replace or delete (or anything) a part that doesn't appear in the file structure. Is there a way to "purge" these crazy references?

 

[DesignerMike]

Are there any sub-assemblies where these parts may be referenced? That is usually my problem...a simple little assembly with a nut or washer that isn't in the new project. This can be the biggest pain with re-naming and replacing parts. Look specifically at the i-parts since the new project location may not have the "child" required for this assembly. Also, when creating the assembly, you can often times place a part from an "out of project" location, but when making changes IV will forget where it is, and your memory may be worse than IV.

You can also us design assistant to help fix the issue....but I have avoided DA like the plague, so I'm not much help there.

 

[tmox]

Designer mike:

I know what you are saying above. From that, you would think that (SOMEWHERE), the offending reference would show up in the file hierarchy. NOT!!
What i think has happened, is that the designing engineer created parts in place in an assembly, and then made several iterations of this assembly before i got it. He had assemblies of the offending parts ('bank of bits') that i replaced with individual items (for BOM purposes). Let's say the original replaced assembly was "bank of bits", and it contained 3 parts, #1,#2 and # 3. I placed #1,2,3 into the NEW assembly individually and constrained them. Now how the hell does the new assembly even know that those combination of parts was ever an assembly and EVEN WORSE why would it call for that assembly when i never placed it in the model. EVER!!!
Alternately, lets say #1 (.ipt) has some reference to the original offending assembly. How do i get the same part without the reference?
I believe I know which parts are causing my problem, and i could re-draw them. But, what's to say that IV doesn't come up with some other bogus reference to cause this situation again? and because i can't be sure that the parts i think are the problem, are actually causing this, i could re-draw them to find out that i still have a reference to a 'ghost'.

 

[DesignerMike]

Sounds UGLY....

One thing you could try: When you are opening the assembly, the resolve link dialog opens, resolve to a different file (which will be bogus). This ....should replace the "missing ghost" file with the file you specify. Then you should be able to go into the assembly and delete the bogus part (hopefully making it go away).

I have seen some weird behaviour when you start to "create a part" in place, and after a couple features hit undo to back out of creating it (pretty much without saving). BUT the undo wasn't clean about removing the link. This is a problem for me when using Pro (which is basically creating another assembly while in the main assembly). If I undo out of the piping run without finishing or saving it does UGLY things.
If you start something and don't like where it is going, I will always finish the edit and then go back and delete whatever I just created.
Also, when you create a part from inside an assembly, you may have "adaptivity" turned on automatically (which can cause some odd behaviour too)

 

[tmox]

DesignerMike:

I thought you might have had something there with the replacement file. I did as you suggested and replaced the items with a bogus file.
The assembly resolved ok. (which will allow me to detail the drawing) but, the reference is still there, although not visible (/accessible??). I guess i will have to live with clicking OPEN on the resolve links dialogue and just ignore the fact that it is calling for a ghost.
i'm using V8. Hopefully, stuff like this is limited in the newer versions.
thanks for the response. working on your own or in an office full of ......non-techies can be frustrating. It's nice to know that there's someone who will take the time to try and help.

 

[DesignerMike]

The newer version is different (I'm not always convinced better)...just different issues, but overall fewer of them. Adding new features creates new issues.

Glad to be of help. There are a couple other forums that get a little more Inventor traffic that here.

http://www.mcadforums.com/forums/

has a good userbase, and Sean has a lot of other great links, tutorials, and partfiles people have shared.

http://www.cbliss.com

is a great resource for add-ins and iparts. I have found that the Inventor user community is very helpful overall.

I'm here a little more often for the mech engineering issues than IV.