IMAGINiT Manufacturing Solutions Blog

AutoCAD Electrical: Organizing Multiple Users and Streamlining Migration to Newer Versions

For firms to operate as efficiently as possible, it’s essential to manage and maintain software. This means organizing multiple users, as well as upgrading to newer versions as they are released. With AutoCAD Electrical, the WD.ENV file can help streamline these tasks and make them less onerous.

The WD.ENV allows IT and CAD Managers to set company standards. This helps users work more efficiently and also establishes a common “look and feel” for the company. Adding the path to the shared WD.ENV file on each user’s machine results in global sharing of settings. In addition, using the WD.ENV file as a template smooths the transition to software upgrades.

There are a wide variety of commands within the WD.ENV file that can be used to customize standards in AutoCAD Electrical. These include paths for symbol insertion and libraries, catalog parts databases, project and drawings, plotting and reporting, menus, and more.

To learn more about the different commands used in the WD.ENV file and their effect, download our technical white paper – Understanding the WD.ENV File for AutoCAD Electrical. IMAGINiT expert Thayne Wickam explains commands in the simplest format for quick reference during installations, system maintenance, or troubleshooting.

Inventor Sketching, Constraint Inference Scope

I can hear the sighs now, another Inventor sketching technique.  The most basic process in Inventor that we all do everyday has a myriad of techniques and I would like to suggest one more in this article.  This one is about Constraint Inference Scope. 

Just to be sure we are on the same page, lets review what constraint inference is in an Inventor sketch.  When you are sketching and you have "Infer constraints" on and have some constraints selected, you will notice that your sketch will "infer" a sketch constraint from another sketch entities.  If you have "Persist constraints" on, when you place the sketch entity it will apply the inferred sketch constraint.

By default the Constraint Inference Scope is set to "Geometry in current command" when a new sketch is created.  If you chose one of the other settings, it is saved with the active sketch and will returned to the selected setting when the sketch is edited.

If you chose either "All Geometry" or "Select" and place sketch entities on the screen, the inferred constraints allow you to select a remote coincident constraint.  If the "All Geometry" setting in on, my line will present an inferred coincident constraint anywhere along the existing line extension in space.  If you choose the "Select" option, you can select only the existing sketch entities you would like to participate in the inferred coincident constraint.   Please note that the entities that you select change color slightly to indicate they were picked.

Below is a short video that will illustrate these two settings.  The process works with other sketch entities as well such as circles, rectangles, and arcs.

 

 

Tools for 3D Printing in Inventor (Continued)

In my last post I looked at Inventor’s new 3D Print environment and demonstrated how it can be used to setup an STL file to send to a specific 3D printer. New functionality is always exciting, especially when it occurs around other new technologies like 3D printing but there are existing features in Inventor that are also useful to validate designs before production.

One of the key factors in a design for 3D Printing is the minimum allowable wall thickness. Depending on the material and process that a part will be printed in there are different needs for thicknesses, gaps and more. For most geometry it is easy enough to design a model around those requirements. Sometimes though precisely defining a wall thickness can be tricky. When dealing with complex surfaces and loft features the wall thickness may vary unknowingly. To verify the wall thicknesses in a design before printing we can use a tried and tested inspection tool called Section Analysis.

Here I have a modified design of a plastic hub for an AndyMark wheel that is part of the kit of parts used in FRC competitions. I have reproduced a CAD model and made some changes to the inner bearing surfaces. To check that my model meets the 3D printing requirements I can start the section analysis tool from the inspect tab in Inventor. With this particular test I am verifying that there are no wall thicknesses that are too thin for the planned printing process.

In this particular test I need to verify that there is no location where an unsupported wall's thickness is below 0.7 mm or (0.027 in) thick. Starting the section analysis tool I select the Advanced option to analyze wall thickness on multiple planes.

In the Section Planes area of the dialog box I need to setup the orientation and location of the section planes to be analyzed. First I Select the face for the start plane and flip the direction so section planes are added to the inside of the part.

Next, I set the number of sections to analyze and set the total distance to include in the test. Here I have entered 10 for the number of planes and I’ve used the measure option to evenly space them from the top face to the bottom face of the part.

The total distance works out to 0.6875 inches. We can see here how the ten planes are evenly spaced within that distance.

In the Wall Thickness area of the dialog box I will leave 0.500 inches as the maximum and enter 0.027 inches as the minimum. I could also enter a value in a different unit than my default model unit. Since the specification from my supplier is in metric if I entered 0.7 mm Inventor would perform the conversion into my model unit for me.

All that is left to do is run the analysis and check the results. Clicking Apply in the dialog box executes the analysis. It may take a moment to complete but once finished you should see the model visualization update and the results area of the dialog display a tabled analysis result.

• A yellow hatch indicates that my walls fall within the allowable wall thickness range
• A red hatch indicates that the wall thickness is over the allowable thickness
• A blue hatch indicates where the wall thickness is below the allowable threshold

There are areas in red and areas in blue in my results. I can ignore the red areas as these don’t affect the printability of this part. There are some blue areas though which indicate a larger issue. Scrolling through the results table and checking off the Show Violating option gives me a clearer picture of the problems at these sections.

Notice that the table rows are colored corresponding to the section planes that violate the wall thickness test. In this case there is no one section plane that has results both over and under the allowable range. (If a section contained such a result the tabled row would highlight purple in the results area). The blue hatched areas show me that I have walls under the allowable thickness so I need to modify my design to increase the thickness in these places so the model will produce a quality print.

A nice thing about the section analysis tool is that by leaving the results visible the section analysis will automatically re-run after I make changes to my part. Here I have updated the inner diameter of the lower bearing surface. After updating the extrude feature my analysis automatically refreshes and I can see that there are no areas with a blue hatch.

In this particular case my section analysis is complete. This test is of primary importance since it has been performed in the same orientation as planned on the printer's bed. However a section analysis run in one orientation may not be enough to give a full picture of the part. I have walls in other orientations so running this analysis in plane perpendicular to my first test will yield different results.

When 3D printing a model keep in mind that the requirements for embossed/engraved features, wires, unsupported posts, gaps and other geometry are all different within the same print material. Here I just examined primary wall thicknesses. 3D printing services often have their own tools to check model geometry prior to production but using Inventor's section analysis tool will save time getting a valid file to your printer.

-DAP