Creating Custom Frame Profiles

hi my name is John Helton I'm an education solution specialist with Autodesk and today I wanted to go over a question that I get fairly frequently from FIRST Robotics Competition teams behind formula teams at the university level because all three are building frames that are custom to their needs and the question comes up often and that question is how do I create a custom profile for the frame generator so what we're going to do is we're gonna walk through that entire process here in this demonstration and I'll show a few different things I'll show how to create a part or sketch in a part I'll show how to create an AI part because that's useful very useful in creating custom components I'll show how to publish that to a custom library and how to leverage that component to build a frame so to get started let's look at the project file so a project file is important because that's where your libraries are configured I have my ME training option here and this is one that I just I used by default too as a catch-all kind of so what we're going to do is down in the bottom right hand corner there's a button that says configure content center libraries and I'm going to go ahead and click on that and that brings up a dialog box that shows all the libraries that are currently installed so it's inventor ansi/ieee sewed in these are all the component libraries for standard components so nuts bolts washer structural shapes things like that they're all read-only you can't modify standard components because they're standard components so in order to make a modification to one or create your own you would need to create your own readwrite library now by default I think and better creates this my library I may have created it on my own I can't remember to be honest but my library is a readwrite library you could check it and use it it's already enabled for this project already but what I need to do is I'm going to actually create a new library called FIRST Robotics so I'm going to use this button down here to create a new library and I call it FIRST Robotics and this is going to be my library that I collect all components that are specific to the FIRST Robotics Competition so now you can see it it's check for in use the name is FIRST Robotics you have to read right so that's all you have to do to configure a library for use I'm gonna hit done and then I'm going to hit save to save my changes to my project now I'm gonna go through this from scratch I'm gonna create a new part it's just a standard default part and I'm gonna walk through the entire process of creating this part turning it into an AI part and publishing it all that I'm not going to get into too many details on how to sketch in part model I already have videos on those on YouTube however I've received enough feedback from my youtube channel with people saying that they need more help in learning the basics so I'm going to go ahead and walk through the process so I'm going to start out all the dimensions I'm going to be using are dimensions I've already measured and know just to speed the process a bit so when I'm creating my default parts and basic parts I always pretty much just draw the basic shape and then go back and add dimensions and constraints to control its size and shape completely oops I didn't add that dimension okay so as you can see I've got some lines that are blue some that are yet green and what that means is the ones that are blue are fully constrained the ones that are green or not are they have degrees of freedom if you want to see what those degrees of freedom are you can right-click on the graphics window and select show all degrees of freedom and what this does is brings up some red arrows that show how how things can move in the sketch and those will get removed as you add dimension so this point for example has arrow in all directions which means I can move it in all directions but let's do and this one here in the center I can move up and down right by clicking on it and what I'm going to do is I'm going to start removing their degrees of freedom by adding constraints and adding dimensions so first I notice this top line is green but I don't want that to be able to move up and down unless this does but it's driven by this dimension are they so I'm going to go ahead and create a collinear constraint which means put this one exactly in line with this line and now you see all those red arrows just drop because they can't move up and down anymore because it has to be perfectly aligned with that line across from it and that line is controlled by this height so you get the basic idea so let's do a couple more couple more things I'm going to create some construction geometry but before I do that let me clean up move this dimension out of the way a little bit there we go so I'm going to create a some construction geometry I'm going to hover over and snap to the midpoint in this line and I'm gonna draw straight up it becomes perpendicular with one of the horizontal lines already and I'm going to place that now I'm going to use this as a center line a lot of people ask how you change things to a center line I rarely do because inventor doesn't necessarily need it in every case so I don't want to bother with clicking the line and going up here to the format section and hitting centreline and I'll show you what I mean I'm just gonna leave it open because this isn't closed or bumping into this line like ending on this line terminating on this line it doesn't create a closed profile so I'm better eating towards it and I'll show you what I mean in a minute but the reason I created that line is to create symmetry I'm gonna make this line here and this line here symmetric around this line now what that means is if I move this arrow at this point those other lines move exactly as they do on the opposite side of that line so there's completely symmetric the other thing I'm going to do is I'm going to add a dimension here I know this is 0.175 and I know this dimension for this angle is 90 45 so next we have let me put on some fill it's here you know that's 125 and that's 125 I know the bottom ones are point two seven three they're there and then I know that this dimension here is 1.0 one or point 101 all right so by doing that you can see the size and shape are all correct and you also see that everything turned blue that means it's fully constrained and things are all set up the way they need to be so next essentially what I have here is a u channel or C channel depending on the orientation but what I this is a standard shape this is the one that is in the system already so what I want to do is modify this and I can do that by adding extra profiles so I'm going to draw from the endpoint of this line I'm just going to draw out this way and then I'm going to draw up and connect to this art okay so what I'm going to do is I'm going to mention that I want this endpoint or that vertex there to always be a quarter inch away from this line so no matter what the width is it's always gonna be a quarter inch from that edge right and then I want this to be 45 degrees okay so next I want to do the same thing on the other side I'm going to draw from the end point of the line out some distance and I'm going to draw up and connect to that arc already and then I'm going to dimension the vertex to the edge wall and here instead of typing in 0.25 I already know that this is the dimension I want so I'm going to just select it and what it does is it takes this variable name which is d7 it puts it in here so that it makes it 25 so if this were to change to 0.27 they both change to point two seven right so that's that's just linking dimensions quickly in the sketch and you can do a bunch of stuff you can create equations and things like that from it as well the other thing that is useful from time to time is driven dimensions these dimensions or these lines are already fully constrained so when I put this dimension on it's going to say do you want to add this as a driven dimension and I'm going to accept that and it puts it in parentheses and all that means is this is for reference it just lets me see that this is 45 so that if I change this one this one updates and whatnot so now we have the sketch all laid out I've got my profiles all set up so I'm ready to go next I want to create a couple parameters that can be used to control the size and shape when we create the eye part and it also help when we do the frame generator components so what I'm going to do is go to the manage tab up here and there's a parameters button and I'm going to create some user parameters down here at the bottom I select user parameters hit add link and I'm going to create links I'm gonna leave it at at one I'm going to add a new one I'm going to call it width and I know I want the width to be three and then add another one called height I know I want that to be one point four one and these are all dimensions that are in the system so here's that three and here's that one point four one so if I scroll up this list you can see here's three here's one point four and instead of using these values for those dimensions I'm going to change these up here and use those variables we just our parameters were just created so on the three that's the width and you'll notice is I'm going to back up its red until I get to a point where the name matches a variable in the system so you know that you've gotten to a point where things are correct when it goes black instead of saying right and this one point four one is H it's died there we go and we haven't used length yet we're gonna use that in a minute so I'm going to hit done here and what that did is you notice on the screen now this 3 has an FX in front of it just like the 25 does what the FX means is that this is being driven by some other variable or whether it's another dimension or a parameter and I could see what that is by double clicking I could have just as easily come in or created those parameters then come back over here just got in here and type tight the works just the same way it's bi-directional so you can do it in the parameters table or you can do it on the screen it's up to you so now we're ready to extrude this into a part a shortcut I use I'm in the sketch currently but I know I'm done and I know my next command is going to be extrude rather than hit finish sketch go to the model tab and hit extrude you can just see on your keyboard and it does both things at once so it will finish this sketch and it puts me in the extrude command now by default it selects profile as my option and wants me to pick a profile and there's three profiles here there's the two notches and this overall outer notch or outer shape so if there was only one had we not created these notches here it would automatically select this whole thing because there's only one profile and then it would move on to other options but in this case I'm going to select this outer off outer shape and I'm gonna set its length instead of one inch here and the heads up display I'm gonna credit to set it to link okay so when I get that it okay and we've got our custom shape and we've got parameter set up so that we can create things and you know so we're almost ready to publish before we do that there's a couple of things small things we need to do I'm going to right-click on this part at the top of the browser and go to hi properties and then i4i properties I'm gonna select select physical and you don't have to do this but I like to do it and I'm gonna I'm going to just set the default material in the aluminum 6061 which is the type of material this is it's up to you you can change it when you create the profile or when you create the frame generator components but I'm gonna do it here just to have it set up next we're going to create the eye part so from the manage tab under author the author section of the manage tab there's the option to create high part so I'm going to go ahead and click that now when it comes up with is a list of all the parameters that we have set up that are in use it's got the first part listed and it's got a length of 1 width of 3 and a height of 1 point 4 1 which is all the dimensions that we already had and what I'm going to do is I'm going to right click on this and I say insert row and I'm going to say insert row a second time because I want 3 different parts and you can have as many as you want you can do a lot of cool things with eye parts you can do you can suppress features you can set up i mades you can add just select which work planes or work features are included in the eye part this isn't an eye part demo so I'm not gonna really go over that but just know that it's available so next what we need to do is you know we don't want three parts that are identical so what I'm going to do is I'm going to just change the width on these so I'm going to make 1/3 12.75 and I'm gonna make the bottom one here 2.5 and I'm gonna hit OK now what you'll see is in the top of the browser we've got a table here and it lists part 1 2 & 3 and as I double click on each it just changes the parameters of that eye part so that it changes the size and shape very common very cool but now we're ready to publish this and get different sized components in a frame generator so let me go ahead and save this part I'm else I'm going to save it as first robotics here I'm gonna just overwrite one of my existing ones I'm gonna call it first robotics custom channel and then hit yes to save it and now I'm ready to publish this so on on the manage tab again same place where I part or create I part is there's an auth in the author section there's a drop down here for authoring components and by default you'll see component listed there I've already been playing around with things so I've moved do you know selecting different options but you can create components tubes and pipes connectors and structural shapes in this case what we're doing is a structural shape so I'll go ahead and click on that and it brings up the structural shape authoring dialog now in this dialog there's not a whole lot that has to be set up what we need to do is select the category so what I'm doing is I'm creating a channel you you know you might create angles or i-beams but in this case I'm creating a channel and it does most of the work for you I only have one extrusion and that's kind of what I recommended in the beginning because of this you know you don't want this to be complex I try to do it all in one sketch if I can but what it does is it sets up your base extrusion since there was only one it automatically selected the one you can see the checkbox and then the default insert point it predefined one right in the center of the part and that's fine for this you know setup so what I'm going to do is now go to the parameter mapping section or the tab up top and this is a big one list of what could potentially look scary like a bunch of scary variables but you don't have to fill all these in if you don't want it's up to you I'm not going to go into what each does but it's up to you as to which you use the one that's important is the base link and I'm going to set that to the linked variable that we set up and that's the only one that's required when you're publishing something to the to the content side so now we've got everything set up I'm going to go ahead and hit publish now now what this is going to do is it's going to make some changes in this part so it's this part has been modified for use of structure use of structural shape authoring and you can get details on it but what it essentially did is over in the browser named that base component body and it created a driven length sketch that it uses internally so I'm gonna hit OK here and let it do its thing and it's going to bring up my publish guide by default when we were setting things up well I already had my library selected for use in this project and the other one it has is the FIRST Robotics library we played it so essentially what this drop-down is showing you is all the rewrite libraries that you have available in this project so I'm going to select FIRST Robotics I'm gonna leave the language English it's already set up to be a channel so I'm gonna leave that it already is set up for base link and I have an opportunity to change all of these other variables if I choose to then they head next and then they have defined key columns so in this case you have to move one but this is another reason I use specific variables I'm going to move the length width and height builder just because those are the three key things that I had in the system or you know head setup now I'm gonna hit next and here I get to name some of my components so I'm going to start out by saying my family name folder is FIRST Robotics because that's where I'm that's the main area of this family and then the family name is FIRST robotics coach annal and I'm gonna say custom 45 slot yeah that's good enough custom 45 slot just some basic family description next we're going to use the ANSI as my standard then I'm going to use in both cases the standards organization and standard because this is really just a standard component to your buying and modifying so you probably want to match it up with whatever standard component you're tweaking unless you know you're building your own from scratch but chances are most people are buying some standard component and making a modification to it so now I'm gonna hit next and it takes the picture that it's all just a planar view of the part and that's fine for me you can change it if you want but in this case I don't think it's necessary so I'm gonna go ahead and publish this it tells me that my publish was completed successfully and I hit OK and now I'm just gonna close this part and save it because we're done with that portion of the demo that portion of the demonstration so next what we want to do is we're going to create a standard assembly this is nothing special it's just a standard assembly and in back what I am going to do is I'm going to make some changes real quick to set my orientation you can see this XYZ coordinate system here I like my X being in this direction but I like my Y on the flat plane at the bottom so what I'm gonna do is just move my view cube around a little bit so that I get into the orientation I like with X&Y being the bottom table you know essentially the tabletop and then Z in the up direction and then I'm gonna set my current view home view and I'm gonna set by this bottom to you to really be represent the front now what that does is it snaps everything into place so that if I rotate this part around you know somewhere crazy and I hit home it just puts me back in my home orientation next I'm going to create a part I'm going to call this frame box and hit OK and this is gonna help I already have one that exists I'm just going to overwrite it what I'm doing here is just creating a box that I can use you know to create some edges that I can use for the frame generator enough in a second so I'm going to create a rectangle I'm gonna at 24 inches I'm gonna hit tab on my keyboard to switch to the next dimension 24 inches hit tab again and then left click to place the rectangle it might home you now I'm going to on my keyboard then they were extrude I'm gonna hit that 24 inches I'm gonna enter on my keyboard enter on my keyboard and I have a box so the reason I created the box is just so I could get these edges to drive the frame I'll show you what I'm doing in a second yeah I next we're gonna go ahead and start creating components or creating a frame with our custom components so I'm gonna go to the design tab and then I'm gonna look at inserting a frame and it tells me I need to save the assembly first and that's fine so we're gonna create this when you call it custom a custom frame demo not overwrite the one I already have I'm gonna hit OK and now my assembly saved and it takes me into the frame insertion dialog box and what it defaults to is it just defaults to a rectangular bar you can see the shape here so I've got my ANSI standard selected but if I click this drop down and I scroll down this list I now have first robotics custom channel custom 45 slot and that is the one we just created now let me let me look at the C channel real quick before we jump to that just to show you so I'm going to do the ANSI C channel here's that essentially that same shape we started with so that's essentially created a frame with this XI and then I took measurements off of that when it was in the assembly to get my dimensions for the for this component and then I'm gonna so let's go back I'm gonna go first robotics here's my full custom 45 slot and now you can see the picture that was there you know with our little fancy little slots created here and when I click the drop down it gives me some good information it gives me some of the values that were the length and the height that were moved over when we published remember so we have three by 1.41 height we had a 2.75 by 1.41 and 2.5 so now I can select from any of these and the system will automatically adjust the size based on that I part in this case I'm gonna go ahead and leave it at 3 that's fine you'll also notice it defaulted to aluminum 6061 and that is because we set up the I property to say that that was the material I can always go in here and modify that for this specific frame but it defaults to it so like I said it's not a huge amount of work it doesn't save a huge amount of time but it made sure that if you know that this component is aluminum and you're going to be buying it that it gives them a better that you're going to come up with the right material here next what I'm going to do is I'm going to start creating this frame so I'm going to start by selecting these top lines on this box and what that did was it gave me a preview of what this is going to look like so you can see here's my new channel it's got the 45-degree slots the prongs are facing down and the frame is running right down the center point that default Center point it's right here in this dialogue box you can see that it's selected and it's running right there so it's sitting above the box and it's hanging over the edges and what you can do now is with this preview you can go through and adjust how you want this thing oriented so let's say for example I want rather than say I want this skeleton this box frame box say that's the outermost dimensions of my frame I don't want anything hanging outside of that box I can use these orientation options to cycle through different positions so if I click here it's using this corner the very bottom corner of this prong which you can see is right there it's using that as the position of position this or the location of position is so you can just cycle through now I've got everything below the box but it's on the outside and this one would move everything so that below the box and inside so you can use these orientation options to just cycle through positions so this is good this is what I wanted I wanted to be able to have the prongs facing down all the flat parts facing up on this one you can also rotate or offset if you need to but in this case it don't worked out that this is the way I want it so I'm going to go ahead and apply those it's gonna ask me to give frame names I just use the defaults cuz it's pretty straightforward and I hit OK and it's going to create those four components now a little hard to see because they're inside the box so what I'm going to do is I'm going to change my shaded mode to with edges then you can see that those components are there we can also make this part see-through but I'm going to go ahead and leave it for now because it works so now next what this still enabled let's go ahead and add a few more so we'll just add it'll select these bottom corners and I'm selecting through the part and on okay so now here we have the same setup we had up the top but you can see the prongs are facing down there below the box and on the outside of the box so let's fix this so that the prongs are facing up let's do 180 degrees and ironically that works perfect that really if I rotate those around its it rotates it so the flat part of this frame is pointing down the prongs are facing up and that's what I wanted in this situation if I didn't again I could cycle through my orientation options and get back to where I want it so these are all inside and facing off the palms are facing up so I'm going to apply those and then you could you know continue along that path doing the same sort of thing we could select all these edges and create the vertical components but in this case I'm gonna go ahead and just cancel out here and I'm gonna turn the visibility of this component off turn the visibility of that box off so now you can see the frame components you know and I can always go back and add the vertical ring but I want to just just want you to be able to see this stuff and you can then use the frame generator tools to trim some of these things up so for example I could do trim and extend I can select the frame remember I want to cut and then I can select the face I want it to cut to you and I hit apply and it's going to trim that then I can do a frame number I want to cut and the face I want to cut it to you and I can apply now or you know you could do things like mitering or you know there's a few different options for end treatments but I'm not gonna go into that because this isn't really a frame generator demo completely but essentially you can then go and just use these tools here I can change components out I can miter I cannot and trim short and extend all that stuff but anyway that allows me as you can see I've gone through the process of creating a part turning it into an eye part creating some parameters I published it to a custom library and use that new custom component to create a pretty cool frame so I hope this was useful for everyone I look forward to presenting to you again in the future thanks you

Channel: John Helfen

Views: 83,024

Keywords: Autodesk, Inventor, Sketching, Part Modeling, iPart Creation, Authoring, Publishing, Profile, Creating a Frame

Id: XOwR89pA_e8

Length: 28min 27sec (1707 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 10 2011