Place & Create Components - Autodesk Inventor Assembly Tutorial | Autodesk Inventor 2021 IN DEPTH

[Calm Hip-Hop Music] Hey everybody it's Alex with Engineering Applied  in this video I’ll be giving you a detailed   overview of how to place and create components in  an assembly file within Autodesk Inventor if you   want more easy to understand and practical content  like this made by an experienced engineer like   myself make sure you like this video subscribe  to the channel and turn on notifications so you   don't miss out on any helpful content like this in  the future also if you're looking for a specific   function check the description for timestamps  and if you don't find what you're looking for   in this video make sure you check out the other  videos in the Autodesk inventor series playlist   because I know you'll find exactly what you need  there let's get started okay everybody so here   we are in our blank assembly file and what we're  going to do first is take a look at our placement   options for placing components in our workspace or  our assembly and then we're going to be taking a   look at how to create various components directly  in our assembly file and we can use this to base   new geometry off of other existing components  in our assembly this is really useful for us   so what we're going to do first is open up this  drop down on the left side and our first option   is place so place essentially allows us to bring  in other Inventor part or assembly files and drop   those in our workspace within this assembly that  we're currently working in so let's go ahead and   click on this and we're going to bring in the  top cover for an electrical enclosure that we've   been working on throughout previous lessons so  we're going to click on this and it's going to   open up our place component navigator where we can  find our file of interest so let's go up a level   and then we're going to use our enclosure cover  okay and so we're going to double click on that   and now you'll notice that it comes up into our  workspace okay and we can just rotate this around   to get a better view so we can either do one of  a few things here we can click and just drop it   where it is in 3D space we can right click  and then we get some additional options so   moving up here in our marking menu we have rotate  z 90 degrees so basically what this says is we   can rotate this part around the z-axis so imagine  you have your part here and your z-axis is running   this way with it you want to revolve that around  the z-axis so imagine your parts revolving around   that axis like that so let's try that so if we  click on that you'll see that it's revolving   around that axis okay we can rotate it about the  y-axis as well so it's going to flip it around   this way okay and finally we have the ability to  rotate it around the x-axis so again it's just   going to flip it around that x-axis and this just  essentially helps you get the initial orientation   down before you actually drop the part and have  to go back and rotate it later okay so that looks   good there so let's go back into our marking menu  okay we also have the option to use iMates I’ll   get to this option later and then I’ll get into  a more detailed iMates video in the future okay so   um we also can place this grounded at the origin  so I like to do this for the first part in the   assembly that I drop so in this case I want this  to be the base of my assembly so to speak so I’m   going to use this option for that and of course  we can go to our home view okay to give us that   home isometric view if we need that okay so let's  go ahead and place this grounded at the origin   now let's go ahead and take a look at our place  from content center option so to demonstrate this   option I brought in a placard with various  holes drilled into them and I want to show   you how adaptable this feature is go ahead and  go over to your drop down and let's go to place   from content center so when we click on that it  brings up our content center menu where we have   tons of standardized hardware available to us to  use in our assemblies at any time for this example   we're going to be using this binding head machine  screw that I have pre-selected here so I’m going   to double click on that and I’m going to hover  over the side wall of this simple hole that I   have drilled in our placard here and you'll notice  when I hover over this we get a green check mark   and the fastener resizes itself accordingly and  again this hole was sized to be a clearance hole   for a #10-24 fastener and you'll see the software  read it perfectly now we'll go ahead and drop this   by left-clicking and now we need to select which  surface the head of the screw is mated to either   the top surface or the bottom surface so if you  hover over the top it turns green and it snaps the   base of the screw head to this green surface here  or if we bring it down to the bottom it'll snap   to an inverted position so let's bring it back  up to the top and left click okay and then now   we get our auto drop menu on top of this double  headed arrow this arrow actually allows us to   resize the length of the fastener on the fly which  is really cool so to do that we're going to click   and drag this arrow downwards to increase the  length and right now we're at one and a quarter   inches long and I know that by reading inside  of this little box here I see 10-24 which is my   fastener size and thread okay and then I also have  the one and a quarter inch at the end so that's   the length of the fastener you can also click and  drag it up to shorten the fastener as well but   let's go ahead and just drag it out here somewhere  and then release the left click on the mouse   and you'll see now we have our standardized size  fastener the way we want it and let's move over   to the auto drop menu the first option in the  auto drop menu allows us to change the size of   the fastener so when we click on that we get  a little menu that pops up that tells us our   thread description our nominal length and our  thread type so you can hit ok once you've made   all your selections and that will input that  particular piece of hardware in that location   the next option allows us to apply this  piece of hardware as a bolted connection   which is a design accelerator component if we  want to go ahead and do that at this stage this   next option which is this little green check mark  just simply applies our current set of parameters   and allows us to continue dropping more fasteners  without exiting out of the command altogether   when we click this check mark we get an additional  menu that asks that we confirm the thread type   which in this case we want to stick with the UNC  thread type hit ok and there we go we've dropped   our first fastener and now we can drop additional  ones as needed so we can hover over this hole   drop it here okay and so on and so forth the final  option in this menu is place and this essentially   places the first fastener and exits out of the  command without allowing us to place additional   units so if this is the only fastener we want  to place we just click this select our thread   type okay we'll stick with UNC hit ok and there  we go it executes the command and then leaves   the command window now let's go ahead and drop  a few more fasteners in before we continue on   so go to your content center this time I want  to pick up this socket head screw I’m going to   double click on that and I’m going to hover over  the clearance hole here and let it size to that   now this is important make sure you're using the  clearance hole section for the threads don't use   the top section for the head of the screw because  if I were to do that it would oversize the screw   and be the wrong size for what I need so again  use the clearance hole okay left click and pick   the surface you want the head of the screw mated  to which in this case it's this top surface of the   step so we're going to go ahead and drop it there  left click and hit place now let's move on to a   countersunk fastener so go back into your content  center and we're going to go to countersunk okay   and this is a 100 degree countersink so I’m just  going to find one that fits this profile this   will work just fine okay hover over the clearance  hole let it resize to that left click and now I’m   going to select this face that I want this  coincident to okay so I left click that and   it mates it there and let's drag the length out  just a little bit okay there we go and hit place   select our thread type and there we go now we have  our countersunk fastener placed exactly how we   needed it to and you'll see it's nice and flush  to this top surface now let's go ahead and drop   a fastener into this threaded hole at the end of  the placard go to your content center we're going   to use this binding head machine screw hover over  the threaded portion let it snap to that and you   see it's sized to the threads which are 3/8-16  okay which is all appropriate for this left click   snap the head of the fastener to this top surface  and let's rotate this a little bit and check the   length okay so the length looks good it's  a little bit underneath this bottom surface   which is correct we don't want it protruding  past the bottom surface in this case because   this is a threaded hole and we want to hit place  and there we go now we have our fastener assigned   just the way we needed it this next option allows  us to place imported CAD files into our assembly   so when we click on this it brings up this little  dialog box and we can pick up our file of interest   from this menu so I went ahead and downloaded a  bunch of different step files from a distributor   I like to use and let's go ahead and just pull  in a piece of this uh t slotted framing so I just   double click on this and we get a window that pops  up with our import options I’m going to leave all   of this alone it basically allows you to pick up  various features or whatever is found in that step   file okay so this looks good to me I’m going  to hit ok and there we go now it imported our   little piece of hardware you can move it around  in the 3D space and then when you're ready to   drop it you can either right click and place it  grounded at the origin and do all of your normal   rotation stuff or you can just left click and drop  it anywhere in 3D space so we'll do that and there   we go now we have our imported CAD geometry next  we can place an iLogic component into our assembly   or we can actually place electrical components  from our catalog browser if we wish to do so   moving over to the right we have our create  option so this allows us to create new parts or   assemblies within the assembly that we're actively  working in at this time this is really valuable   when you're creating new geometry that must  reference other sub-assemblies or other components   within the assembly that you're actively working  in so you could essentially go through and design   a whole top-level assembly piece by piece all in  one workspace let's go ahead and click on create   and now we get this dialog box that allows us to  rename our component select the type of component   that it is so we can change it to a sheet metal  part a standard assembly a standard part or a   weldment assembly okay so in this case we just  want to leave it as a standard part moving over   to the right we have our browse templates option  if we want to abide by a certain template that we   have in our workspace okay now we have our file  location so you can change the file location for   this new part so this is really valuable so you  can control all of your part hierarchy and your   file structure all in this window now we have our  BOM structure so we can just leave that on normal   you're more than welcome to change this  based on your BOM structure of choice   this little checkbox here allows us to make it  a virtual component so essentially all a virtual   component is is it's like a placeholder  in your assembly let's say for example   you want to have in your bill of materials a  space that shows a thread locker that you're using   on your fasteners to keep them locked into place  so they don't back out during you know normal use   due to vibrations and other factors okay so you  wouldn't normally model thread locker okay in your   model but you want it to show up in your bill of  materials when you're generating your engineering   drawing so your manufacturing crew doesn't miss  out on you know that particular line item that's   crucial to your design so that's what your virtual  component can be used for and it's a really   good feature for when you're designing a product  moving down to this final option this essentially   allows us to constrain our new sketch plane for  our new part that we're creating in this space   to an existing plane or face within our assembly  so essentially what this allows us to do is it   allows us to automate the mating process with our  new part so for example I used this when I created   my bottom cover as part of this whole assembly so  I have the top cover here the bottom cover okay   and then we have our screws that attach the two  together our constraint lies between this top face   and this bottom face here on this lip so when I  created that new part that's where I started that   sketch plane and it automatically created that  mate or that constraint for me however I would   like to add that usually you'll want to leave that  unchecked if you want to maintain complete control   over how your parts are mated together so it  just really depends on your design intent and   how you're developing that new part and how  it interfaces with your existing assembly   so again I would typically leave that disabled  so you can maintain complete control over your   mating and constraint process but it's entirely up  to you so we're back in our creation dialog box I   just renamed the part to "bottom cover" I’m going  to hit ok and now I want to roll this part over   and I want to select this face as the starting  face because this is where I want that outer lip   to be flush with okay so I just left click on that  and you'll see the part sort of goes into like a   transparent view when it does this that means  that I’m editing a specific part and I’m not   in the assembly currently and if you look at the  ribbon along the top I have this return option so   I can you know model up my part so let's go ahead  and just throw a sketch in here real quick okay   click on that and let's go ahead  and just project some geometry   okay close this out with some lines we'll hit  ok and then finish 2D sketch now this is a   crude representation of what you can actually  do with this but I just want to save you all   some time okay so we go to extrude and let's go  ahead and just shorten that up a little bit so   this is how you would start your new component  using this feature we'll hit ok now you'll see   that the top portion is still transparent  but we can see the bottom portion just fine   that is because we're still editing this new part  now let's say I want to go back to the assembly   all you have to do is click return and now we're  back in our assembly well how do we go back to   editing that part again well you can hover over  this bottom cover or whatever part that you've   added right click and then you want to select edit  and when you do that we can go back into editing   the part again and then when we're done we can go  back to return and just make sure you're saving   all of your files as you move along now before I  go ahead and wrap up this video I want to show you   how to use iMates to quickly place the fasteners  through the bottom cover so what we're going to do   is we're going to rotate this bottom cover around  and we're going to go up to manage okay the manage   tab go over to iMate and now we want to use this  option called insert so you left click on that   and you want to select this this top edge here so  this is where the screw head is going to position   you see that little axis through the  middle of that circle that's showing   a concentric relationship to that feature so I’m  going to left-click hit apply and I’m going to   do that for all of these holes so I’m going to  left-click okay just move through all of these   there we go now we've applied everything to our  bottom cover now let's do the same thing with   our fastener so I’m in my fastener part file it's  a self-tapping screw okay let's go up to manage   iMate insert okay and then I just want to pick  this bottom face here okay so this is where it's   going to interface with that hole left click  on that hit ok and now let's go back into our   assembly so when we're back in our assembly let's  go ahead and place a new file go ahead and select   the fastener with the iMate constraint that  you applied to it double click on that and   you'll see we have a little blue highlight here or  outline of the fastener okay and you'll see that   it already has all of the relationships that we  need in reference to this bottom cover so you can   left-click and it'll step through individually  and place these components individually   or you can right-click and then go down to place  at all matching iMates click on that and it'll   automatically select all of those locations where  you have those iMates and it knows exactly what   to do with it so if you have a large hole pattern  or something where you're using a lot of fasteners   that are the same and you want to apply that  same iMate constraint this is a very quick way   to model that up in your assembly that's all for  this segment of the Autodesk Inventor Assembly   Creation Module where I gave you an overview of  how to place and create components in an assembly   file I really hope that you found this tutorial  to be helpful and that you put what you've learned   into practice so you can continue developing your  skills as you work your way through these lessons   also before you watch the next video in the series  make sure you subscribe to the channel and turn on   notifications to stay up to date on future content  that will help you create the future you want for   yourself and of course don't hesitate to leave  a comment or reach out via my website contact   page and let me know if there's anything else  you'd like to learn about or see on this channel   I really appreciate you choosing to stop by  and learn with me and I’ll see you again soon [Calm Hip-Hop Music]

Channel: Engineering Applied

Views: 1,478

Keywords: autodesk inventor 2021 tutorial, autodesk inventor tutorial for beginners, inventor tutorial 2021, inventor professional 2021 tutorial, inventor 2021, autodesk inventor 2021, inventor 2021 tutorial, autodesk inventor, autodesk inventor tutorial, inventor, autocad 2021, how to place components in autodesk inventor 2021, create tool autodesk inventor 2021, place command autodesk inventor 2021, how to use place in autodesk inventor 2021, create function in autodesk inventor 2021

Id: Jyc1yuy-ZWI

Length: 16min 26sec (986 seconds)

Published: Wed Nov 18 2020