Category Archives: iLogic Tutorial

Tutorials that explore all different aspects of Autodesk Inventor’s iLogic code for creating SmartParts and SmartAssemblies

iLogic Tutorial for Creating a Woodworking Cutlist 2

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iLogic Tutorial for Creating a Woodworking Cutlist Part Two image 1 - Excel, Access, DBF 4, DBF 3, Text, CSV, Unicode, and Unicode CSV output formatsAs a bonus (or total let-down), for this final post in this iLogic TutoriaI mini series, I contacted TigerStop to see if they can shed some light on automating the final list output beyond a printed list. We’ll cross our fingers on that one.

I’ve used the TigerStop stop/gage and pusher system at a couple of the places I’ve worked at, and neither of them had any sort of automation —like using your vacuum cleaner as a push broom. We manually typed in values that were manually pulled from crappy drawings. So we will find a good way to automate…..or die trying. Maybe not. But we will look gosh-darned hard!

On to what can be done in Inventor, making a automated cutlist (pretty damned cool if you ask me). Firstly we should quickly create some proper views. As you can see in the image below, the View Cube is showing an upside-down top view for what should be one of the side views. To remedy this, right click on the View Cube, select Set Current View as… and choose Front.

 

iLogic Tutorial for Creating a Woodworking Cutlist Part Two image 2- Fixing the view cube in this Autodesk Inventor Tutorial

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iLogic Tutorial for Creating a Woodworking Cutlist

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We’ll start this iLogic tutorial by informing you that there is no built-in cutlist functionality in Autodesk Inventor –parts lists, sure, but a parts list in most cases is about as useful as teats on a bull. I will likely go back later and split the top and create a glue-up schedule as well, but for now, an automated cutlist.

I cobbled together the technique used in this iLogic tutorial back when iLogic was a subscription bonus add-in a few years back. It uses Custom iProperties  to hold WIDTH, LENGTH, and THICKNESS values on a per-part basis. These values are filled in automatically using and iLogic rule that reads parameters in the parts, and are then used at the drawing level in fields of the same name.

This tutorial builds upon the twenty three previous tutorials in the Shaker Table series. On with the Cutlist Tutorial. Begin by opening up the Designing a Shaker Table with Autodesk Inventor.iam (the assembly). From there open the layout part which should be at the top of the list in the Browser Bar. We need to know all of the parameters that describe the width, length, and thickness of the Leg A solid body so that we can bring them into the assembly. Looking at the Parameter Editor, we can see one of them, Leg_Width…

 

iLogic Tutorial for Creating a Woodworking Cutlist image 01 - Autodesk Inventor Tutorial

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iLogic Tutorial for Creating a SmartPart 3

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In this, the final installment in this little sidebar iLogic tutorial for the Shaker Table series of tutorials, we will add the iLogic code that will hook the model to the spec’s posted at the beginning of this miniseries. Once this tutorial is completed, we will insert this part into the table and have the table control it automatically.

This iLogic Tutorial is winding down –there is not a lot left to do so let’s get right at it. Open up the Hanger Bolt.iam assembly, then open up the iLogic Rule Editor. You should have the following code there…

 

Inventor Tutorial for SmartPart – Part 3 image 01 - Autodesk Inventor's iLogic code

…if not, you will need to get it there. From looking at the list of available hanger bolts below, we can see that there are no bolts that have two different diameters for a particular length…

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iLogic Tutorial for Creating a SmartPart 2

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In the first part of this iLogic Tutorial for the Shaker Table series, we left off having created an assembly, placing our hanger bolt SmartPart into it, then placing some Content Center parts into it using AutoDrop. So-far we have only placed the 5/16” nut/washer set. We still need to place the ¼” version, but to do so, we will need to write some iLogic code.

To begin this second part of this iLogic Tutorial, I want to add a couple of parameters. The first is a Multi-Value Parameter for choosing between ¼” and 5/16” bolts. This operation could be done entirely within the iLogic code, but it’s quicker to test things with a parameter that we will later place on a form. To create the multi-value parameter you just create a numeric parameter as you normally would –in this case calling it Diam. Give the new parameter an Equation of .3125 (5/16”). Then right click anywhere in the parameter’s row, and choose Make Multi-Value from the context menu…

 

Inventor Tutorial for SmartPart – Part 2 image 01 - Creating parameters in Autodesk Inventor

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iLogic Tutorial for Creating a SmartPart 1

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 In this Inventor iLogic Tutorial we will create a SmartPart that represents all of the hanger bolts used by a fiction small woodworking shop. We will then place it in the Shaker Table model and have it controlled automatically by same.

To begin this iLogic tutorial the first thing we need to do in this  is to define the hanger bolts. A look at McFeely’s turned up the following list:

  

1/4-20 x 1 1/2 Hanger Bolt Dry Lube
1/4-20 x 2 Hanger Bolt Dry Lube
1/4-20 x 2 1/2 Hanger Bolt Dry Lube
1/4-20 x 3 Hanger Bolt Dry Lube
1/4-20 x 3 1/2 Hanger Bolt Dry Lube
5/16-18 x 4 Hanger Bolt Dry Lube
5/16-18 x 4 1/2 Hanger Bolt Dry Lube
5/16-18 x 5 Hanger Bolt Dry Lube

 

With the list of options on-hand, we can get modeling. We could actually not model anything at all and still have the hardware show up on the parts list and the BOM, but we’ll leave that for another day. The shape of the hanger bolt is incredibly simple, so all I will do here is say that you should make it to roughly three inches long, and have the following constraints added (during drawing if possible, otherwise add them)…

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iLogic Tutorial for Creating Min/Max Design Limits in Autodesk Inventor

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iLogic Tutorial Image-01 - Autodesk Inventor's iLogic BrowserWe will be using the Shaker Table created in an earlier iLogic tutorial as a base for this one, so if you haven’t completed it, I suggest you do so —it is geared towards beginners, and shouldn’t take too long.

This  iLogic tutorial was created to answer a reader’s inquiry as to “how to make the mortises auto-update when the tenon changes” when designing mortise and tenon joints. This has been accomplished. The table’s dimensions can easily be manipulated via the Parameter Editor.

Changing the Apron_Width parameter will automatically change the tenon width because we used the -( Apron_Width – ( Tenon_Shoulder * 2 ul ) ) formula to create the distance between the two planes that describe its width extents.  The Tenon_Shoulder parameter used in the formula is a driven dimension placed on one segment of a group of three equal segments constrained to the thickness of the apron. As the apron thickness changes, the tenon remains exactly 1/3 of the thickness, and that dimension is transferred via the driven dimension to the mortise in the Leg solid.

 

iLogic Tutorial Image-02 - Adding parameters for the iLogic code to come

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