Tag Archives: Furniture Design Software

Inventor Automation – Sending a Cut List to TigerStop

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ED – This is a guest post on Inventor Automation is by Richard Gilmore of TigerStop LLC showing how to send automatically generated cutlists (parts lists) to a TigerStop (TigerFence, TigerCrossCut, Etc.) to speed production time and reduce errors. The cutlist shown here was generated by the model in the Shaker Table series of tutorials.

We use downloading software called Workflow Manager to sort the job files (normally by Width and Thickness) and then send the sorted jobs to TigerStop.  A Workflow Manager user would have to run a onetime file configuration on the .csv file to tell the software how to read it.  I will talk with my software folks to see if we can add Autodesk Inventor as a default profile in the software so the user doesn’t have to do the configuration step.  Next the user would go to the File menu and choose Open.  Once the user has chosen the Autodesk Inventor .csv file they will see this screen…

 

Inventor Automation Tutorial Image 01 - Inventor Tutorial for configuring a TigerStop Workflow Manager

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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 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 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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Inventor Material and Colors Creation Tutorial

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In this very basic tutorial we will be creating several new Inventor colors and a new Inventor material based on stock items found in Inventor’s extensive material library. There is far more that can be done via the Styles Editor, but we will just stick to doing what is necessary to make wood look realistic in Inventor. The only problem I foresee is that some of you may not have the correct permissions to proceed, but here we go regardless…

I will be using the Shaker Table from the Designing a Shaker Table with Autodesk Inventor tutorial as an example, so you may want to start with that if you haven’t already done so.

As I stated before, you need to check your permissions to make sure you have Read-Write capabilities. If not, you would be able to create the material and color, but they would be stored in the document that is open when they are created, and you will not be able to apply them to future parts. To get started, with nothing open in Inventor, click on the Projects icon on the Launch panel of the Get Started tab to bring up the Projects editor…

 

Inventor material tutorial image-01 - Change Autodesk Inventor's permissions to read write

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Inventor Tutorial for Designing a Shaker Table – 7 – Multi-Solids Notes

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Inventor Tutorial #7 image-01There was a bit of confusion regarding solid creation in Chapter 5 of this Inventor tutorial for a Shaker Table , so I think I’ll give a little wrap-up post regarding solid bodies before moving on to iLogic.

As of version 2010(?) Autodesk Inventor has included the ability to create multiple solid bodies within single parts. It is much like a small assembly –with the huge exception of the ability to create cross-part dependencies that are both stable and responsive. I don’t want to go too far down that road at the moment, but, in a nutshell all of the features in our model are grouped into 13 Solid Bodies, each of which containing one or more features. For example, the Leg A Solid Body contains these four features:

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