Inventor Or How to build things

Basics of Inventor First start by drawing things on paper. Identify parts of your drawing and label them. Make or measure parts Put those parts and measurements into Excel Build the parts in Inventor

Definitions Length, Width, Height Height is how tall it the object vertical dimension when you look at it from the front. Width is horizontal dimension from the front Length is the horizontal dimension from the side.

Drawing I’m much better at pen and paper drawing then Paint

Parts BaseBoard Width 27inches, Length 40inches, height .75inches Beams are all 1x2 aluminum beams. Width 2 inches, height 1 inches, the length depends on the part. The side wall of the beam is .125inch The handle is 1x1 with a .125inch wall

Preparing for Inventor Make a new directory. This is where all the parts and excel files will be stored. I put mine under a design directory.

In Excel Type all the numbers into Excel. You can come back later and add more. Save it (something like cart.ls)

Now for Inventor When you start you will see a file dialog. You will need to build a new project for the cart.

Making a new project Hit projects button on the file dialog. Hit the new button, name it and point the directory to the one you created.

Create a new Part We now want to make part. We want a Standard (in).ipt for the beams and board

Drawing a face After new part you will get to draw one face of your part. This could be any face you want. For beams I use the front face. For big board types of things I use the top face. You don’t need to tell Inventor which face it is, you can just start drawing.

Drawing Functions We will be using the Line/ Two point rectangle for drawing our rough beam face. Select Two point Rectangle and draw one on the grid

Something like this

Now we need to link Excel to Inventor Select the Tools|Parameters… option. On this dialog box choose the link button. Select the cart.xml Excel file. Inventor may complain about it being open, just ignore it and hit ok. You should see the names and values in the dialog box.

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Now lets use them Hit done and get back to your drawing. We will now use the General Dimension tool Select the tool and then select the top line of your rectangle and drag the mouse. You will now have a dimension of the top line.

Now link up the dimension You will see the dimension box. Click on the arrow button. Select ListParameters Now you will see a list box of all the parameters we have entered. Choose Beam Width and hit the check button. Now the line should be 2.00inches wide. Do the same with the side line so that it is 1inch

Now add the inside wall We now have the outside beam. We need to add the inner wall. Click on another two point rectangle. Draw one inside the main rectangle.

Separate the walls The excel file has a BeamWallWidth parameter. We want to make the space between these two rectangles this length. Select the top line of the outer rectangle, and then select the top line of the inner rectangle and you will see the distance between dimension. Drag this dimension to a place you can work on it. Select the BeamWallWidth parameter like you did before and this should put in a .125inch dimension. Repeat for the other three spaces. Notice that for the last three the BeamWallWidth is in the quick select panel.

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Finished with this face Once we are done with a face hit the ‘Return’ item on the icon bar. This will remove the grid and change the tool menu to a different set.

Select Extrude We want to extrude this part. Select the extrude tool. The dialog will show up. You should be able to select the walls of the beam to extrude.

Like this

Extruding the beam Select the wall and click. The wall should go from red to cyan (light blue). Then you can use the dialog box to make it to length. In the number box you can select the arrow, and it will bring up the parameter selection. Select Beam Length for this parameter. Then hit ok

Viewing the new part The part will turn grey but not a lot will happen. Hit F5 to show the beam in an isometric view. Save this part as: FrontBeam.ipt

Making copies Use Save As… to save this as the BackBeam.ipt and the RiserBeam.ipt. Since we use 1x2 beams for all of these we can copy those to create the other types of beams.

Change the extrusion In one of these copies, open up the Extrusion part of the Model viewer. Right click on this and hit Edit Feature. This will get you back to the Extrusion panel and you can select ‘BackBeamLength’ to shorten the beam.

Make the board Create a BaseBoard using the steps above. To start it use File|New... Also make the handle at the same time.

Putting them all together We have been building parts up to this point. We will now create an assembly. Select File|New Select a Standard (in).iam

The assembly New tool menu. We will be placing components for now. Place two front beams, two riser beams, a back beam, base board and handle. In the drawing.

It will look like this

I changed the color of my base board I wont tell you how I did this though! I will leave it up to you to find out how.

Now to constraint the parts We will now have a different looking menu. Constraint is now selectable.

Constraining is hard The dialog box has two main options. Mate and Flush. This will determine which side of the part is attached to the other part. You will also be using the rotation tool.

First constraint Find the FrontBeam:1 and select the bottom of it. Rotate the view so you can see the bottom. The cursor will turn into the down circular arrow cursor. Then click it

Connecting it to the base board Clicking it now will turn the face light blue. Select the face of the base board and then click ok on the Dialog box. This will connect the two together.

Looks like this

Connecting it more Rotate the view until you see the top of the board. Select the constraint and select the side of the beam. See next slide.

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Another selection Select that face so it will turn cyan. Then switch the icon in the constraint dialog to flush. Select the side of the board. See below

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Constraint it once again Now we want to make the beam flush to the front of the board. Repeat the flush constraint to the front of the beam and front of the board. You may need to zoom in on things. Use the mouse wheel or this icon to zone in and out.

Now constraint the other beams Attach the other Front Beam, and the back beam to the board with steps above.

Constrain the handle to the risers It should look something like this:

Constrain one of the raisers If we just constrain one of the risers to the other we will have finished the drawing (so far). Just mate constrain the bottom of the riser beam to the top of the back beam. Then flush two sides of the riser to two sides of the back (we have to do this in two steps).

Looks like this

Side Bracer

Making the side brace Start a new part. We want to layout the plate in the front view. Extrude it so it is very thin. In the drawing mode ‘free hand’ the drawing first and then add the parameters.

How I started my free hand I started with the side and bottom flanges

Then added the diagonal lines

Now add dimensions It may look weird at first

At times you need to move lines around Deselect all tools, then select the bottom line and drag it down to where it should be

Eventually it will look like Notice we will not add the drill holes yet. Just extrude it now. Make the extrusion .125.

Now we will add the holes Select the face of the part and right click on it. Select new sketch. This will throw you back into the drawing mode.

Add the holes You can’t see it very well but what I did was: Added two Point, Center Points to the drawing. Made the vertical spacing between then 0. Then made the spacing between them and the sides of things BraceOffset.

The holes Return to up one level. Select the Hole tool. The hole we want is .25 in size. We want the hole to be through all.

Like this

Homework Add a brace plate to the corners of the risers and the base. See below The measurements are in the excel slide above.

Back Bracer

All together

Other things The side brace can be replaced with a Wolverine side brace. To make the Wolverine brace first draw a picture of it. Put measurements on it. Then become ‘creative’ in the face view of a part.