Scaling in Inventor

[Lateralg]

Inventor 2013 Pro. My last experience with AutoCad was 2005. New interface & capabilities are awesome and a bit intimidating.

 

My issue: SCALING: I've made some good 3D drawings of parts for my Mendel Prusa 3D printer. I think I'm drawing in mm, but probably not because the .stl print files are some multiple of 10 smaller or larger than expected. Two questions:

 

1) I need to know what I did wrong & how to correct it. I recently read that a 2D sketch should be started by drawing and dimensioning a single straight line. Apparently this causes the remainder of the drawing ot be done at that scale. This will be my practice unless I learn of a better method. Comments?

 

2) Is there a way to salvage (re-scale) my existing drawings? I've muddled about in Fusion with limited success. I can open & view the drawings, but Fusion hasn't recognized them as solids, and won't even allow me to measure. I've spent hours on WIKI without success. Please help.

[JD Mather]

You have posted your question in the wrong location.

When you Save Copy As type stl you must click on the Options button and set the stl units to the same as your model units (Inventor defaults to cm).

Edited July 5, 2012 by JD Mather

[Tiger]

Hi Lateralg and welcome to the forum!

 

I moved your question to its own thread in the Inventor forum.

[Lateralg]

Thanks JD and Tiger for solving mystery #1. My delayed reply due to storm-related power outage here in Michigan.

 

Any thoughts on Mystery #2?

[JD Mather]

I have no idea what the rest of your problem is based on your description.

Attach file(s) here and give more information.

[Lateralg]

Thanks for staying with mr JD.

 

Mystery #2 involves file Fan Mount.dwg I'd like to know how to edit it, including re-scale so the large hole has diameter of 20mm. I may have messed it up beyond repair via export to .stl, then import thru Fusion & some activity I don't remember while in fusion.

 

New mystery: Fan Mount 3+.ipt has two extrusions, one horizontal & one vertical ... included angle is 90 degrees. I'd like to know how to rotate the vertical extrusion 45 degrees so the included angle is 135 degrees.

 

I'm not asking for hand-holding, just to be pointed in the direction of a good how-to, or a few hints to get me started. I tried setting up a UCS and moving the vertical extrusion using new CS ... failed. Frustrating, because I was a whiz with UCS in the pre-ribbon days.

Fan Mount.dwg

Fan Mount 3.ipt

[JD Mather]

Sketch1 is unconstrained and missing many many many dimensions that would be needed for manufacture (see lower right corner of screen when in Sketch Environment.

 

I'm not sure what the purpose of Sketch2 is.

 

Sketch3 is not fully dimensioned - manufacturing cannot make the part.

 

I'm not sure what the purpose of 3DSketch1 is.

 

I'm not sure what the purpose of the AutoCAD dwg file is.

 

I have no idea what Fusion has to do with this problem.

 

I am not aware of any changes to AutoCAD UCS from classic to Ribbon.

 

I recommend you read this document http://home.pct.edu/~jmather/SkillsUSA%20University.pdf

 

I recommend you go through the Help>Leaning Tools>Tutorials and Skill Builders.

[JD Mather]

I find this very perpeplexing - you don't have any (or very many) dimensions on Sketch1 - yet most everything is exact size.

How did you do this?

Did you delete your dimensions?

[JD Mather]

This is what Sketch1 should look like.

If you want the Ø38 to be Ø20 then simply double click on the dimension and change it. (or are you referring to radius rather than diameter (not the usual way to refer to the size of a hole))

This is what parametric modeling is all about.

The model is controlled by the dimensions.

 

Fan Mount_jd.ipt

Edited July 8, 2012 by JD Mather

[JD Mather]

It is unclear to me what you are trying to do - but this should give you some ideas.

 

Fan Mount_jd_rev1.ipt

[Lateralg]

This, along with your tutorials gave me lots of good ideas. Present issue is resolved. Thank you.

 

I'm now on the long road of learning Inventor. IMO, your tutorials are excellent ... they fit perfectly with my way of learning. Are there more? Have you done so, or do you plan to publish a book? If so, and it's written in the same style as your tutorials, I'm ready to buy.

 

FWIW: My most efficient way of learning and applying the capabilities of Inventor is to use very simple objects; 3D rectangular box, or a sphere. This allows me to focus on the tool, exploring its various options, and not be distracted by the intricacies of a project. It also promotes a more in-depth understanding of the tools. For example, the Autodesk "getting started tutorial" "creating a 3D bottle" gave very shallow treatmemt of the arc tool.