How do you ROTATE a part?

[hblack40]

Still new to Inventor. Experience from 20+ years in AutoCAD...how the hell do you simply rotate a part. In autocad its simple...select the 3D model, pick a base point, and then rotate about that point.

 

For simplicity, I have a vertical pipe (solid model) and I am creating another smaller pipe branching off of this vertical pipe....but at an angle. I can't seem to figure out how to rotate this 2nd solid model within my part file to be able to rotate at the desire angle. I'm lost!

 

I'm using Inventor 2017

 

Any suggestions for this newbie

[shift1313]

So there are a few things here to consider/talk about. In general you don't rotate the part, you design it at that angle. Pipe is actually a bit different because there are structural generators in place in Inventor to help make routings and such, but we will skip that part.

 

So the way that you would want to approach this has two basic paths.

 

1. Make a rotated plane, then draw the Cross section and extrude it.

2. Make a profile(cross section) and a path at the angle you want and sweep the pipe.

3. Make a sketch to revolve the pipe.

 

There are various drawbacks to each. You will need to trim away sections where the pipes overlap since this method wont automatically cope/trim the pipes. In the "Modify" section on the 3D model tab you can use "delete face" with the heal option to remove sections of pipe that go inside. I didn't have a change to do all the options but i threw a few together quickly for you and made use of the Delete face feature. I did a Sweep for the main pipe, but no real reason. Sketch 3 was made that could be a sweep path, reference for a plane or an axis for a revolve. Same with Sketch 5.

Pipe Example.zip

[hblack40]

That makes sense that you need to "plan ahead" the sketch drawn to get the desired angle you wish the solid to be at...but then there's one step in there that (forgive me as I'm a newbie) need a little help with to do this. How do you rotate that work plane you described. Your example you sent was what I am looking for but I'm stumped on how you rotated that workplane. Everything else seems practical. There's got to be a simple way to rotate a workplane that I'm obviously not seeing. Just spent an hour trying to figure out this simple task. No luck

Thank you for your help thus far...

[shift1313]

There are many ways to create a new plane. I used the method of selecting the line at an angle and then its end point. That creates a plane that is "Normal" to that line at the specified point. You can also create a plane by selecting one of the default planes, then one of the axes and then give it an angle. With your question/example i would assume sketching a reference line for the angle you want would help out with the process.

 

Give it a shot with the sample file. Select the option to create a reference plane, then select one of the lines i drew at an angle, sketch3, and then your second selection will be and endpoint of that same line.

[gbradley]

I recommend a 3D Mouse if you haven't got one.

http://www.3dconnexion.com/products/spacemouse/spacemousepro.html