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Mass Property overrides...
September 6, 2008, 10:24 PM Jay TedeschiHere’s a solution to a problem most of you will find yourself faced with at some point when modeling purchased components. I am one of the biggest proponents of getting vendor data when at all possible, however there will be times that nothing is available and you will have to make do yourself.Consider the miniature speaker component pictured below… for the company which manufactures this, it is an assembly.
For you and me it should be a single component… I say “should” because there will be times that you will have to model a purchased part as an assembly, but this is only for components which have some type of mechanized movement that would be required in your design.So, we have established that most components of this type can be modeled as a single part from time to time when required. The problem with this approach is that unless you are VERY lucky, the mass properties of this part when you are finished will not reflect those of the purchased component.The very first thing you should do is to make sure that the units of measure for the documents are set to the same as the component. In most cases these days’ components such as these are catalogued with metric measurements, and if you use the standard (mm) part template the mass is set to kilograms.
I personally am not particularly fond of entering mass in thousandths or less of a kilogram, so unless you are, go to the Document Settings and set the Mass Units to Grams. Now, over to the iProperties dialog. Hopefully I am not telling you something you don’t already know, but this can be accessed either from the File pull down or by right clicking on the part icon at the top of the browser window. Select the Physical tab...
Notice that little calculator symbol next to the Mass field? Yes… that is a calculator, and it indicates that this value is calculated from the model. You need to over-ride this value with the actual value from the vendors catalog so double click to select that field and then enter the actual mass of .7 grams.
The calculator symbol will change to a hand to indicate that this value has been manually entered and the mass is now set correctly. Well, that’s it for today… hope everyone has a great weekend.4 Comments | Add Comment The Gear Box > Inventor 2009, Inventor 2008, Tips
Comments
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September 10, 2008 12:44 PM gianni frigeni
VERY GANASS!!
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What does the message at the bottom properties screen imply? (* Values do not reflect user-overridden mass or volume) That the inertial properties are calculated, but are incorrect or is it just a message to indicate you're actually working with user-overridden data?
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July 3, 2009 02:55 AM delany james
Wow, Fantastic advice regarding mass property over-rides. Will remember this next time I'm getting some manufacturing in there. In the meantime, I'm going to carry on giving out the best property auction advice out there at www.propertyauctionsscotlandz.com. It's all FREE when you sign up and could make/save you an absolute fortune. See you there.....
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July 3, 2009 03:07 AM delany james
Just like my old mate above who posted on the 5th of November, I'm not sure what the message at the bottom properties screen implies either. However, if you're interested in "properties" in Wales then you must visit www.propertyauctionswales.com. Sign up for their FREE news letter and save or make yourself a small fortune. You know it makes sense!
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