How Do You Look at it? - Look at plane on Sketch Creating in Autodesk Inventor

A man should look for what is, and not for what he thinks should be.
Albert Einstein

When I train an Autodesk Inventor class, I make a point to try to tell my students what settings I change solely for the purpose of my own preference.  There's no reason to change that setting if they prefer a different setting. 

Everyone has different preferences, and everyone should be allowed to choose for themselves.

I'll often speak of "settings Jon changes on every new install of Inventor".

And one of them is "Look at Sketch Plane on Sketch Creation".  It's found by choosing Tools>Application Options and finding the Sketch Tab By default it's turned on in Inventor.  I turn it off right away.

The default settings.

First of all, what does it do?  When checked, Inventor will automatically turn the view to look perpendicular to a sketch plane when a sketch is created.

Before creating the sketch, I have the view rotated in an Isometric view
 

Before creating the sketch

After creating the sketch the view is rotated so the view is perpendicular to the sketch.

After creating the sketch

I know that there are many who like this setting.  However, personally, I'm not a fan.  I always found I was rotating the view back most of the time. So what to I do?

I turn it off! Just like I have below.

Turning the setting off

Now, Inventor won't turn the view for me.  While this means I may have to turn the view myself, I prefer it because I turn the view when I want to.  Which I find much more comfortable for me.

So there it is!  A setting that I change, and why I change it, which really just boils down to personal preference.

What do you think?  Do you prefer the default behavior?  Feel free to drop a comment!

And for the video version of this setting, take a look below!

That's a Wrap! One Semseter of Powerplant Courses finished!

“We're trying to improve our skills, we're trying to improve our record and we want to have an enjoyable experience.”
Brian Gasser

After 16 weeks of long slogging in my powerplant courses at Mount San Antonio College, this semester is done!

It was a though experience.  It was stressful, it was frustrating.  It meant missing events with friends.

But it was immensely rewarding. 

For the last 15 years or so, I've worked in a computer industry.  It's a rewarding career, I love being a part of technology and watching it evolve.

But going into those powerplant courses reminded me of what it takes not only make things work, but keep them working. 

What did I do in my class? 

With the help of my lab partner, I did the following:

1) Disassebled, inspected and checked a Magneto

Timing a magneto.  It takes patience.

2) Timed Magnetos on an aircraft engine

Timing magnetos to an engine.  This also takes time an patience!

3) Helped troubleshoot a malfunctioning engine

The engine we had to troubleshoot.  It ended up being a loose induction hose.

4) Disassembled and reassembled a 4 cylinder engine

Our Lycoming 4 cylindder engine disassembled

5) Used non-destructive testing to check pistons and crankshafts for cracks.

Connecting rods in the magnaflux machine

A sample picture of cracks revealed by magnaflux.  Image courtesy Riverina Air Motive Repair. 

6) Removed fan blades from a JT9 Turbine Engine

That's me!  Removing blades from a JT9 turbine engine

Every one of these experiences, not to mention hearing the experiences of my instructors, and even the other students added a whole new facet to my knowledge

In that relatively short amount of time, I'm able to speak to those "in the real world" and better understand what they go through every day, and why they sometimes "curse the designers" who didn't think about fixing equipment.

In all, it made me better than the sum of my parts.



So in summary, will I be back?  Yes, I plan on continuing my classes, although I will slow my pace a bit.  16 weeks of class, plus full time work, was a little too much for this brain and body. 

I'll skip the intercession for now, and take a lighter load next semester.  But back I will be.


There is much more to experience out there, and I'd like to see it!

BOM Management with Autodesk Vault and Inventor - A KETIV webinar

“Fast is fine, but accuracy is everything.”
Xenophon

Bill of Materials in Autodesk Inventor, and Autodesk Vault Professional have a lot going on.  They can be tweaked, adjusted, and modified to a huge extent.

Sometimes this is to make sure that the Bill of Materials accurately represents the assembly, other times it's to make sure that information flows accurately through the organization so the design intent represented on the final drawing accurately represents what the designer intended.

A screen capture from the webcast

Fortunately, Nicole Morris and Mike Carlson, my colleagues at KETIV, created a nice webcast that goes through many of the details of the Bill of Materials in Inventor and Vault Professional. 

It's worth checking out! 

                                                    Take a look by clicking on this link!

Using an Image and Suppressing Features in a Pattern in Autodesk Inventor

I'm rolling into my finals week at Mount San Antonio College, so again, I'm forced to keep my blog post short. 

However, this tip is one that I have found useful on a few occasions, and not one that everyone knows.

That tip? Suppressing instances in an assembly. 

Recently, I've been working on building an Autodesk Inventor model of a Pie Safe.  One of the features of this type of furniture, is a door made of perforated tin, which allows for airflow.  To be decorative, these perforations often formed into patterns.

So for my model, I decided to create the perforations in the form of a Celtic cross.  And yes, I intended to model the perforations.

The cross I'm using as a pattern

First of all, I found an image that I could use, and placed it on my sketch using the Insert Image tool.

The image inserted onto a sketch, using the Insert Image Tool

Next, I placed a hole on the center of the image, and used the Rectangular Pattern tool to create a pattern inside the image.

Creating the pattern inside the image.

Now, I need to begin suppressing the holes inside the pattern to match what I want.  I choose the instance of the pattern I want to suppress, and choose Suppress Feature. Out of curiosity, how many knew this was possible in a pattern?

Suppressing the instance in a pattern.

Once the rectangular pattern is suppressed the way I like, I can also add some circular patterns to make the round portion of the cross look, well, more round!

Adding some circular patterns

At any point, I can toggle off the visibility of the image to see what the existing set of patterns looks like.

The image suppressed.  I can use this to fine tune the pattern.

Note, I'm not 100% done, I have a few more tweaks to do before I have it completely right.  But it's coming along!

After a little more fine tuning, I think I'll have something I'm pretty happy with!