Place Fasteners

Place Fasteners

Win64, English

Artem Glushchenko
Automatically places fasteners from the user library or Content Center.

General Usage Instructions

Please watch the video tutorial about Place Fasteners plug-in:

https://youtu.be/CuIwsWbaw4A

Place Fasteners command appears under the "Assemble" ribbon panel of the Assembly environment.

 

Before you can start placing fasteners the application has to be configured.

Run the application, on the "Main window" click "Settings" and select your units of measure: metric or inch. Than select the fastener item you want to modify and click "Edit".

"Customize families" window will be displayed.

There you have two main options for defining fasteners. First is to use Content Center, second is to use your own library files. 

List of all available Content Center families for selected fastener type is shown at the right side of the window.

The application supports 5 different materials for each fastener type. So there is 5 "Add" buttons at the left side of the window. Each button

corresponds for the particular material number. If you are going to use Content Center fasteners than select a family in the list and press one of the "Add" buttons.

If you want to use your own library files than enable "Use from Excel" checkbox. There you will be displayed with two extra buttons.

Click "Load all data for active item" to load all information about your local library for selected fastener type.

To access excel document go back to "Settings" window and click "Excel setting" button.

In the new window you can open the excel document or change the link to another file.

The excel document consists of a number of pages where each page represents a certain fastener type.

Each page contains 5 column groups for 5 materials.  For bolts or screws you must provide the information about the thread size, length and file full path. Edge column is optional.

You fill it only when the application fails to select the proper edge for constraining the fastener. To do that go back to "Excel setting" menu and click "Select edge" button.

Than in the Autodesk® Inventor® window select the fastener edge. The application will show you the corresponding edge number which has to be copied to the excel document.

Now the application will use the edge you selected for constraining the fastener. For washers and nuts you have to provide the thread size and file full path only.

The height and edge columns are optional. Use "Load data for all items" to load all available information from the excel document.

 

When you are done with the app configuarion select the type of fasteners set in the main window and the material from the drop-down list. Click one of the next buttons:

"Add One" - inserts one set of items for the selected hole. User selects first edge (top) and second edge (bottom). The application automatically identifies the thread size and the bolt length. Of course length can be changed by the user when fasteners are placed.

"Add One By One" - after first fasteners set is placed the user can select other holes and the app will copy the first set and constraint it to these holes untill "Done" button is pressed.

"Add Group" - the app places fasteners set for each hole of the same size as the first hole selected by the user on the current face.

"Add MultyGroup" - works the same way as "Add Group" but the user can select multiple faces.

"Add Free"  - the app places fasteners set just in free model space without constraining to the model.

If you want to disable automatic thread size selection just get the size from the drop-down list and enable check box next to it.

Then the fasteners will be placed with the size defined by the user. 

 

"Follow pattern" checkbox allows you to pick existing holes pattern and create "Feature based pattern" of fasteners.

While placing the app also check the interference between fasteners and the model. If the collision is found than the fastener will change its appearrance to the red color.

If you find this check redundant than disable the corresponding checkbox in the "Settings".

Screenshots

Commands

Installation/Uninstallation

Place Fasteners command appears under the "Assemble" ribbon panel of the Assembly environment.

The installer that ran when you downloaded this app/plug-in from Autodesk App Store will start installing the app/plug-in. OR, simply double-click the downloaded installer to install the app/plugin.

You can unload the plugin without uninstalling it by unchecking the "Loaded/Unloaded" check box associated with the plugin in the Inventor Add-In Manager. You may have to restart Inventor to completely unload the application.

To uninstall this plug-in, exit the Autodesk product if you are currently running it, simply rerun the installer, and select the "Uninstall" button. OR, you can uninstall it from 'Control Panel/Programs and Features' (Windows 7/8.1/10), just as you would uninstall any other application from your system.

Additional Information

Known Issues

Contact

Author/Company Information

Artem Glushchenko

Support Information

Customers support: artemglushchenko21@gmail.com

Version History

Version Number Version Description

3.0

Inventor 2023 support

2.0

This app version supports placing fasteners from the user library and from Content Center. Fixed bug from previous version causing inventor to show warning "Inconsistent constraints..." while placing a group of fasteners. Improved overall application usability.

1.0

Initial release
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