Fun with Autodesk Inventor

Today I took the final for my CAD class, and the task was to make whatever you wanted ([^]). And since I was already ahead of the rest of the kids in the class I decided to start and I decided to make a model of a B&M Brake. I finished it in a day of hard work and I came to this:



And if you're wondering, I got an A .

Nice work. Did you animate it in Inventor as well?

Badass, but which way is the train supposed to be entering? The pad isnt supposed to slope on both sides.

Originally posted by Kevin Brennan

Nice work. Did you animate it in Inventor as well?

I would've animated the fins and make it a working part but today was my last day in the class and I was low on time. If I spent the rest of the week in the class, I would've done that and added a track under it.

Originally posted by GTzeroH

Badass, but which way is the train supposed to be entering? The pad isnt supposed to slope on both sides.

The part is in an isometric view, it's not sloped, if that's what you mean. I'm not sure which way it's supposed to enter, but I made the part in school based off of this:



I know, it's just a tad off [sillyme]

Cool dude, I like it.

[gouldy]

This is weird, I was literally JUST coming on here to make a topic about my work on Inventor, then I read this so I might as well just post it in here!

What I'm going to post a few pictures of, is a product that I designed completely from scratch for the removal and handling of depleted batteries from fork lift trucks, before handling a fully charged battery and inserting it into the fork lift truck. That was just a small explaination of what it does to give you some background so you know what the hell it is you're looking at

The product is now in it's third generation of design, having ironed out all of the problems from the previous two generations of design... hopefully Anyone interested in Design/Engineering might want to see if they can see how it works.

This is the unit in it's original design form (with all guarding removed):



Second generation (with all guarding removed):



Third gneration (with all guarding removed):



Pretty big change between second and third generations, changed the whole function!

I've done a lot of stuff on Inventor now, I've got a huge backlog of stuff I could show you, some REALLY complicated special purpose machinery, that it really interesting. But not really got any images I could show you to hand, if anyone would be interested in having a look, I could post some.

In my class this past year a made some B&M track, but it was mostly straight pieces and I really never had the time to make a track, but I love tinkering with coaster parts on Inventor.

[gouldy]

I've made a few track bits, things like entire lift hills with chainlift mechanisms and catwalks and supports, but never a full track

Thanks guys. Ha Gouldy, that's some skill right there. How long have you been using Inventor? I'm barely going to be at month's experience. Can you export objects to.3ds in Inventor?

Good work A113, that looks amazing. I took a CAD class this past year. I focused more on Baseball Stadiums but next year Im going to try some Roller Coaster things.

[gouldy]

Originally posted by A113

How long have you been using Inventor?

nearly three years now, I've worked on some fairly massive projects as well so I've got fairly good experience with it now. I started on Inventor 10 and am now using Inventor 2008, I wish work would get an up to date license!

Originally posted by A113

Can you export objects to.3ds in Inventor?

Unfortunately, no, not without paying for pluggins for it, otherwise all my rides would have massively detailed 3D work!

, the teacher used Inventor 2010, and all the kids in the class used 2009. At the top I went to tools, and I saw "Export Object to," but I didn't test it.

[gouldy]

It's possible that the facility to export to 3D's may have been included on 2009 or 2010, but it's not on the licenses I've used.

Like I said, I wish my boss would update us, it is expensive I know, but it's the only way I'm comfortable with getting ?????????9,000 worth of software for free at home

^ I want to get the student version now..

I totaly gave you the Idea to do a B&M brake in the Chat A113! And no credit!!!

Lol anyway, this was really good, I would use it in a coaster. Is Inventor a lot easyier to make objects?

Yes

I have been able to convert my Inventor files to .3ds before. I think I just exported it to .stl and opened that in AutoCAD or Blender to export to .3ds

[gouldy]

are you able to export from AutoCAD to .3ds files? I'd never even thought to try that before! It's easy enough to produce 3d models in AutoCAD too.

I'll have to look into that one!

I guess they took out 3ds export from newer versions of AutoCAD. It was included in 2004, but you can download the 3dsout command for 2007/2008. I'm not sure if it works with 2010, though.