Happy New Year from Micro Concepts

Just a quick post to wish everyone a Happy New Year from the team at Micro Concepts. Hope you all had a good festive period, and Santa brought you some nice things :-)

Just incase you missed the London Fireworks display this year, which were pretty spectactular, see below:

Difficult to Select Items in Sketches Within Inventor

Are you having difficulties selecting items within a sketch in Inventor, i.e. struggling to pick up an end point, mid point?

If this is the case, there is an option in Application Options > General TAB > Selection > Locate Tolerance, which can help with this.

This Locate Tolerance option sets the distance (in pixels) from which clicking selects an object. Enter a number from 1 to 10 or click the up or down arrow to select the distance. By default this is set to 5!

Backup to a Remote Location

Normally with Vault you create a batch routine to create a backup on the same server (Local Disk). It is however possible to backup the Vault to another drive on another machine, to do this you will need to make the following changes:

1. Go into the ADMS (Autodesk Data Management Server) console on the server > Tools > Administration > Advanced Settings > Settings > change the Impersonation Settings to your Domain Admin User and Password (or a user with permissions to the location you wish to Backup to).

2. Next go to Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Services > find SQL Server (Autodesk Vault) > right click > Properties > Log On > change This account to the same Domain Admin User and Password.

3. Finally modify your Backup BAT file to include your network location instead of the current Local Disk and Run accordingly.

Vault Folder Replicate Utility

We recently came across a small Utility that allows you to replicate all of the Vault folder structure from your Vault Server to your local Vault Workspace.

These will be empty folders, that allow you to save any newly generated Inventor files to the required locations without having to create the folder structure in the first place.

You can download the Utility for yourself from:

http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/Autodesk-Inventor-Customer-Files/Vault-Folder-Replicate-Utility/m-p/2450627

LABS - Factory Layout Optimisation for AutoCAD

A Factory consists of a number of machines and other production equipment. The raw material flows through these machines where certain operations are performed to convert the raw material into the finished product. The location of these machines is very critical in determining the overall efficiency of the Factory, if they are not located in an optimal way, the Factory could be operating way below its target.

Many times decisions regarding the location of machines and other production equipment inside the Factory are done simply as best guesses, resulting in an inefficient layout. In some cases, layout studies are carried out either by hand or using spreadsheet tools, which are disconnected from the layout drawing making it extremely difficult to analyse the impact of multiple what-if layout scenarios on the layout.

Create Axis in Centre of Slot for Constraining Fasteners

Recently one of the members of the Micro Concepts Technical Team stumbled upon an interesting workflow for creating an Axis through the centre of a Slot to aid constraining a fastener in an Assembly.
If this is something of interest or something you do a lot, please follow the steps below:

• Firstly create your Part, complete with Slot, then select the Axis tool from the Work Features panel on the Model TAB of the Ribbon.

• Next, right click in the workspace somewhere and select Create Plane from the flyout menu.

Modify the Recently Opened Projects List

The AutoCAD Electrical Project Manager displays a list of recently opened Projects so you can easily select another Project to open without having to browse for it.

Overview of the LISTBOX_DEF Catalog Database Table

This optional table can be included in the Catalog Database file. It allows you to predefine filtering of the Catalog entries on the Parts Catalog dialogue box. AutoCAD Electrical normally shows all the entries for the selected Catalog Lookup table.

Filtering values can be defined differently for each Catalog Lookup table. The first field defines the Catalog Lookup table name. The next fields follow the same format and order as the Catalog Lookup table structure. Leave the field blank if you do not want to filter the records based on the values in that field. Access automatically handles the last field, which is the record number.

1. When the Parts Catalog dialogue box displays, the program checks to see if the component already has a Catalog defined.
2. If no Catalog is defined, the program checks the _LISTBOX_DEF table for a record with a TABLENAME value that matches the table name for the component.
3. If a TABLENAME match is found, the program filters the records displayed in the Parts Catalog dialogue box using the non-blank values from the _LISTBOX_DEF record.

For example, when you first insert a relay coil symbol and open the Parts Catalog dialogue box, you want the CR Catalog table display to default to Allen-Bradley part numbers for TYPE P relays. Use a copy of Microsoft Access to open the Catalog Lookup file, and select table _LISTBOX_DEF. Insert a record with these field values: TABLENAME = CR, MANUFACTURER = AB, and TYPE = TYPE P. The text you enter must exactly match existing field values in the target table. Save and Exit. Now, when you insert a relay coil and select Catalog Lookup, the dialogue box opens with these filters predefined.