Inventor 7 .iam extension

[G Caputo]

Hello all,

 

I get all my solid models from our engineers to toolpath. Until today, all I was getting were .ipt files. Well this morning, I got sent an .iam extension and tried to convert it and there was nothing there. So the engineer exported it as a .sat and it came in fine. Then I did some search on this in this forum and read what Rick Damiani wrote in a previous post about needing the associated .ipt files and it worked beautifully bringing in the .iam extension then. My question to anyone here bringing in .iam files, what is the "preferred" method of bringing in these type of files? And also is there any reason not to bring them in with other extensions available?

 

Thanks,

Greg

[Reece L Gibson]

.iam are assembly files. I always use the .ipt for bringing in a single part. The way Inventor works is you create single models and then create an assembly model(.iam)so you can check for movement obstructions ,travel limits and etc.

That just one way of doing it.

[G Caputo]

Millturn,

 

Correct, the .iam is an assembly file. That is the way the engineers use to draw up weldments. We make uncoilers and recoilers and 1 design of our mandrels has a fabricated body segment. It has 18 individual parts (the .ipt's) to create the .iam and it gets machined after fabrication. Just curious as to what is the best extension to import them into mastercam. It's new to them and new to me, so I am just trying to learn all I can to reduce any problems before they arise.

 

Greg

[ProductDevelopmentGuy]

As described above, we will read in the .IAM files if the associated .IPT files exist too. Unfortunately all to often, the guy sending you the .IAM will forget the .IPTs.

Outputting the entire assembly as a .SAT file also works. This is a little nicer in that everything's in one file (there are no associated files to forget).

But either way, your results should be the same.

 

PDG

[G Caputo]

Thanks for the responses PDG and Millturn

 

 

Greg

[Reece L Gibson]

Any time Greg

[Rick Damiani]

quote:

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My question to anyone here bringing in .iam files, what is the "preferred" method of bringing in these type of files? And also is there any reason not to bring them in with other extensions available?

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.IAM files are useful if and only if you actually need the assembly with the parts in thier as-assembled condition, or the assembly has assembly-level features that you need to access (Inventor R6 and later have the ability to generate things like cuts, holes, and weldments that only exist in the .IAM file.). If that is the case, either have your engineers use the pack-and-go feature of the Design Assistant to collect all the required files, or have them export the .IAM to .SAT, as you did.

 

The ideal situaiton, if all the work is being done in the same company, would be to make use of the workgroup funtionality built in to Inventor and have the released-to-manufacutring assembly avalible on the network so you can pick up whatever you need. I like to keep the .MC9 and .NC files associated with a particular assembly all in the same project folders with the Invntor project they are associated with so its easy to find them when I need them.