I've been a Solid Works user for.... ever. I use pipe routing on nearly a daily basis creating things from simple 1" pipe routes to 60" plate rolled pipe for water mains and everything in between. If you have any experience with SW Routing you know how powerful it is and also how absolute dogs*** it can be at times. There's not a lot out there for Inventors pipe routing, but it looks like there's already a decent library of parts built in and SEEMS like some things may be easier to accomplish. I'd like to hear it from someone who uses it regularly. How good is it really? Specs, Spooling, Custom fittings, change management, fabrication drawings... is it worthwhile?

I want to cleanly weld the top frame with a vertical support. Please correct me if I'm doing something wrong. And tell me if you know a better alternative. Thank you.

Edit: Added the word cleanly. Groove tool can fill the hole but I'm not satisfied with the output. It has a corner bump, making it not smooth and flat.

https://reddit.com/link/1v2p9eg/video/zodegutkbmeh1/player

I'm looking for someone with solid experience in Autodesk Inventor Nastran who would be willing to review a model I recently finished. If anyone is interested, I'd be happy to send it through a private message.

The modeling itself is mostly done, but I'd really appreciate if someone could check that everything is clean-making sure there are no overlapping surfaces, duplicate geometry, or other modeling issues before I move on with the analysis.

My biggest challenge is setting everything up in Inventor Nastran. I modeled the plates as shell elements (surfaces) and the stiffeners as solid bodies. My goal is to make sure that during the simulation all the components work together correctly.

From what I understand, this depends on how the nodes are connected. Unfortunately, I can't use a continuous mesh with my model, so I think I'm forced to create the connections manually using contacts. That's the part where I'm struggling the most.

Another issue is that my computer isn't very powerful, so simply opening the Nastran environment and testing different contact definitions takes a very long time. Because of that, I'm hoping someone with more experience could point me in the right direction or even show me the proper workflow so I can learn how to do it myself.

If you've worked with shell elements + solid surfaces in Inventor Nastran and know the best way to connect them efficiently, I would really appreciate your help. Even a quick review of the model or some guidance would mean a lot.

Thanks for taking the time to read my post, and I hope someone here can help!

Been working on this alone for a while. You describe what you want in plain English, and it reads the actual model (parameters, feature tree, geometry) to figure out what you actually mean, not just matching keywords blindly. Give it enough to go on and it can generate whole new parts or assemblies from scratch too, it's not limited to editing things that already exist. It can also render a close-up of a specific edge and actually look at it before deciding something like a fillet will fit. Runs on Claude under the hood, using your own Anthropic key, so there's no markup or proxy.

Once it has a plan it shows you a diff before touching anything, applies it, and rolls back on its own if a regen fails so you don't get stuck with a broken part.

I don't have much of a network of Inventor users to actually test this with. Figured I'd rather know now if it's useful than keep guessing by myself. If anyone here does real Inventor work and wants to try it on something real, I'd appreciate hearing from you. Happy to share more if you're interested.

So I'm trying to draw sticks ( 1/4" thick, 2×2) spaced a 1/4" apart, but that all have a 45 degree bend (sometimes it's a different angle) but it takes forever trying to find the exact amount to adjust the length of the flange to get the angled sections 1/4" apart, is there an easier way to figure this out?

Hi everyone,

I'm working in Autodesk Inventor Nastran and I need to create shell idealizations for a model. The problem is that some external surfaces completely cover the internal ones that I need to select.

Is there a way, from within Inventor, to temporarily hide or isolate a face (or a body) so I can easily select the internal faces without deleting any geometry?

I'm looking for a method before creating the idealization, preferably something like hiding individual faces or making them transparent.

Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance!

New to inventor, I’m on Professional 2023. How do I turn these dimensions 90° so they don’t interfere with each other?
Thanks!

Hi everyone,

I'm working on the cross-section of a ship in Autodesk Inventor. The structural stiffeners were modeled as solid bodies, while the plates were modeled as surfaces.

The problem is that when I enter the Inventor Nastran environment and try to generate the mesh, it takes an extremely long time, and sometimes it doesn't finish creating the mesh at all.

Is there anything I can do to generate the mesh without it getting stuck?

I need to run several simulations, so any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Does anyone in the sub use a 3Dconnexion CADmouse? I've been using one for a few years and using the middle button (not the scroll wheel button) to open a radial menu has become second nature to me in part, assembly, and drawing environments. However, just today, the radial menu completely changed (without me changing any settings in Inventor or 3Dconnexion software). Before today, the radial menu would include commands like measure, extrude, constrain, smart dimension, etc based on what I was working on. Now the radial menu is Open, New, Home, and Esc, and they don't actually do anything. I checked with a co-worker and his is working just like mine used to. Has anyone else experienced this? I tried remapping the button in 3Dconnexion's software, but nothing changes.

I'm running Inventor Pro Build 398 Release 2026.3 dated 04/13/26 and 3Dconnexion 10.9.12.735.

I’m trying to adaptively edit a part in an assembly.

Adaptive is grayed out so I went to make it adaptive.

I went to document settings, Modeling, checked the “Adaptively Used in Assembly” and pressed apply.

But the part still doesn’t let me make it adaptive.

When I go to double check the settings, “Adaptively used in assembly” remains unchecked.

Any advice?
Picture of setting attached for reference, can’t screenshot bcos i can’t sign into Reddit on my work pc.

Hey everyone!

After messing around in Tinkercad, I’ve finally taken the plunge and started learning Fusion 360. This is my first "real" project: a 2-piece custom electronic Dart Scoreboard (split into a top faceplate and a bottom shell with screw pillars).

The Layout:

• Top Left: Cutout for a 1602 LCD screen.
• Bottom Left: 6 slots for score displays (marked "Joueur 1" to "Joueur 6").
• Right Side: A 4x4 grid for mechanical keyboard switches.

The Design Challenge: I’ve added some fillets, an inset on the top face, and designed internal screw bosses to hold it together. However, it still feels very "boxy" and purely functional. I want to give it some actual design flavor, but as a Fusion 360 beginner, I'm a bit stuck on how to make it look cooler.

What would you do to improve the aesthetics of this case?

I’d love to hear your ideas on:

• How to make the overall profile more dynamic (e.g., a sloped/angled top)?
• Better ways to integrate or stylize the text/labels?
• Cool textures, chamfers, or multi-body accents I could print in different colors?

Thanks in advance for helping a beginner out!

Im trying to replicate the shape for rendering the outside, but i cant figure out how to the mowhawk park, can someone point me what tool or method i should search for?

Im struggling to trim this lover member to the vertical section.Every time i use the trim function i lose the other side of the section is there a way around this ?

Hello, I am attempting to add a chamfer to these letters and cant seem to get some of them to work.... the S, G, and parts of the E wont Chamfer. Any ideas?

Hi,

I am working on a structural steel frame in Inventor, and I need to make my miter joint gaps parametric. Since the final gap distance isn't set in stone yet, I want to be able to update all the miters simultaneously using a single user parameter

Currently, when I try to link/paramterize them, the values do not update. Here is what I tired:

1. Made parameter in top assembly and assigned it to each miter (does not update even after Rebuild All)
   
2. Made parameter in Frame sub-assembly (FR_01) and assigned it to each miter (does not update the distance)
   
3. Make parameter in each Frame member part (PN EN xxx) and assigned it to each miter (does not work as I can't assing this parameter to the miter distance)
   
4. Made parameter in Skeleton part and assign it to miter (does not work as I can't assing this parameter to the miter distance)
   
5. I tried using Rules but can't seem to find a way to update the Miter (although I'm quite new to the Rules)

Is there a workaround to keep these miters dynamic without having to mass-delete and recreate them every time the gap specification changes?

I've tried more that 15 TIMES to Prove that I'm a student I have tried getting all my student data and make an ID Card (Unfortunately my school doesn't have one) and upload it but it doesn't work.
I thought about going to school and get a STUDENT REGISTRATION STATEMENT but, I live in a non-English spoken country so anybody help me please

I'm on a rocket project right now, and I'm trying to find the best way to drill holes between parts.

The whole design process is like this

1. Make a body tube

2. Make a part that will be attached to the tube

3. Place the part on the tube with constraints

4. Drill holes on the tube based on the part's mounting points

The problem is, if I need to change the location of the part, I have to re-do all the holes.

I'm new to Inventor, and this is what I would've done if I were using CATIA.

1. Create a geometrical set on the part

2. Save the hole points and axis of each hole. (With a name)

3. Include this geometrical set as an external reference in the tube file

4. Create a hole based on the point and axis

Like this, even if I change the relative position of the part on the pipe or even the hole location in the part, it will automatically regenerate the holes.

But in Inventor, it seems like the concept of "Geometrical Set" is a bit different from CATIA.

I also tried the Bolted Connection feature, but since the tube has no flat surface, I couldn't use this feature.

And because this is mostly an axisymmetric design, I use Circular Pattern a lot. But forget about it, I want to find the best way for arbitrary hole geometries. The method that will not break even if I change the location, geometry, or parameters(such as pipe diameter)

Here are examples of my work. See all those holes? If I change just a bit of the part location, I have to redo everything, and it is extremely painful.

Please help!

Hi all, I'm working on a series of castings for my company and I believe it is a great opportunity to use Model States. The issue is, I don't know how version control / revision control / general lifecycle will work for model states.

I currently make a casting, then make a derived part from that component and add all of the basic machining features. Then, I plan to either save that as the factory state and have additional model states within that model, OR save the file and make a new derived part from the basic machined part, and make the model states in that part.

The problem comes with version control - when we make a new part for a customer using the same casting, I don't want the revision to increase. My original thought for a workaround could be to just make drawings for each model state and only do lifecycle changes on those.

The other problem with model states is that it seems very easy to accidentally edit the wrong model state via toggling edit all scopes, or if a new employee logged in and didn't realize there were model states. Human error could cause the data to be corrupted very quickly. Is there a way around this, where I could lock a model state? Or is that where it would make more sense to create a new derived part?

Any advice or personal experience with this would be much appreciated!

Is it possible in Inventor to have bend notches on the bend lines just like in this picture from Solidworks.

I am attempting to install Autodesk Inventor on my E: drive, but every time I attempt to do so, it states that my disk space is full on my C: drive? I am not trying to install anything on said drive, and it is forcing me to try to. My C: drive is unfortunately very limited, and does not have enough space to install, even when cleaned up. Any reason this might be happening?

Edit: thank you all for the help, I was able to get it working thanks to y’all.

i keep landing on this page after i click activate. even when i'm not logged in.
what am i doing wrong