If you are new to Autodesk Inventor you might not know that it has an environment that caters for welds. You can create both physical and cosmetic welds in the Weld environment.
To activate the weld environment you can either create the weld assembly new or you can convert a standard assembly to a weld assembly through the environment tab.
When converting a standard assembly to a weld assembly you will receive a message that once the assembly has been converted to a weld assembly you will not be able to convert it back to a standard or normal assembly.
You will then need to select what standard you will be working in from the following:
- ANSI
- BSI
- DIN
- GB
- ISO
- JIS
You also have the option to select the bead material and the BOM structure. This is set to default Inseparable.
You have 3 environments to start working with Preparations, Welds and Machining.
The Preparation environment is where you additional chamfers or cuts to remove material to accommodate the welds that will be created.
The Weld environment is where you will create the physical or cosmetic weld. The physical weld will be able to give mass and physically what it will look like, with weld symbols and information attached to it. The cosmetic weld will give a line where the weld will go and just have the weld symbol and information attached to it.
The Machining environment is where you will take material away after the welds have been created.
All this comes into play when you document on an idw or dwg where you can present the different phases of the assembly whilst going through the weld process.
