First steps into Inventor

[NerdlingOne]

Hey Inventors,
A department at our firm is taking it's first tentative steps into Inventor. They build substations for power utilities. It will only be a handful of users that will run Inventor Pro. What beginner mistakes can we avoid?

- Hardware - We should have more than adequate hardware to run Inventor Pro for projects over 1000 pieces. Anything to be aware of here?
- File management - How should Inventor projects be handled on a network drive? When is Vault justified?
- Is 2016 a good version to start with? Does 2017 have anything better? (We are on subscription so we are covered both ways.)
- We have a couple of designer in an office and a couple of designers that are "in the field". If they are outside the corporate network, will they have a bad time loading assemblies or having parts referenced in assemblies if those files are not contained on their local drives? Is there a workaround for this?
- What level of proficiency is required to create something like a substation? When is more training needed?

Thanks for any general advice you can give.

[jlucas]

IMO Vault is a necessity if you have more than one person using the files. It is awfully easy to make a change to a part without knowing it, especially while working in a large assembly. Setting up Vault and individual allowances will keep everyone on the current file versions, and keep someone from unintentionally making a change. Having Vault should also help with working in the office or from another site. The designer can log into Vault and download the current versions to their local drive. My company works out of two offices and we have no trouble. Listen to me, I sound like a salesman!

As for hardware, the only suggestion that I have is to set up your Inventor to run multiple processes simultaneously. You can do this by going into the Inventor task scheduler and setting the maximum processes equal to the number of processors that your machine has. I've also set the maximum memory usage to the machine maximum. I've done this and have greatly increased the speed and reduced Inventor crashes. I open and modify large assembly files regularly so I see the difference mainly in load time and global updates. Depending on your usage, you may not need to take it that far.

I don't know what's new in 2017, so I can't really help you there. 2016 is what I use, and it's stable and straightforward. Good luck to you NerdlingOne. I hope this helps you.

[NerdlingOne]

Thanks. I think they will have to think carefully about file management. If they are off site and try to open and design a file that is stored on the network, they will probably have a bad time.