How to change material for IFX custom fasteners?

Question

I am developing a custom IFX fastener library. I want to build some fasteners in plastic material. I can easily change the parameter "MATERIAL" so that the string parameter would have any value, but I can't find a way how to actually set the model material in generated instances, so that the weight would be correct.

So far i've tried:

- assigning material in the source file that the instances get generated from

- doing the previous but also adding a line to .dat file "MATERIAL NYLON66" (note that this material is currently assigned in the source part *.prt file, i haven't just used random name)

However, the generated instances still get material "10_9" and density of steel.

How could I set the plastic material in generated instances?

@OliverGräbner - you have been helping me on another thread with IFX, but since this is quite different topic I thoght it would make more sense to start a new thread.

Thank you!

OliverGräbner · Accepted Answer

Hi Ben,

you have to change the material from your template fastener file.

Simply assign the material you want.

After creating a new fastener instance from this template,

the material is also available.

NOTE: It is not possible to control the PTC-Material itself by a column in the *.dat file.

The PTC material parameters cannot be modified by IFX.

If you want to use different materials, you have to use an own *.dat file for this.

RPN · Answer

Are you trying this with toolkit?

The material properties is likely an array where the name is the identifier of a struct with custom parameters as well, One of this items must be the current/active one (this includes the ptc one). You can change any parameter value with in this array (number of loaded unique material file names X the number of parameters in this file) in session. This is never linked to the file. Only on reloading a file, you reset the session values with the values from file, if this is matching a name. And this has an immediate impact only, if you reload the active/current one.

That is the reason, that the file name must match the rules for any parameter name in Creo. And again , the name is the unique identifier.

The material has a special model item type, check some toolkit examples (I’m not in front of my computer 😉). Each value can be modified in Toolkit as well.

Take special care with bodies. Each body may have a different material assigned.

This has an impact on weight calculation

Activate/Modfiy/Delete is base on the name, in toolkit there is no rename for this.
For the rules, just test this in Creo.

By loading, it is not automatically activated.

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