How to change material for IFX custom fasteners?

[Ben8]

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!

[RPN]

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. 

[Ben8]

RPN - I am not using the toolkit, im just modifying the IFX *.dat files for metadata manipulation; and now its clear that I need to update the source fastener file (.prt) with the correct material as explained by Oliver above.

Thank you for your response but I marked Olivers answer as a Solution.

[OliverGräbner · Accepted solution]

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.

[Ben8]

Oliver,

thank you for your help, it has worked just fine when you explained it.

My mistake was that I was modifying the fastener when connected to the WC workspace - so when I opened the fastener it was added to my workspace and I  was modifying (assigning the material) to the fastener in my workspace, when the original fastener at IFX folder remained intact, and unmodified fastener was used by IFX file instance generator. 

Now it is working fine, thank you.