Is there any way to get a wire that's been created with a spline in a 3D sketch environment (3+ points) to change its size or position when the wire ends are projected from an endpoint on another part?

I'm creating an assembly... two capacitor chips with gold plated pads. I want to create a wirebond between two of these caps, have the ends of the wires constrained to work points or vertices on the caps and then, when the caps move, the wire gets longer or shorter depending on the new position of the cap. Is this possible?

I'm not a vegetarian because I dislike meat... I'm a vegetarian because I HATE plants!!

Yes.  This is possible.
Attach your assembly here.

Are you using Inventor Professional or Routed Systems?

OK, here's the assembly and ipt's I put into my dropbox folder. Thanks for the help!

http://www.dropbox.com/link/17.W08PxsFPWM.773f89affb78d065?k=f88ca6bf903b95dbfe60994a798d7285

I'm not a vegetarian because I dislike meat... I'm a vegetarian because I HATE plants!!

Forgot to mention... We just use regular old Inventor 2011. I suppose that will complicate things.

I'm not a vegetarian because I dislike meat... I'm a vegetarian because I HATE plants!!

Anyone?

I'm not a vegetarian because I dislike meat... I'm a vegetarian because I HATE plants!!

I don't have 2011 installed anymore and you used dropbox, sorry..

Is using dropbox a bad thing?

If no one can / wants to show me directly how this can be done, perhaps you can just point me in the right direction?

I'm not a vegetarian because I dislike meat... I'm a vegetarian because I HATE plants!!

I don't have 2011, so perhaps a decription will work.

Create a workpoint at the connection point in each of your individual part files.

Open the assembly.
Start a new part file for the conductor wire part in the context of the assembly. Project Geometry the connection points.
Sketch should appear Adaptive.
Create your 3D spline.
Create 2D profile sketch and Sweep.

Move a part and then Update.
The wire should update.

Thanks, I'll give that a try.

What I don't understand though, is how Inventor would know which segment of the spline to move. If I've got a very simple spline consisting of 3 points (one in the center to give it a curve and two end points constrained to the mating parts) how will inventor know to move segment A or B? Or would it move both?

I guess experimentation will answer my question. I'll post back my findings.

I'm not a vegetarian because I dislike meat... I'm a vegetarian because I HATE plants!!

Success!

Thanks rollupswx. :) That worked perfectly. I still can't believe it though for some reason. Only thing that tripped me up was that you said that the sketch should be adaptive (I assume you meant the 3D sketch), but the only thing I could set adaptive was the wire part. In any case, that worked beautifully.

I'm not a vegetarian because I dislike meat... I'm a vegetarian because I HATE plants!!

Post screen shot showing browser with sketches.
Is there not a red/blue circular arrows next to the sketch?

The part is set to adaptive, but the sketch is not. Wierd, eh?

I've attached a screenshot of my browser.

I'm not a vegetarian because I dislike meat... I'm a vegetarian because I HATE plants!!

• http://i.imgur.com/qEAbX.png