Electrical Devices Scale!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Anonymous]

Our electrical devices don't come in to scale.... devices are to small in a 1/8 scale drawing we have to scale devices such as receptacles up by 1.5.

Devices come in to small in 1/4 scale drawings. Please help I am going MAD!!!!!!!!

[Anonymous]

You can change the scale of ABS devices by typing UNITS at the command line. Click the scale tab and change it there.
If you do VBA programming you can look down the message list of this forum for a thread started by me that gives you the method to access that scale factor. The answer was given by Chris.

[ESS1228]

Bringing back a thread from its grave.  I am having troubles with 1/4 scale and devices and have tried whats already been suggested with no luck.  Devices are very small at 1/4 scale except junction boxes.  I have no problems with 1/8 scale but as soon as i change the vp to 1/4 devices get so tiny.  Suggestions?

[PaulineP54QC]

After 5 years.....Did you ever get an answer? 

[Hertz_Hound]

I’ve created my own devices. I don’t use the out of the box stuff. The receptacles and scale is one of the reasons. 

Its been a while since I went down that road, but I remember something different about the duplex block. It might be the only out of the box block that uses a unit less block. Maybe it was all receptacles. Quads too? If you open it in the block editor you can see it’s unitless in the properties. I think switches and possibly other things use inches as the units when they created the blocks?  

Either way way I got tired of struggling with it and created my own. Eventually you’ll have a whole library of custom devices. Keep them all in the same drawing and create a tool pallet and a catalog for the library. 

[s.borello]

Have you added the correct annotative scale to your blocks?  Post a sample file for us to see.

[PaulineP54QC]

Hi s.borello,

I am using Auto CAD MEP 2018, mostly electrical.  We use AEC objects. We can scale them using "Device Style Properties" by overrating the scale but we don't want to do that. Why? because it isn't convenient since we use different scales and doing that would screw everything up. This is what we do:  we set the viewport's "Annotation Scale of Current Drawing" to 1/8 scale (this scale is set in model space) and the viewport's "standard scale" (the scale you want to set you viewport) to 1/4 scale (Typically details, enlarged drawings, etc.), you must select the viewport to do it and then properties.  You can work normally without overriding any object's scales in model space, but in paper space through the viewport (best practice in my opinion).  Bottom line, we noticed that once we do that, it doesn't take effect immediately but after we close and reopen AutoCAD (too annoy right?!)  Is this a software issue? or we are missing something? Any response will be appreciated. Thank you! 

PS: the command "regen" didn't work either 😞   

[s.borello]

I don't use AEC objects as I make all my own blocks.  I was just curious if your blocks have the appropriate annotative scale associated to them and if they are still too small.  I had what I thought may have been a similar issue, it turned out that I hadn't assigned the appropriate annotative scale to my blocks for the scale of the viewport I was using.   If you upload a snipet of this file, there are many users on this forum who will dive in and it may give you a faster resolution. 

[PaulineP54QC]

Hertz_Hound (Enthusiast) was the one having the problem. I was just searching for an answer to my issue and came across with his post. I replied to know if somebody already responded. He actually replied me saying: "I’ve created my own devices. I don’t use the out of the box stuff. The receptacles and scale is one of the reasons". 

I knew exactly what was his problem. 

The AEC objects comes with the appropriate annotative scale (built-in). We need to "virtually connect" the electrical devices (AEC objects) in order to generate panel schedules. It is just the fact that we have to close autocad every time we set the viewport's scale other than the typical 1/8.  We also do some custom blocks. Let's see if someone can come with a solution.  Thanks!