Autodesk Revit MEP

[#1]

A co-worker of mine has found and downloaded a cache of electrical Revit Families. However, all of them require a Wall as a host. We download and link in the architectural models on all projects so we actually have no "walls" to host to, just a link object. I am not about to Copy/Monitor all of the walls in a project so we can utilize these families. Does anyone know if the family host object can be altered?

Thanks

[#2 · Accepted solution]

Setup a dummy project with with a few walls.  Then place all the downloaded equipment that requires a wall host.  Save and exit.  Then start a mep project and link in your other dummy project.  Use the copy/monitor feature to grab the electrcial equipment.  The equipment will be brought into your project and converted to 'face-based' elements.  Then, you can 'edit family' and save them into your library.

One gotcha that I know of: multiple types within the same family MAY NOT come thru with the copy/monitor, so you may need to place each type separately in the dummy project.

[#3]

That's a good one. And with only a couple of hoops to jump through. I suppose the same would work for translating a ceiling based family to a face based. So Revit does have the ability and functionality to convert these families, but it is not directly available to the user.

Thank you. All of these nice work-arounds could be combined into a manual, maybe larger than the Revit User's Manual!

[#4]

Yep, works for ceiling based, wall based, floor based, etc based

[#5]

What versions (year) of Revit does that work with? I know 2012 has Copy Monitor option for Fixtures, but does it work for 2011?

[#6]

2011 and 2012 both have the Copy/Monitor of MEP items. 

[#7]

2012 is the only way since Copy/Monitor for equipment, fixtures, and devices is new. Many of the families we have downloaded are for Revit 2010 and 2011 projects, so in all of those cases we are still stuck.

[#8]

I have run into problems with some of the arch's MEP items because they were catagorized as "Generic Models".  I had to go into the arch model and change the catagory to something MEP, such as "Mechanical Equipment", "Electrical Device" or "Plumbing FIxture".  After that they come in fine, even if they were older content from earlier releases.

[#9]

My mistake, 2011 works too.

[#10]

Do you have to do this for every project or is this something that you have to do only once on a single object so you can use that object on multiple projects?