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Cable Trays on walls

55 REPLIES 55
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Message 1 of 56
davidmansfield81
15623 Views, 55 Replies

Cable Trays on walls

Hi everybody,
Its nice to see cable trays added to Revit, but I cant seem to get them to work for our main use.

We do a lot of Riser or Electrical intake room details, and in the elevations/sections when looking at the back wall you would have cable trays running up the wall and accross the wall to serve the electrical meters e.t.c.

I can easily get a cable tray rising up the wall by drawing it then rotating it, but not across the wall
If i rotate it so it runs horizontally accross the face of the wall, it either gives me a error OR rotates it so it lays flat and not on the wall.

Appreciate any help.

(i have attatched a screenshot of the horizontal cable tray sitting the way revit forces it everytime i try to rotate it so the opening faces me) Edited by: wda1 on May 24, 2010 1:09 PM
55 REPLIES 55
Message 2 of 56
pothied
in reply to: davidmansfield81

I'm want to make sure that I know what you are asking. Are you saying that you want the open end of the cable tray to be facing into the room on the horizontal segment and not having the open end on the top of the cable tray?


David Pothier

Message 3 of 56

Hi, thanks for replying.

Yes, i do mean i want the open side of the cable tray to face me when looking at the wall.


I did yesterday manage to get it facing me after several rotates in different directions, HOWEVER, as soon as you then change length or try to add a fitting to it to join the rising tray, it flips back facing upwards without any error.
So that didnt help me much.. 😞
Message 4 of 56
pothied
in reply to: davidmansfield81

When we designed the cable tray feature, we intentionally designed it so the open end in always facing up. I'd be very interested to get more information from you on the types of applications where you would not want that to be the case. Would it be possible to send me some pictures of real installations where you have the open end facing into a room?


David Pothier

Message 5 of 56

I have looked though our site photos and we seem to have a lack of electric installation photos, only mechanical.
However, the main use for our horizontal facing cable / ladder tray is when rising up a intake riser and needing to offset distances along a wall before rising again.

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(im sure you're impressed by my drawing there! who needs cad! lol)

Majority of times they are used for data/cctv cables when open trays.
It is not a major issue, purely that I currently use the duct tool to draw these however the cable trays are much more graphically appealing to the client when in 3D if it is a open face installation.
Message 6 of 56

Don't have photos but it is an installation that we have used before, software should extend to cover this case.

Message 7 of 56

Cable tray should be able to be inserted into a model in any direction or orientation as it would on site. I have been to many sites where cable tray is run horizontally along a wall from a riser and also where tray is fixed to Unistrut on the underside of a slab with the tray facing the floor. This can also apply to basket and trunking.

 

Also Trunking does not always have lids on the top face as the lids can be on the side.

 

Perhaps Auotdesk could take some of the development team out onto sites to see how the elements they have created are installed in real life and also request site photographs from CSE's in other countries, to aid in understanding how we would want to design and install the elements created in a Revit model. I appreciate that Autodesk can't accommodate every combination/possiblity that happens around the world but it may help come to a more flexible solution when using these elements.

If my reply answers your query, please use the Accept as Solution.
Please give Kudos as appropriate to enhance the value of these forums.

Thank you!
Message 8 of 56

I agree. We need the cable trays to be able to be inserted in any direction we choose. It is very common to run cable trays along walls, and also as mentioned earlier, we quite often are required to run them upside down direct on the soffit at times.

Message 9 of 56
cstruckmann
in reply to: pothied

While still new to MEP, I have sen already many vertical installations. And these are very serious installations; not done in a improvised mode. Many are mounted on a vertical Unistrut grid. 

Most of other installations have some vertical portions, so not being able to model it totally compromises the cable tray objects.

Has anyone found some workarounds?

(I also dare to find good Unistrut families; currently not offered by Unistrut.)

 

I cannot send any pics, but found this web clip from the Cable Tray Institute (http://www.cabletrays.com/faqs.html)


Is it common practice to use cable trays in the vertical position? Do they maintain their integrity during a 25 or 30 year life of a plant? Is the percent fill of a vertical tray the same as a horizontal cable tray?

(1) It is common practice to use cable trays in the vertical position. I have many photos of such installations. There is no problem. Cables must be fastened securely, see NEC392.8(b).


Message 10 of 56
cstruckmann
in reply to: cstruckmann

the inability to place vertical cabletrays is more irritating since autocad mep can place them in suc a position.

Message 11 of 56

Would still love to see this appear in Revit in the future, keep getting requests from engineers and clients to show these on drawings.

Message 12 of 56

I'm now using the Revit MEP 2013 and these vertical cable tray are still unavailable. The porpose of these tray is to win space in narrow carridors. Is autodesk trying to implement this function?

Here's another example 

cable_tray_bend3.jpg

Message 13 of 56

This is fundemental.

 

There is no E in MEP!!!!

Message 14 of 56
alan.skipper
in reply to: pothied

Why didn't Autodesk talk to an electrical engineer when they thought about designing the "cable tray feature" then, I hope, that the ELECTRICAL ENGINEER would have told them that cable tray can be and is installed in all orientations.

Message 15 of 56

Autodesk, what's your action regarding with this matter? It's already been years and still we cannot see any improvement. The version now is already 2014 but still the same problem.

 

Kindly help us resolve this matter.

 

Thanks

Message 16 of 56

It's only been 4 years, give them a chance!!!!!

 

This is an Electrical problem, so they don't care about it as there is no E in MEP.

 

Cheers

Message 17 of 56
daleg77
in reply to: lemuel_mission

Can anybody provide any advice on when or if this issue is to be resolved as per the post I am replying to.

I too need to route a large number of cable trays in the vertical position going up risers and must move along in the horizontal direction, but as stated by other users revit will always flip the tray when you modify its length etc.

This is a vital feature when routing tray work.

Message 18 of 56
mardon85
in reply to: daleg77

I've also ran into this ridiculous problem today. What is frustrating is the lack of comment from AutoDesk on the matter. “We designed it that way”, so coding effort was put in to restrict the way we can install cable tray? Someone has put in a concerting effort to limit the way we do things? Why this makes no sense to me.

 

On a side note, dado trunking… just because it isn’t used in the US very often does not mean that the rest of the world doesn’t use it. I’m sick of bodging dado trunking. Also ring circuits, a fundamental part of UK electrical wiring is missing. Autodesk should change the name to MAEP (Mechanical, American Electrical and Pipework).

 

If BIM is going to silence the naysayers (which there are plenty of) it’d be great if we could get some proper UK support.

Message 19 of 56
alan.skipper
in reply to: mardon85

First posted in 2010, four years ago; nothing is going to happen.
Message 20 of 56

When i first posed this in 2010 I was certain that I was simply doing something wrong, after finding out it was how the software is designed i am supprised that it hasnt been changed in any of the new versions.

 

It is getting a bit boring using ductwork as cable trays in residential risers as we can do what we want with ductwork, however it kind of kills the BIM aspect of our models and makes them just 3D models.

 

To be fair however, this is one of the few complaints i have about the product! (compared to the many problems we have with AutoCAD), but then we are not yet fully using Revit for all its BIM capabilities, and electrical is the area we draw least of in Revit.

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