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Custom Pipe Fittings

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Message 1 of 2
trevorcochran
1665 Views, 1 Reply

Custom Pipe Fittings

I am modeling some "system heavy" boiler rooms for a contractor. The model needs to be very exact so I have created custom pipe fittings families to match what the pipe-fitter will be using.

When using the custom piping fittings in the project they do not act correctly when drawing pipe. I have set the fittings as the default values for the pipe type parameters. I have to place the fittings manually, rotate and nudge to get the the pipe fittings to line up correctly. This causes major problems, after rotating these custom families they start to act strange with regards to connecting to other pipes. many of them are just floating int the correct postion, not actually connected to other pipes.

Is there something I am missing when creating these families or is Revits custom creation tools just not there?

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Message 2 of 2
aseidel
in reply to: trevorcochran

If these fittings have the correct connectors and such then I think you would have the same problem with non-custom fittings based upon the way you describe how you are using them. It sounds like you may be doing everything wrong in regard to placing and manipulating them in the model. For one thing, let Revit place the fittings for you by allowing Revit to connect the piping. In other words its not like you are in the model attaching a fitting to a pipe and then attaching a pipe to that fitting and so on. Instead it is, "Revit, connect this pipe to this other pipe". It will do it as long as everything is properly aligned. The commands I find most useful for piping are, Align, Trim/Extend to Corner (makes any connection, even straight on), Trim/Extend Multiple, and reliance on many Ref Planes. The align and trim commands operate on both the ref planes and the piping. Dragging a pipe end to connect to something is the last technique to use. Using it can introduce subtle alignment errors which will totally mess up your work if the misalignment results in an infinitesimal pipe slope. Such piping may not connect. Also, manually rotating a fitting (in an end view for example) can easily result in the odd results you describe because it it too easy in Revit to rotate around a slightly wrong axis. Having the fitting contain ref lines (like cross hairs) or placing two ref planes at the axis point are essential for that operation, which incidentally may be part of the only way to make a piping roll in Revit. So it is important to know how to do it. One method to remember is that when two unconnected pipe ends are aligned to each other, even at different elevations, double clicking at the junction will cause Revit to make the connection. Maybe this will help.

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