I am still learning MEP and have made great progress but one thing still evades me. I am trying to draw a branch off of a HWS piping main and need to rise to clear the HWR main beside it but want to rise with the tee at 45deg. to a 45deg elbow to clear the HWR. I have no problem with 90 deg elbows but need minimum rise. Your help in the past has been great.
Herb
Herb,
The easiest way for me is to type "PIPEAD" in the command line. Then before inserting the branch pipe, in your PROPERTIES pallette, look under DESIGN tab, ROUTING, SLOPE. Change your slope to 45 if you want to offset up and (-45) if you want to offset down. Insert a branch on your main in the desired location along with a short piece of pipe to get you to the elevation you desire. Then change your slope back to 0, and continue running pipe. See the attached screen shot.
Using the slope of the pipe works great as the previous poster commented on but one technique that I prefer and doesnt require interaction with the properties palette is to turn your compass on and use that. If your compass is not on when drawing pipe you can activate it by hitting the C key. You can then change the plane of the compass by hitting the P key. This will allow you to draw in any direction at any slope as long as you have your compass setup correctly. It also helps to be drawing in a 3D view.
In addition, you can change the slope via the command line instead of using the properties palette. Handy if you value your screen space.