electrical wiring

[ahkelly]

When circuiting the light fixtures, some wires come in with the end offset (to adjust where the wire touches the light fixture) and some don't. Does anyone knows what controlling it? I have a light fixture that does not have the end offset. The end of the wire stuck at one position (which is where the connector point is).

[CoreyDaun]

Can you attach one of the 'misbehaving' Family Files or a sample Project File? Also, what version of Revit are you using?

[ahkelly]

I am using Revit 2014. Thanks.

[CoreyDaun]

Normally, the Wires should recognize the overall boundary of the element and connect to that. This boundary consists of the outermost extents of any Lines, Extrusions, etc. in the Family. In this particular case, I think there is a flaw with this Family in which one axis extends beyond the geometry of the Family, and that is affecting this behavior somewhat. You can see what I mean if you place an instance of this Family (horizontally), active Linear Dimension, and hover over the "origin" edge of the fixture; notice that the highlighted segment is much bigger than the fixture. I've seen this before, and have not found a remedy for this problem.

[ahkelly]

Thanks for looking into it. I don't quite understand what you mean. The way I have this light fixture set up is that it can be ceiling hosted for wall hosted. The 2-D annotation for the ceiling hosted is on the floor plans\ref. level view, and the 2-D annotation for the wall hosted fixture is on the elevations\front view. The 2-D annotation should not affect the fixture though, right?

What can I do to fix this light fixture family? The wiring looks messy without the capability of moving the wire around (the end offset).

Thanks again!

[CoreyDaun]

See attached image for what I mean regarding the axis issue. This may be attributing to your issue with the Wires attaching to the center of your Fixture.

Regarding that issue, this might be caused because the boundary is too small, according to Revit. When I increased the size of the circle in the nested Detail Item Family, Revit seemed to find the correct edge better (aside from those affected by the error mentioned above). Try experimenting with that and see if you get the same results.

[CoreyDaun]

This is not related to your problem, but I noticed that you have two separate nested symbol Families, one for normal and one for EM. These can be combined into a single Family quite easily following these steps:

1. Open the nested Family that includes the Filled Region.

2. Create a new Yes/No Instance Parameter to control the visibility of the Filled Region.

3. Select the Filled Region and link its Visibility to that parameter.

4. Load it back into the host Family, overwriting the original.

5. Select the instance of that Detail Item and under Properties, link that Yes/No parameter to the EM parameter in the host.

This will let that EM option control the visibility of the nested Filled Region only, leaving the rest of it always visible.

[ahkelly]

That I know how to do; I just didn't do it this time 🙂

I really want to get the end offset to work though. I didn't really create this fixture. It was from a properly working light fixture family, I deleted the 3D element and replace it with the 3D (copy & paste) light fixture that I found online.

[CoreyDaun]

The problem lies with the nested light fixture body family. I see there are extraneous Reference Planes and the "Fixture Width" does not match the actual fixture, and that parameter is not controlled in the host Family. If this is cleaned up, this problem should go away.