Im working on a sprinkler system in revit 2012, and its gotten rather large.
Now every time I connect a head to the system it takes a good 7-10 seconds to regenerate the model. with more then 400 heads to go this is simply not going to work.
I have tried turning off calculations, and disconnecting smaller sections from the main system to work on(which helps but not much)
is there anything I can do here?
I have some questions that may help to identify the issue:
How big is the file size?
Has it been audited and purged lately?
Are there any linked files, and if so how big are they?
Use Worksets to break the piping down into Zones and then turn off the worksets of already completed areas. In theory- when worksets are turned off Revit doesn't worry about regen'ing (if that's really a word) the elements in hidden worksets.
As far as calcs go - I didn't think Revit did calcs for fire protection due to liablilties, etc.
The answer is of course to not connect the sprinklers to the piping unless you really have to, as for a rendering, and when you do connect them, do it last. There is no need to connect sprinklers. You are not a sprinkler contractor, obviously because Revit is useless for fabrication plans, so there is no need to show connection details. Your or Revit's idea for how a sprinkler drop or sprig will be actually piped is fantasy. Furthermore there are many instances where sprinklers are required by code to be installed at angles to the view plane, as would be for any sloped ceiling or roof. Revit is unable to show the annotation symbol used to represent those sprinklers. Your properly connected sprinklers, and good luck with that, would not show up in a conventional plan. Your best option is to not connect sprinklers and to design the sprinkler family to be non hosted, containing weak reference lines that you would use the "Align" command for easily manipulating their locations relative to centerlines and common ceiling grid patterns.