Tubing Bends

[Anonymous]

Hello

I am new to Plant 3d and I have created a tubing spec for Plant 3d. We mostly do tubing. For the most part my spec works very well except for 2 items. I have included bends in the spec but they are not being used when routing pipe. Bends are still being put in but they are not what I put in the spec I have to manually edit each bend. Also, the auto flange does not place a mating flange when I continue routing from a flange. I created 3 socket weld flanges for my tubing spec, 1/2", 3/4" and 1" and I have 2 connections on each flange one for the flange face side and one for the socket weld side. Does anyone have any ideas.

Chris

[ryan.bales]

It's hard to say without seeing how its all setup. Between tube and bend settings and the specs i'd suggest your issue lies in the tube and bend settings and using pipe bends. 

Are you trying to have them as pipe or fittings? 

You might try to upload some photos of what you are doing. 

[Anonymous]

I have the pipe bend settings in project set up as "Treat Bends as Pipe".

I though about trying "Treat Bends as Fittings" as see if it uses the bends I put in the spec. 

[Anonymous]

I tried it as "Treat Bends as Fittings". It does not use the bend I put in the spec. 

I actually can't even place those bends seperately. It places them as tubing elbows.

[Anonymous]

Also, when I create a ISO. The bend will show on a check iso but not on a final iso.

[ryan.bales]

Ahh okay. So bends in the spec are not actually "bends" from within Plant. They are elbows named bends. 

So you'll need to disable use pipe bends to allow the spec to auto insert the proper elbows(bends) defined in the spec. 

[Anonymous]

That does not work either. When I click "Toggle Pipe Bends" to turn it off, it places the tube fitting elbow that is in the spec. In the spec when I created the bends, I used the "Pulled Bend", that is all there was, and then defined the parameters for each bend for each size tubing. I want to do bends all the time, and only put in a tube fitting elbow manually when I need one. 

[Anonymous]

I put my spec in a zip file and attached it. 

Thanks.

[ryan.bales]

They are really two separate items - bends defined in Plant 3D and using Toggle Pipe Bends will use the piping as its base component, not a bend or elbow as shown in the spec. Spec parts insert as fitting, would be elbows by default and are simply called a bend in the description not on component origin, i.e 'Toggle Pipe Bend' so they are still 'Elbows'

If you want to use Pipe Bends from Plant you'll need to set the bend settings up in project setup or the PipeBendDefaultValues.txt file(my preferred method) and then keep toggle pipe bends on for that spec. When the option is set to 'Treat Bends as Fittings' it will still use pipe as its base component and add the bend text to the descriptions.

[Anonymous]

I will try it.

So then what is the purpose for having the bends in the spec. I am unable to place those. When I pick the bends from the tool palette is starts to rout pipe and puts in a tube fitting elbow instead of the pulled bend.

[Anonymous]

Would it work better if I make my own bends in put them in the spec?

[ryan.bales]

Better isn't the operative word. It's really how you want them to insert. But if you do that you cannot use 'Toggle Pipe Bends' as it uses pipe. 

So adding them to the spec makes them fittings by default rather than "bends" as Plant defines them. Again here they are considered Elbows by class definition. 

Pipe Bends in Plant are only used via the Pipe Bend function (toggle pipe bends).

It really depends on how you want them to insert and what you want them to look like. 

You can create a spec with only pipe and route with bends if Toggle Pipe Bends is active. This is because Pipe Bends from within Plant use the pipe and not elbows to make the bend based on the bend settings, regardless of the toggle for fittings or pulled pipe.

If you want them insert-able from the palette - make them spec parts or set them to insert as fittings from the pipe bend settings. However the later will need to be configured from project setup as its based on pipe from the spec not elbow. 

[Anonymous]

Ok. I get it now. I did try it with my own bends. It puts them in, but no matter what I do, toggle bends or not or use the bends in the project setup, they show on ISO as elbow. Even with show bends as round checked in the project setup.

[ryan.bales]

That is more than likely an issue with the SKEY on the fittings. When i set mine to use round on bend and using pipe bends as pulled pipe it generates as round.

Do you know what your ISO content Definition is set to for the bends?

[ryan.bales]

Did you check the iso content of the parts? 

[Anonymous]

I have bends set to bends in the project set up and elbows are set to make a right angle.

[ryan.bales]

But what are the SKEY's and Types? 

[Anonymous]

I don't have any on the bends I added to the spec and there were none when I was trying to use the pulled bends. I assumed by checking the radius bends in the project setup it would have inserted them on it's own. 

It sounds like I need to add skey and type for bends to the spec.

[ryan.bales · Accepted solution]

At the very least we need to verify it. I'm not 100% its the issue but its part of what drives it. Its stored in the isoconfigxml for that theme.

It works out of the box on my project in 2018. The line in the xml for my theme reads:

   <BendElbow Bend="Round" Elbow="Square" />

But it would depend on how the Class/Type of the bends is called out. If they read as ELBOW instead of BEND they will display as elbows.