Pipework materials change on there own

[Anonymous]

I am having trouble with the model I’m producing. I have come back to it after saving it yesterday and a some of the fittings have changed and are now drawing at line size (internal diameter) instead of the size they are meant to be (outside diameter). So an 80mm dia 90 degree steel bend is being drawn at 80mm od not at 89mm od like it should be. The straight pipework is fine until you double click on it to edit it then it also changes to 80mm od once you click “ok”. I have spotted that when double clicking on the item to change the parameters that the material spec under the item tab is showing as Carbon Steel Adesk Data v11 but does not have a BS standard affiliated to it (image attached).

When I start a new drawing I don’t have this problem and the pipework and fittings draw at the correct sizes. When I double click on items in this ‘clean’ model the material spec is Carbon Steel Adsk v5 and has a BS 1387 (6.4m) in the next drop down.

The material box is shown as locked so I can’t edit it we have also tried to copy the items into a ‘clean’ model in another AutoCAD but it overrides the correct setting with the ones that don’t work.

Has anyone got any ideas please?

I am using Fabrication CADmep 2016.

Thanks

[andy.robins]

This raises the question, where did the Material Carbon Steel V11 come from?

I suspect the V11 does not have the BS spec assosiated with it that the ITM was using, which is why its listed as "None*"

In the shipping ADSK content I can only see V8

Its also very odd that if you start a new drawing and use the part, the version is V5, suggesting your disk database contains V5, so how does that drawing now have V11.

Can you recall the steps that may have updated the material from somewhere?

[Anonymous]

I dont know how this model has changed material spec as its not something I thought we could control. Is there a way to reset the material back to V5 in this DWG file?

We are an outsource CAD bureau and deal with a lot of verious other companies CAD files, is there a possibilty that something may have gone bad by copying and pasting elements from other DWG's who use their own databases?

[andy.robins]

The update is automatic based on versioning when a newer version is introduced, its nothing you can control.

Copy/Paste can definately update the version, but what I fail to understand is how a V11 Carbon Steel is out in the field, so to say.

Its not really possible for a 3rd Parties data to modify the ADSK versioning, so I dont believe that is the problem.

Can you post me the DWG (just a snippet) that contains the V11 Material, I'll take a look at what can be done.

[Anonymous]

I have uploaded the DWG via the box link as requested. Its the same area as in the screen shots. Let me know how you get on.

Thanks

[andy.robins · Accepted solution]

The reason is the Carbon Steel V11 material has been updated in the database, probably from an Imperial data set, maybe by opening a consultants drawing,  and does not contain valid Metric Specification names and OD's

What we need to do is revert this material back to the metric one, can do this with a combination of editing the database and scripting.

The Item instances in the model will refer to Carbon Steel V11, so we can't just delete that out as it would completely invalidate the model entries, what we need to do is update the model instances to a temp material, then delete the V11 entry, import the original material from one of the items on disk, then change the temp material on the instances to the newly imported database material, sounds complicated but not really.

Open the DWG

Edit the Material Database

Add a new material called ***Temp in the Pipe Systems group - no need to copy the existing gauges and sizes to the new material, its only a temp instance.

Run the attached script ChangeMaterialCStoTemp using the EXECUTESCRIPT command - this will change the selected objects material to ***Temp if they are set to Carbon Steel

Edit the material database and delete the Carbon Steel V11 material

Now right click edit on one of the Carbon Steel fittings in a service like the Elbow 90 in LTHW-CT Flow, ensuring you select the Butt Weld instance - this will add the Carbon Steel V? back into the database.

Run the attached script ChangeMaterialTemptoCS - this will change the selected objects materials from ***Temp to Carbon Steel with the current V

Delete the ***Temp material.

All should be good.

The ChangeMaterialTemptoCS script will change the material back to the database instance of Carbon Steel and it its a tube, set the specification to BS 1387 (6.4m) and for fittings BS EN 10255

If your requirement is to change to other Material/Spec combinations, modify the script to suit your needs.

[Anonymous]

Thanks Andy works a treat

[steveo]

Hi there 

We have been having the same problem, we cant seem to locate the butt weld instance point. 

Where is this on the system 

Many thanks 

Steve