Creating parametric family of variable length element

[jdejohnYS75X]

Hi,

I am fairly new to Revit, but have been diving deeper into the intricacies as of late. I am trying to edit an existing plug mold family in two separate ways. 

1) The first being making the symbol for each receptacle appear as more of a block as opposed to a line. I got this far as shown below.

OLD

NEW

2) The second part is where I am having trouble. The old family is fully functioning, and you are able to change the length of the segment and the spacing between each symbol, all while keeping the first symbol locked at 6" from the beginning. Now in the new family I am able to get it so I can change the overall length correctly, but as soon as I change the spacing it falls apart. Shown below.

OVERALL LENGTH CHANGE

SPACING CHANGED FROM 1' TO 2'

I have been trying to troubleshoot all day and I am starting to find the same articles I have already read. Any guidance would be great. I will try to attach my .rfa file on this post as well.

[barthbradley]

You might have better luck nesting the arrayed element into the host family and then arraying the family. In lieu of that, Array the element plus the Ref Planes that the elements are constrained to. I notice they aren't constrained to anything currently. Just Grouped.   

[jdejohnYS75X]

Any chance you could explain how to do that? I would be doing separate research on how to do each part of that lol

[barthbradley · Accepted solution]

see attached

[jdejohnYS75X]

Thank you so much!!