Locking a Nested Family Location

[Anonymous]

I've attached a generic model family of a fairly complicated folding door. It appears to be in pretty good working order when I flex it.  Changing the Wedge variable (WDG) adjusts the angle between the two open door panels, the family flexes appropriately (see Folding Door Pic 2).  But when I change the Overall Height (OAH) the door panels slip away from their intersection point (see Folding Door Pic 3).

I can't seem to figure out why these two nested families (DL1 Rotatable Leaf and DL2 Rotatable Leaf) are not staying at their intersection point.  Any help is greatly appreciated.

Mike

[barthbradley]

Is the Nested Family's "Work Plane Based" parameter checked  and is it  hosted to the Work Plane in the Host?  Also, is "Always Vertical" unchecked in the Nested Family?  These are usually the two main culprits.   

...just looked at your file. Why not build all the components into a Host Family and then load the assembled Family into the Project?  

[Anonymous]

Thanks for checking out the file.  There almost always seems to be a better way to make these families after I've taken my first stab.  I wish I could predict there behavior better. Unfortunately, when I'm close to something that "works" it can be difficult to "suck it up" and do it over again.  If I understand you correctly you may be saying that there are too many nested families.  I tried messing with the work plane setting in the directly nested families as you recommended but the door leaf families are face based and this is not an option with this type of family.  When I find myself working with rotating components I usually reach for a face-based family and host it on a reference line.  If you have a better approach please advise.

Thanks for checking it out.

Mike

[Anonymous]

Might try hosting the door to the reference line without the added reference line in the nested family.

This way it is locked down to something and you can constrain it properly in the parent family.  

For your nested door nothing is locked there either.  I can move the additional nested family without Revit yelling at me about constraints being broken.

Also...a regular family, loaded into a nested family, loaded into a nested family, loaded into a parent family.  Could have shortened that quite a bit.

[FAIR59]

The nested family can move freely along the reference line.

To lock it in place:

• Set workplane to the reference line (in Left  elevation )
• Draw a new reference line perpendicular 
• Dimension line length and lock
• Dimension angle and lock.
• Align and lock the nested family to the new reference line.

 

[barthbradley]

Maybe I'm not understanding what you are doing, but it looks like you are trying to build a parametric vertical folding door similar to the vertical bi-fold in this photo.  If so, what I'm saying, is to build the whole Assembly in one family with nested components, and then load that Assembled family into the Project.  And, instead of building the nested components in a hosted (e.g. Face-Based) family templates, build the components in an unhosted family template (e.g. Generic Model.rft), with "Work Plane Based" Parameter checked and "Always Vertical" unchecked.   

[barthbradley]

@Anonymous : Maybe the attached family can help...  

p.s. I didn't rigorously test, so you break it, you own it.   

[Anonymous]

I don't know about you but these rotational problems often seem to come down to isolating reference lines and objects to get things to align and lock correctly.  Thank you for the advice.  Your suggestions proved to be the gateway to the solution.  While there may be more elegant ways to solve this, adding perpendicular reference lines and locking the angle relationship proved pivotal (no pun intended :)).  As soon as I did what you said, several other endpoints started going haywire but after isolating and locking things more explicitly it seems to be working.  I also had a parameter that wasn't properly linked to a nested family so that has been fixed as well.  If anyone wants the fruits of that labor, here you go.  Thanks again for  all your help!

[Anonymous]

Nice.  The challenge I was facing is that the doors themselves pivot from secondary points related to hinges that are out of plane from the door faces themselves. In a nut shell, this was the source of my trials. Thanks for the advice! 

[barthbradley]

---

@Anonymous wrote:

Nice.  The challenge I was facing is that the doors themselves pivot from secondary points related to hinges that are out of plane from the door faces themselves. In a nut shell, this was the source of my trials. Thanks for the advice! 

---

So, yours have a different hinge point than what mine have.  That's an easy fix.  Unless, you are talking a blum hinge.  If so, it's also doable.