Place items in center of ceiling tile (and keep it in center if the grid moves)

[HVAC-Novice]

For my lighting projects I need to place a lot of existing ceiling speakers, sprinklers, diffusers etc. in grid ceilings. They are there just for reference and have no function other than to tell me not to put a new light fixture when there is an existing sprinkler. I got a bit annoyed and sloppy with placing them in the middle of a 2x2 ceiling tile. 

I saw some dynamo ideas to center those item in a ceiling tile, but thought that being too complex. 

Best idea I could come up with was to create reference planes in the family. Those planes are in a 2x2 grid and are a "strong reference". That way they can be snapped to a 2x2 ceiling grid. See attached sprinkler family.

I just wanted to share this idea and see if anyone has a better solution? 

I'm also wondering if there is a simple way to lock the family to the center of a ceiling tile so it moves if I move the ceiling grid (other than locking a dimension). Basically pin it to a specific location in reference to the ceiling grid. 

[ToanDN]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PRU2zOKi1DU

[HVAC-Novice]

Thanks, I had found that as well. 

I may try his script later since it seems to have some nice ideas. Nice it includes diagonal grids. not sure what  it does if it encounters a drywall ceiling since my centering only should work with grid ceiling. 

It also seems to center ALL fixtures in a project. Some of the sprinklers etc. I have actually are not in the center of a tile. So I may have to change the script to pick selected items. So maybe if I can edit it so I can easily select items in one room and center them with dynamo, that would help. 

[HVAC-Novice]

Uh, ah, did you try this out in Revit?

I was just trying to play with that Dynamo script, but came across the description referring to AutoCAD. It unusually takes me some time trouble-shooting before i can run a "borrowed" script. So now I'm wondering if this will work at all in Revit or if it will inherently not work and I will be in an infinite trouble-shooting tailspin. 

"2. Open the DWG in Autocad and Explode the ceiling hatch patterns; this will enable Dynamo to read the pattern lines in the layer A-CEIL-PATT. 3. Link the CAD drawing in the active view (ceiling plan) as a view specific entity. 4. Select the Link Imported Instance and run the script. 5. If the ceiling pattern changes, re-export and replace the DWG and re-explode the elements in AutoCAD before running the script again."

[Mike.FORM]

If you are moving a ceiling grid by selecting one of the hatch grid lines any and all fixtures hosted by the ceiling will keep their relative position by default. if you move the hatch by selecting the ceiling itself the fixtures will not move.

[ToanDN]

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@HVAC-Novice wrote:

Uh, ah, did you try this out in Revit?

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No I haven't.  The gist of it is that you can do it using Dynamo.  If the linked video is not working for Revit then there should be others.