Custom Cable Tray Profile

[smbrennan]

The Cable Tray as a system family works great from the sense that we can define various families for different fittings. 

The Cable Tray as a system family doesn't work so great when it comes to representing the geometry accurately. What I'm seeing is the cable tray size, is what we would consider a nominal size. a 12"x4" tray (in my case, Panduit FiberRunner), is the available space within the tray. The overall dimension is actually closer to 13"x4.5". However, unlike conduit, the size may not be centered with the tray itself. For the Panduit FiberRunner, the difference in height is added at the bottom, and the difference in width is tapered outward at the top. 

The snapshot below shows what I'm referring to. 

What I'd like to be able to do, is to define a profile for the Cable Tray System Family, and still maintain the ability to use the functions for creating bends, tees, crosses, reducers, and unions. 

[koert_vynckierZW2X9]

2026, it's oh so quiet...

[koert_vynckierZW2X9]

https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/revit-ideas/custom-cable-tray-profile/idi-p/10072773 

[ViviNyehuusAndersen]

Hi Anonymous Not applicable

We rarely have a need for visual differentiation alone.

My main challenge is that I cannot fully lock down a cable tray system, which is something I am missing significantly.

In Denmark, we do not manufacture building components ourselves. We design using prefabricated products provided by individual manufacturers. Because of that, we need to model and coordinate based on real, available products from a very early stage.

This means I have a strong need to lock all MEP content to actual manufacturer constraints, including sizes, bends, fittings, and other product specific parameters, because deviations from these are generally not possible, not even during the design phases.

Filters can help with visual representation, but they do not prevent users from selecting sizes, bends, or configurations that cannot be supplied by the manufacturer. What I am looking for is a way to enforce those product limitations directly within the content.

[matt.bedeeGCMVG]

@Scott_D_ We are just starting to understand Fabrication CADmep in Revit 2024, need to test in Revit 2026, and I was wondering what you meant by "You would probably be best served creating custom content in Fabrication then loading this library into Revit." Can we create custom content in Fabrication CADmep? We would like to address Cable Tray Profiles more than what Revit has done and it doesn't seem that Autodesk has addressed much in the last 10 years since this idea was originally posted. 

[Scott_D_]

Hi Matt, Revit does not (or at least didn't at the time of writing) manage or configure it's own Fabrication content. It uses that which is managed with Fabrication CADmep instead.

You only import the content from CADmep so you'll need to learn that interface to be successful with Revit, which is a shame because the CADmep interface is generally pretty horrible and confusing.

While you'll have to decide how you want the library you use to look, based on no knowledge of what is actually best, it can be done with some time and effort.

The only problem I can across is that some tray couplers are not built correctly by Autodesk but as I discussed that with them years ago you'd hope that had been fixed by now.