Aligning / placing connectors to pipe ends

[damijan.a]

Hello,

I am working on a conceptual design of some plant in Revit. In conceptual phase, I am placing pipelines "blindly", e.g. without a connection to some tanks and reservoirs, just to check whether the routes are possible.

I would like to avoid rerouting all the piping in the next phase when connectors will be placed into families, e.g. tanks and reservoirs inlets and outlets. You can imagine there will be a lot of rerouting involved, and also Revit likes to do some things in its own way, especially when custom fittings are involved.

My question is, is there a way to put / align connectors to pipe ends when creating / editing mechanical equipment families? Or at least an option to see the situation outside mechanical equipment to place connectors easier, some equivalent to AutoCAD's Edit Block In-place? Imagine like a reverse engineering, instead of connecting pipe to inlet of a tank, I would like to place inlet of a tank where the pipe is located. The tank is going to be custom made anyway, so why not optimising its connections location while designing it?

Thank you for your feedback and have a great day 🙂

[hmunsell]

---

@damijan.a wrote:

My question is, is there a way to put / align connectors to pipe ends when creating / editing mechanical equipment families? Or at least an option to see the situation outside mechanical equipment to place connectors easier, some equivalent to AutoCAD's Edit Block In-place? 

 you can always edit a family after its loaded into the project. just pick the family and select Edit Family :-). its not quite an Edit in Place like Autocad, but you get your measurements, edit the family and Reload to Project. it dosent have to be save back to an RFA file it can all be done in the project environment.

next option is to edit the family so the inlets/outlets are adjustable. thru the use of parameters and constraints you can just make the Inlets/outlets move where you need them. that way when you route  your pipe, you just adjust the parameters of the connects to match where the pipe is. 

third option, is to just make a connector family (flange, pipe stub and pipe connector) as Mechanical Equipment. then place the "Connector Family" where ever you want it. Name it as needed and connect it to the desired system pipes. 

[RobDraw]

Even if the equipment is being custom made, there are going to be limitations as to where the connection points can be located. I would advise against this approach and be prepared to reroute piping to fit the equipment as it is designed.

To answer your question, there is not any way that I am aware of to model in place the equipment. In order to do your propose workflow, you would have to note measurements within the model and switch back and forth as you are developing the family.