Constraints not Satisfied error

[Anonymous]

I have been trying to create a Family for a basic water heater.  After creating the basic cylinder for the tank, I add an escutcheon tied to a height constraint I have created.  Then in the Ref. Level view I add a angle constraint to the escutcheon.  When I manually test it through the family types screen everything works fine and "flexes" as it should.  I then create 2 family types for different sized tanks.  For this the height and angle changes together.  I click apply for the second size and I get an error saying "Constraints are not satisfied."  I next added a third family type as a half step.  This type only changes the angle not the height.  So in order to get from Type 1 to Type 2 I need to click Type 1.5 and apply before going to Type 2 and apply.  This works great for my purposes, but When I create a more formal heater to be able to place on Seek or give to clients this is very impractical. 

Does anyone know of a fix for this?

Attached the Family File, and the Error FIle.

[CoreyDaun]

You may have to create a Reference Line, apply the Angular Dimension to that instead, and then Group your Family with said Reference Line. I haven't dug into this yet to confirm, but try tinkering with this method and see if you can get it to work.

[Anonymous]

In addition. As a general tip for good family making --- make sure you periodically turn "Automatic Sketch Dimensions" on --- I can not emphasize enough how useful this is for figuring out how all your sketch lines, geometry, and reference planes relate to one another.

Edited by
Discussion_Admin

[Anonymous]

This seems to be working, though I am not sure why it wouldn't work the other way.  It seems with Revit you always have to find a "work around."  In this case as I had already changed my elements from face based to regular family types because the angle issue was even more prevalent there. 

[Anonymous]

I have found the downfall to the grouping with a reference line work around.  When I do this, my pieces are no longer constrained to the axis of the heater.  I can grab the group and move it where ever I want.  This will not be good for submitting to Autodesk seek.  If anyone has any further ideas please let me know.

[Alfredo_Medina · Accepted solution]

You need to change your method of rotation. Rotation for generic families works well with nested families (work-plane based), and reference lines. You need 3 families. One for the accessory, another one, family 2, with instance parameters, for making the accessory rotate and move in our out from a center.  And, another one, family 3, which is the final host, the tank. You need to tie the instance parameters from family 2 to equivalent type parameters in family 3. In the final host, you need a named reference plane to host family 2, so that it moves up and down.

[Anonymous]

After placing the part within a family within the main family and adding a single parameter per level everything seems to be working properly now.

Tree-

Main Family(contains angle parameter)

-Sub Family (With height parameter)

 -Part (with radial parameter)

(Note: Each parameter must be link to the Main Family, so you must have all parameters from the level below within the current level of the tree.)