Electrical 'Isolaation' Panelboards

[dtiemeyer]

Our health care design group uses 'Isolation' style panelboards, which seem to be some weird hybrid of a Panel & Transformer.  Does anyone here have a way to utilize the Revit circuiting with this style Panelboard?

[smbrennan]

Off the top of my head without having really tried it before ...

Create a Family to represent your Transformer. Make it SHARED (Make sure the Part Type is properly assigned).

Create a Family to represent the Isolation Panelboard. Load the transformer family into that parent family. Load into project.

You can TAB-SELECT the nested Transformer, and assign circuiting/voltage as your ordinarily would. 

[MuirEng]

Deal with it as normal but hide the transformer in view?

(But Shawn's method is more sophisticated)

[timlove]

If you are working in 2020 or newer I would agree with Shawn.

Older versions of Revit had an issue with Shared Families that contained connector elements.  They would show up at an offset from the project (0,0).  If you are working in an older version of Revit I would recommend making a small transformer family that you can place at the panel location and just do not show it on plans. 

[dtiemeyer]

Hi All, thanks for the feedback.  It appears this is already a wish-list item.

https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/revit-ideas/panel-schedules-improvements/idi-p/7565487

[lacy_burbach]

working in revit 2025, was able to create the shared transformer within the panelboard family, I can then load into models and select transformer distribution and panelboard distribution, however I cannot select the secondary distribution system when tab selected the transformer within the panelboard family(It is greyed out in the properties). I can select it if I insert only the shared transformer only... I do not believe it is a distribution definitions issue because I can do this separately but not with the family that the shared transformer is in, any ideas?

[sragan]

I think it's because your family has to be one or the other - a panelboard, or a transformer, not both.  One has the secondary distribution system, the other can create a schedule.  

Maybe both can be loaded into a generic model?  But I doubt that will work - you probably won't get either the schedule or the distribution system.

Keeping the transformer as a separate family may be the only solution.  You could always group them.

[lacy_burbach]

That wouldn't jive with the solution that was presented, The family that is the transformer is actually nested as a shared transformer family within the panelboard family. I can tag select the transformer to set up the distributions however the secondary is greyed out. I was able to assign a different distribution system for it than the panelboard, just that the secondary is not editable when only the transformer part is tab selected, if that clarifies.

[dtiemeyer]

I tried this a few years ago (nesting the xfmr within the panel) and encountered the same issue. Revit doesn't seem to do well with multiple electrical connectors within one family (even if nested w/i another family). I'd be surprised if you are able to get this methodology to work, but if you do, please post the results. In the end, I found out from my engineers (I was BIM Manager at the time), that we only used Isolation Panelboards for their intrinsic ability to Isolate, but not the voltage reduction, so we had no real need for a panel schedule that could show two different distribution systems, so we just used the lower (120v) panelboard connected to a hidden transformer. Got lucky i suppose, but that has been enough for us so far.

[lacy_burbach]

I think I actually figured it out. You need to nest the PANELBOARD into the TRANSFORMER family, Panelboard family as SHARED. 

[sragan]

I understand what you are saying, but it doesn't change the fact that your family with the nested transformer either has to be a panelboard family or a transformer family.

Select panelboard, you can make a panel schedule.  Select transformer, and you can set the secondary distribution system.

I don't see any way to do both, and I'm sure it's even possible.

The only other possibility I can think of is maybe using building components.  I've never used those before, but it looks like that is another way to group families together.  

[lacy_burbach]

The solution I put up above works. you just tab select each piece to edit their unique properties, but you need to nest within the transformer family. It works in Revit 2025.

[sragan]

Sorry, I missed post 10.

But glad to hear it works doing it the opposite way.  I'm surprised that works, but i did try it, and it does indeed work.  Like you said, just tab select the panel create a schedule (and also to circuit it to the transformer).

I think you and Shawn both deserve solutions to this.