Rotating a group of pipe and fittings

[JasonENGVT]

Hi Everyone,

I’m hoping someone can help me with this specific technical issue but I’m also looking for any advice about my overall process and concept of what I’m trying to accomplish.

The backstory:  I have a project coming up that is modular piping for a clean room type manufacturer.  We will be designing and building racks of prefabricated pipe, fittings and valves that will be fitted into frames and installed like Lego’s, module by module.  We model the pipe and frames the way they would be located and oriented after installation (fully connected).  But, we ship the racks with the pipe in a slightly different orientation so that as the frames are set in place, the ends of the pipe don’t hit.  After the frame is installed and secured, the pipe is slid within the frame up to the previous pipe/module and connected up.  Also, sometimes we ship the pipe assembly rotated if valve actuators are protruding from the rack (to protect them during shipment and installation).  We have to create drawings for both scenarios; “As Shipped” and “As Installed”.  These drawings show the frames and location and rotational orientation of the pipe within the frames.

What I’m doing:  I’ve been attempting to use Design Options to handle the two situations.  This looks promising if I put each prefabricated pipe section into a Group.  Then I can just slide all the Groups around as a part of a design option called “As Shipped”.   I think it will work well and by being a group, if we make a change to the “As Installed” pipe model, it changes the “As Shipped” pipe model which is important.  The “As Shipped” and “As Installed” models have to match exactly except for location and rotational orientation of the pipe.

The technical problem:  With this process, sliding of the prefabricated pipe Groups around works well.  But in the situation where I have to rotate the group, it fails.  I can’t just open/edit the Group and rotate the individual valves because then it also changes the “As Installed” version.  Theoretically, I should be able to just rotate the Group (along the pipe axis).  I select the group, set the group’s origin to the centerline of the pipe, and rotate.  But when I do, the pipe rotates perfectly, but fittings and valves jump way up above the pipe centerline.  Kind of like the center of rotation is some random point up above the Group (see the screen shots).  In this test, I’m just using the out of the box Pipe, Standard Coupling and the out of the box AWWA ball valve.

I’d like to solve this rotation problem, but if anyone has ideas of other ways to accomplish this same task, I’d love to hear it.   And let me know if I need to explain something more clearly… it’s not easy to put into words.

Thanks in advance!

Jason

[L-Vettz · Accepted solution]

Have you tried using assemblies instead of groups? Placing and rotating assemblies may give you more flexibility, as an assembly is not tied to a common definition like a group is.

[JasonENGVT]

Nice!  I discounted the use of Assemblies because the actual Assembly functions weren't going to be useful for me.  I never considered just using Assemblies like groups; use them to group the objects only and that's it. They rotate perfectly...  I'll have to do some more testing, but I think this may work. 

Thanks!

Jason