Pipes acting strange

[pauljordan]

OK, so I've been placing pipe all over this drawing for a while now and every now and then I'll go back to make an adjustment here or there and when I hover over the pipe, I see something like this:

Pipe

Size Name: 3" Commercial Pipe
System: Heating Hot Water - Return
Elevation: 10'-0" to 10'-0"

When it should look something like this:

Pipe

Size Name: 3" Commercial Pipe
System: Heating Hot Water - Return
Elevation: 10'-0" (Top: 10'4", Bottom: 9'-8")

Usually the only way I can do anything with the 1st pipe is to delete it and copy another piece of pipe in it's place. If I try to do an addpipe from the fitting it was connected to, I get the double elevation. The elevations are always equal to one another.

I thought I figured it out earlier where I'd save the drawing, close and re-open but, that didn't do anything. Even when I use the Add Pipe routine off the palette it does it now. I've got the layout method set to Routing and not to Rise/Run in the properties palette.

I can go to my test drawing that I always keep around to use for troubleshooting and it's working like it should in there.

Did I hit a setvar somewhere? It can't be a sysvar because it would do it on my test drawing as well.

I'm sure this is a simple setting, I just can't for the life of me figure out where to even start searching for an answer.

Any ideas??

[stelthorst]

Here's my guess.

Try typing in 10'-0" in both the beginning and ending elevations (z) of the pipe. I have times before where my conduit wasn't perfectly level and I would see the same results you are. I know both of them say 10'-0" now but I bet if you changed your tolerances you would see they are at different elevations.

Hope this helps,

[pauljordan]

Here's my guess.

Try typing in 10'-0" in both the beginning and ending elevations (z) of the pipe. I have times before where my conduit wasn't perfectly level and I would see the same results you are. I know both of them say 10'-0" now but I bet if you changed your tolerances you would see they are at different elevations.

Hope this helps,

I'll check that out on Monday but, here's the thing, I can make that piece of pipe 1000 feet long and it'll still say 10'-0" to 10'-0".

If an answer doesn't come to me by Monday morning, I'll prolly wblock the drawing to my test drawing and see if that works like it should still. Then I'll delete that whole run of pipe and redo it making sure the settings are correct.

Thanks for the idea on the accuracy idea. I'll try it and keep on pluggin away.

[toby.smith]

I believe Scott is correct, your Start and End elevations aren't exactly the same, even though they report the same in Tool Tip and Properties Palette. I can easily reproduce the same thing you describe.

Draw a run of Pipe at any elevation (e.g. 10'). Select the Pipe then click on the "Connection details" worksheet icon in the Advanced section of Properties Palette. Change Elevation Z value of one end from 10' to 10.001'. Notice that Tool Tip now changes but all values are reported back as 10'-0".

Hope that helps,

Toby Smith, PE, LEED AP
AutoCAD MEP Product Manager.

[pauljordan]

Between here and Discussion.Autodesk the riddle has been figured out. I still don't know HOW it has been happening but, I changed my units of accuracy do 1/256". In a 100' run of pipe, it was 5/256" out of level..

I think the way I fixed it where I'm able to work again is by typing UCS and then Plan. I know I was bumbling around with the UCS and if I remember right, typing plan gave me an error message but, for some reason it started working again.

I'll use your idea on the pipes in the drawing that still have issues with elevations Toby, thanks a bunch!