Electrical Families/Symbols and Scheduling

[rdooley944157]

In order to get our electrical symbols to appear as our conventional standards, be 3D modeled components, and fit on a drawing, we have created custom families incorporating multiple components. For example: we have a family with two data ports, a phone port, a TV port, and an IG outlet, the symbols for this run perpendicular to the wall but they act as one component so they can be hosted in the wall and not floating out in space. See attached for further clarification. There are inherent problems with this but the big one seems to be in scheduling. Since these combos are one family you cannot scheduling the individual elements, so it counts this combo as one, as opposed to adding two tallies to data, one to phone, etc.
Has anyone come up with a fix that lets them graphically show mass amounts of electrical devices properly (to me this is perpendicular to a wall), not have them floating in the middle of a room (i.e. hosted to a wall), and be individually schedulable? ]
Hopefully this made sense, thanks for any thoughts.

[CADastrophe]

There are two basic options:

1. Create a Shared Parameter (Integer) for each type of receptacle you wish to count and add it to each relevant family. Your combo-family will have multiple Parameters that control the reported number of receptacles.

2. Instead of modeling all of the components directly in the combo-family, load in and nest each of the components in as separate shared families. If embedded families are marked as 'Shared', they will be scheduled as if they were an independent family. An annotation symbol can be created to represent that combo and loaded into that family.

[rdooley944157]

I may have to follow up with you on this; I will start playing around with shared parameters and families and see if I can get it to work. Thanks.

[martin.schmid]

See attached for further clarification.

out of curiousity, what does the 'real' elevation of this look like, and how would a contractor know what the intent is without an elevation or more detail beyond what is shown by the plan symbols?

[BenSammis]

You can also create a parameter that will offset the annotation symbol from the origin of the family, so the 3D component is in the wall rather than floating in midaid, but the annotation(s) are stacked as shown in the attachment.

[rdooley944157]

martin.schmid:
These are relatively standard items/install/symbols the contractor will know what they are. Any typical elevation heights will be outlined in the specs; any unique circumstances outside of this would have to be tagged as such. The contractor will also likely be submitting data sheets on the cover-plates which will also make sure everyone is on the same page.


BenSammis:
Yes as long as I can move the annotation symbols perhaps that is the best way.