Needs help with the Plumbing piping and Electrical panel schedule

[sammar_shafik]

Hi All,

Well this is the first thread for me, I am new here, and I am so glad that I found this place.

I started learning Revit MEP by myself 2 months ago when the MEP company I am working in got a project that has to be done on revit, so I had to start learning and ofcourse there is no budget for training or anything.

Anyway, I have 2 issues now.

First:
Concerning the plumbing piping in Revit, when I create a system (ex: Cold water system) and I try to use the the automatic piping layout, the problem here is that it doesn't detect the walls of the linked model, so it doesn't route the pipes through the walls, so the automatic routing results in pipes all over the place, passing in the middle of the spaces and not through the walls as it should be, and when I modify the route manually and then try to create the pipes, it gives like tons of errors, so it ends up that I just add the fixtures to the system and then I start creating the pipes manually.

My question here is, is that a normal thing or I am missing something, cause it's really taking a lot of time.
Also how can I benefit more from the plumbing system in Revit? Can the revit help me in the water calculations and the pipe sizing or it is just a matter of 3d piping?


Second:
In the electrical area, As for the panel Schedule, the current panel in revit doesn't calculate LCL Adder (Low Calculated Load) and it also doesn't calculate the amperes, also there is no cells to specify how many lights and receptacles in each circuit. Can the panel be modified or can I add new cells to it? I read on many forums that people are creating the panel outside of revit (the old fashion way) but is there a way that I can utilize the panel in revit to meet our needs?

Thank you very much.

[crenaud]

Through my trial and error, as well as reading almost every Revit post on AUGI i have found that the best way to route and place piping is by doing it manually. Piping is tricky and takes time and effort to get a routine down pat. I recomend placing the piping manually.

As for the panel schedules i have gotten word from others in the office that editing panel schedules is not possible in revit.

Good luck

[ddeneve]

I've found it is easiest to start at the lowest point and manually drawing your main w/slope and then tie in your toilet rooms, mop basins, etc into your main. But draw the pipe with slope to begin with instead of trying to slope it later. Also make sure you set up the pipe types by selecting pipe, element properties, edit/new, and then make sure the fittings selected are what you want. It will help prevent a boat load of error messages.

The panel schedule is really a report and not a schedule like you have w/ hvac or plumbing that will update itself when you make a change. You have to make your changes to the panel, delete the panel schedule and then rerun the panel report.

Hope this helps.

[jason.martin]

The panel schedule is really a report and not a schedule like you have w/ hvac or plumbing that will update itself when you make a change. You have to make your changes to the panel, delete the panel schedule and then rerun the panel report.

Hope this helps.

No you don't. Just because it is a report doesn't mean that it doesn't update. The panel schedules update automatically when a change is made to any circuit on the panel. If you are seeing something different please log that with support.

jason

[james.klatt]

Short and Sweet

1. Pipe - don't use auto-route 99% of the time doesn't work right

2. Panel Schedules - You are stuck. You can't get Fixtures counts to show up on the schedule. As far as amps on the panel we had that same problem. Our solution is for every panel I have 2 schedules. Revit panel schedule and Electrical equipment schedule. The Electrical equipment schedule is filtered down by panel name. And has calculated fields to provide the amps. I have also added a few other fields so I can get an accurate demand load for HVAC equipment. It is a single manual entry for each panel, but gives us the result we want with limited work.

Jason.Martin - Panel schedules automatically update for some values. If you change the load of a device as an instance parameter the panel schedule on the sheet won't update unless you right click "update schedule". Also, demand loads will not update on the panel unless you hit "edit schedules" for the panel.

Alright not that short but oh so sweet.

[jason.martin]

Jason.Martin - Panel schedules automatically update for some values. If you change the load of a device as an instance parameter the panel schedule on the sheet won't update unless you right click "update schedule". Also, demand loads will not update on the panel unless you hit "edit schedules" for the panel.

Thanks James! I've logged a bug on this behavior.

jason

[sammar_shafik]

hey all thanks for replying..
for james.klatt what's an Electrical equipment schedule??

and also concerning the plumbing is there a way I can get water calculations and pipe sizing??

thank you very much

[james.klatt]

Plumbing question - I haven't done a plumbing on a project in Revit yet. We are working on our first project with plumbing but we take basic steps so it's not going to be completely intelligent. Either way we don't use Revit for sizing for duct and I would imagine the same would go for pipe.

Electrical equip schedule - It is just a standard schedule in revit you go to view/new/schedule and select the category you want "electrical equipment" is the category for panels. You can grab the fields you need and you can also add "calculated value" fields which allow you to do calculations based on system parameters. System Parameters are parameters which you can't get access to in the family only in the project. i.e. total connected load.

What I did was add an instance shared parameter in the panel family for "phase" as a number. After that I created a calculated field which is just a formula - total load/(voltage(sqrt(phase))) and then you place that on your sheet in addition to your panel schedule.

There is a lot of info there please feel free to ask question if something didn't make sense.

[sammar_shafik]

hey james,

thank you so much for replying..
well this is a good idea, but the problem is that I will need to add another schedule beside each panel schedule.. I can't believe how lacking is the revit panel schedule, i beleive that there wasn't any electrical designer involved in the design...

so basicly I will have to create the panel in autocad and import it into revit.. that's really a waste..

I miss autocad...

[james.klatt]

that was my first concern was creating the extra schedule, but it really doesn't take that long. Once you get the first one setup and columns spaced on the sheet you just duplicate the schedule change your filter value and it's done. When you drag the copy onto the sheet it retains the column spacing from the first one. So it really only takes a min to do. Doing the autocad to revit and keeping it maintained is more work in my mind than spending an extra minute one time only per schedule. Just my thought.