face hosted symbols in lieu of wall hosted

[timsea81]

I'm trying to make a thermostat. It would be simply be an extrusion on the wall that looks like a box from any 3D view or section, but on a floorplan looks like a "T" with a symbol around it. Accomplishing this would be useful for many other custom symbols we will need to make down the road as well as it will (hopefully) become an easy template to establish 3D geometry separate from the symbol for that object that goes on the plan (which our electrical department would love if I can figure it out).

Anyway, I got the thing to work PERFECTLY. The elevation of the thermostat is controlled by a parameter and there are 4 different types that control visibility settings of the symbol to allow you to get the text to read upright on any wall (well, not walls at an angle, but good enough). Anyway, after testing it thoroughly in my test project I load it in to the real one and OH NO!!! Wall hosted families don't host to walls through the link!

So after reading all the posts about this issue I could find on these forums I'm still at a loss as to how to do this. The face-hosted families seem to assume that the host is parallel with the floor, so if I treat the host as the wall perpendicular to the floor the "floor plan" view of the face-hosted family is actually an elevation, and the view perpendicular to the host (facing down if the host is a wall, like a floor plan) is called an elevation. However this the view where I want my symbol, and I can't place a symbol in an elevation view.

So I guess what my question boils down to is how do I create a face-hosted family where the face is assumed to be vertical and thus the floorplan view is perpendicular to the host?

Thanks in advance.

[cporter.207875]

Create the thermostat as a face hosted family with the nested symbol located in the floor plan>ref. level view of the family. Fom the family editory, you have make the geometry invisible in one or more of the elevations (can't remember which) so that it won't be visible in your plan view of the project. Now when you place the t-stat in your project on the face of a wall, the symbol will show but the geometry will be invisible.

Or you could just download the latest content extension from autodesk subscription and use the t-stat located in the power devices folder.

Another thing you could do is open and edit a receptacle family to make it be a t-sat.

[timsea81]

Create the thermostat as a face hosted family with the nested symbol located in the floor plan>ref. level view of the family. Fom the family editory, you have make the geometry invisible in one or more of the elevations (can't remember which) so that it won't be visible in your plan view of the project. Now when you place the t-stat in your project on the face of a wall, the symbol will show but the geometry will be invisible.

Or you could just download the latest content extension from autodesk subscription and use the t-stat located in the power devices folder.

Another thing you could do is open and edit a receptacle family to make it be a t-sat.

I did all that, the problem is that the symbol only shows up if I put the thermostat on the floor or a work plane parallel with the floor. If I put it on a wall, the symbol doesn't show up because it is facing out and not up.

I don't like the OOTB thermostat because the text is upside down if you put it on the wall at the top of the room or sideways if you put it on a wall on the side of the room. The wall hosted custom one I set up has 4 types "up, down, left, and right". There are 4 symbols, one for each orientation, and only the one showing the text upright is visible in each type. I'm going to try to modify the OOTB family to work this way, but I'd also like to understand how it works for the sake of my nagging curiosity.

[cporter.207875]

Here is the one that I use. It isn't face hosted, though. Also, to avoid having your text upside down: edit the symbol family, go to Family Category and Parameters, and check to box to "Keep text readable."

[nubrun.188780]

I am encountering the same problem trying to use a faced based t-stat. In order to get around the inability to see an annotation symbol in the floor plan, i have used detail components to represent the t symbol. Unfortunately some of the problems that I have encountered with this, is that it does not automatically scale as you change the view scale.

I have attached my t-stat, if anyone else has input, or suggestions feel free to let me know.

[moliva]

The themostat that I use is just a recessed wall box that has an annotative tick that is seen in plan view (unhosted w/ it modeled to a elevation of 48"). I then tag it w/ my annotative symbol that I use for displaying the plan symbol. That way I don't have issues w/ the text orientation and I can drag the symbol to any spot I need to make the drawings read clear. Btw, I have it set up as mechanical equipment w/ a subcategory of "thermostat". The biggest problem is that I have to take the extra step of tagging the thermostat but it does allow me to move the symbology to my liking and I don't have to have different types setup to get the text to appear correctly when placing on angled walls or N-S walls. Just my $0.02.

Mike