Exit & Emergency Lighting Families

[repp]

Does anyone have good Exit and Emergency Lighting Families for Revit MEP 2010? I need a ceiling mount type exit sign. If it has a way of indicating arrows then all the better but it's not critical. I also need a wall mount type as the one I'm currently using will not show the 2D element in plan view. You only see it's 3D profile. Battery packs and remote heads also needed. Any help would be much appreciated!

Thanks!!

[RobertB]

You have to use a Lighting Device rather than a Lighting Fixture for the wall mounted fixture due to an ongoing hideous oversight (search this forum for the reason).

These two might be enough of a start for you. Revit 2010.

[repp]

Thanks but I'm still having trouble with the symbol. The ceiling mount type is showing up as a big square blob on my plan view and is invisible in a section view (see attached). Same with the wall mount type. Even if switch to using a lighting device instead of a fixture. Maybe it has something to do with my display settings? The "X01" fixture you see in the screen shot is the other type of exit sign I'm using that won't display the 2D element. The rest of my symbols seem to work fine. Any thoughts as to why I can't get emergency lighting to display properly?

[RobertB]

Thanks but I'm still having trouble with the symbol. The ceiling mount type is showing up as a big square blob on my plan view and is invisible in a section view (see attached). Same with the wall mount type. Even if switch to using a lighting device instead of a fixture. Maybe it has something to do with my display settings? The "X01" fixture you see in the screen shot is the other type of exit sign I'm using that won't display the 2D element. The rest of my symbols seem to work fine. Any thoughts as to why I can't get emergency lighting to display properly?We use a customized lineweight table. Try viewing in thin line mode or edit the generic annotation's subcategory to the desired linewieght.

We also do not show 3D objects in course views unless they are major equipment.

[repp]

That worked!! Thanks!

[repp]

There is one other issue I came across. If I insert an instance of a wall mount exit sign and use the lighting device instead of the lighting fixture then the symbol shows up properly but it can not be tagged and will not show up in my luminaire schedule. This is a problem but can be worked around. I'm just going to use a ceiling mount fixture since the symbol in my plan view is the same.

I'm still fairly new with Revit but it seems every time I want to do something simple, like insert exit signs, I have to spend hours trying to figure it out! And half the time you have to find some sort of workaround. Not a fan so far!

Thanks for your help though. Much appreciated.

[RobertB]

There is one other issue I came across. If I insert an instance of a wall mount exit sign and use the lighting device instead of the lighting fixture then the symbol shows up properly but it can not be tagged and will not show up in my luminaire schedule. This is a problem but can be worked around. I'm just going to use a ceiling mount fixture since the symbol in my plan view is the same.You can create a tag for lighting devices that looks exactly like your lighting fixture tag.


I'm still fairly new with Revit but it seems every time I want to do something simple, like insert exit signs, I have to spend hours trying to figure it out! And half the time you have to find some sort of workaround. Not a fan so far!

Thanks for your help though. Much appreciated.Welcome to Revit-land.

[Saimon]

Do you have a face-based exit sign. The MEP imperial library does not seem to have an out of the box face-based exit sign that I can modify to suit my purposes.

It has all kinds of lights but no exit signs! ???

[RobertB]

Do you have a face-based exit sign. The MEP imperial library does not seem to have an out of the box face-based exit sign that I can modify to suit my purposes.

It has all kinds of lights but no exit signs! ???Did you look at the families posted in this thread?

[Saimon]

Did you look at the families posted in this thread?

I must have been looking at families from a different thread when I made this request. These families are just what I needed.

Thanks!

[Saimon]

I'm struggling with the annotation symbols on this family. The 3D-elements show up in sections and 3D views but the annotations symbols do not show on plan.

If anyone more experienced is willing to take a look at I would appreciate it. This used to be a 3D family and is now a face-based family, in the transition of going from regular 3D to face-based, the annotation symbols started to give my some problems.

Thanks,

Simon

[Saimon]

OK I figured out that the symbols need to be placed on the "Back Plane" since this is a wall mounted family. The problem is that annotations can't be placed on this plane. Any ideas?

I'm able to show the exit symbols by using detail items but these are scale dependent upon view and my boss doesn't want that because at a small scale they start to look very small and hard to recognize.

Any input is appreciated.

[RobertB]

OK I figured out that the symbols need to be placed on the "Back Plane" since this is a wall mounted family. The problem is that annotations can't be placed on this plane. Any ideas?

I'm able to show the exit symbols by using detail items but these are scale dependent upon view and my boss doesn't want that because at a small scale they start to look very small and hard to recognize.

Any input is appreciated.There's not much hope. You either choose to classify the family as Lighting Fixtures and then you cannot use a symbol (boo!) or you classify the family as a Lighting Device and then you lose fixture related things like switch circuits (boo!). (Switch circuits are not a big deal for exit signs, but are needed for other wall lights.) :roll:

[repp]

We use a customized lineweight table. Try viewing in thin line mode or edit the generic annotation's subcategory to the desired linewieght.

Changing to thin lines works in Revit but now I'd like to make a PDF of the drawing and I can't get it to print in thin lines. So the exit signs show as blobs in the PDF! There's an option in the print setup to "Replace halftone with thin lines" but this just changes the halftone of the linked model to thin lines. It doesn't affect my electrical devices. Is there a way to print to PDF with a halftone linked model and thin line electrical devices?

[RobertB]

Changing to thin lines works in Revit but now I'd like to make a PDF of the drawing and I can't get it to print in thin lines. So the exit signs show as blobs in the PDF! There's an option in the print setup to "Replace halftone with thin lines" but this just changes the halftone of the linked model to thin lines. It doesn't affect my electrical devices. Is there a way to print to PDF with a halftone linked model and thin line electrical devices?Change the lineweight assigned to the generic annotation. See attached.