Light Fixtures Wall Attachment Control

[cek]

I have a situation where I have a 2' square column with a 3' high stone veneer wainscot and a wall light fixture at 9'. When I placed the light it aligned itself to the face of the wainscot which is 2.5" out from the face of the column above where the light is suppose to be attached. Consequently when viewed from the side the light floats out from the column.

Is there a way to correct this problem?

[Mike Hardy-Brown]

Open the family and make the changes, it is probably mis-aligned in the family file...

[cek]

Yes, I checked the family file and the fixture is attached to the reference wall. It appears that the light fixture is referencing the wainscot below rather than the wall it is suppose to be attached too. The program 8.0 doesn't seem to recognize the elevation of the light fixture as it relates to the wall at that elevation.

[David Haynes]

Could you post the light family and the wall that you are using it with, so we can look at it? It will help give you an answer quicker.

[cek]

Sorry, I'm unable to upload the files.

I can't believe the light fixture file is 4.8 megs and the sample file I created with a CMU column is 11 megs. Even "Purging Unused" doesn't reduce the file size sufficiently.

Both files exceed the 1.91 meg up load limit.

In this particular project I had a single wall with three different finishes. Unfinished CMU, stone veneer and stucco. I was having problems with corner closures so I opted to have the finishes separate from the core wall. This may be where the problem is occuring. when I remove the stucco wall type the light fixture attaches itself to the unfinished CMU fine. I'm not sure how or why the stucco surface confuses the light attachment.

[archjake]

Carl,

Is this wall a stacked wall?
What if you cut your view at a higher elevation and then placed the light?
What if you place the light in 3D. Does it still attach to the wrong wall?

If it is attaching to the correct wall my guess would be that there is something wrong in your family. Check the constraints where it attaches to the wall. Also try flexing the width of the wall to see how the family reacts.

My best guess at the moment. Good luck.

[cek]

I corresponded with Jake Boen, off line, and he had the following advice to offer.

I took a look at your family. First. This is an extremely complex little model. So instead of trying to constrain everything to the edge of a variable width wall I put the geometry into a separate non-hosted family. This can save tons of time for a hosted family where the host can be of variable widths. Your family will work at a certain wall width. If the wall got fatter it would have part of its geometry absorbed by the wall. Thinner, and it will stand off the wall. If we just started constraining the original model to the wall all of your little details and separate modeled pieces will end up in the wrong location as the rest of the light trys to move with a variable width wall.

Second I imported this new un-hosted family into a hosted family. This way I can place the family as a unit and then lock it / constrain it to the wall and to a height parameter. Then I set up some parameters so that I can control the materials of the un-hosted family through the new hosted one. If you don’t know how to do that don’t worry; I’ll do a tutorial some time.

Thanks Jake!