steel pieces

[ihman1915]

Ok guys I need some guidence. I dont know hot to explain this very well. I am from the farming community so I like to play with new designs. Tillage equipment is usually made out of 4x4 up to 8x8 square tubing and some rectangle stuff. Here is an example of what Im talking about. http://www.flexicoil.com/flexibility.asp
I am trying to design some equipment that looks like that kinda. My question is what is the best way to set up my drawing. Do I use the elevations level to put pieces on top of each other? Do I use walls to create the tubing or lines. Not familuar with Revit at all yet so its a new concept when drawing it and then changing to 3d and it not looking right becuase you didnt put a piece on top but its actually tied into the main piece. Does any of this make sense?? I know its possible but I dont know how. Where can I learn how to make a whole family of different size pieces. From 1in to 12 in or whatnot?

Hope its not to confusing.

Thanks

[GuyR]

Dusty,

Out of interest why are you using Revit?

Solidworks and Inventor are much more suited to designing these sorts of assemblies as they have specific tools for manipulating components as assemblies.

And they cost about the same as Revit.

Guy

[gregcashen]

Agreed. This would be a nightmare in Revit unless you did it as a custom family...i.e. not individual pieces.

[Taylor A]

If you really wanted to use revit for this sort of thing I think I would start making Generic Model families of each part. Have a look at some of the families that come with Revit. It would pay to do a few of the Tutorials about making families.

[ihman1915]

Honestly becuase its just a hobby. Residentual housing I am hoping will become my carreer at some point. Just want to get good using revit. I thought of solid works but I cant seem to get a trial version. Im just using the trial of revit right now so nothing was bought.

Thanks

[GuyR]

I thought of solid works but I cant seem to get a trial version

You can get an express version for free by going to a free seminar series they run. The Express version doesn't have the FEA etc but good enough for learning and it runs for 90 days before you need to apply for an extension.

If you want to make construction your career you've picked the right program though :-)

Guy

[gregcashen]

I agree with GuyR...were I you, I would go out and get one of those home plan books at the supermarket. Pick a plan and start drawing it up in Revit. Try to make the elevations look like the pictures in the mag. This way you will be forced to learn all of the tools in Revit. And also do all the tutorials, they will help you tremendously.

The project you are considering doing (the farm equip) will not expose you to all of the tools you would use in a typical res. project.

G

[hand471037]

You can do stuff like what you're after in Revit, I've done shop drawings for fairly complex bits of furniture in it. The tip to make everything as a generic familiy and then load them into a project, assemble them, and then take plan/section cuts and elevations for producing the shop drawings is dead-on, that's what I did and it worked well.

However this isn't a 'beginning' way to work with this tool, and thus you'll face a much larger learning curve. Also it's not the most efficent tool to do this kinda stuff in, hense all the recommendations to use somethng like Inventor or SolidWorks.

But fire off any question you have while you're working and we'll try to help out! Once you've gotten a basic understanding of the software (go through the 'getting started' tutorials) go through the family creation tutorials, ask lots of questions, and you'll be fine.

best of luck!