Grouping Hosted Ceiling Lights

[nnguyen]

Has anyone tried having hosted ceiling lights in a group. We have a project that has 300+ units. With about 30 different types of Units. Each type of Unit is a group. All is fine except when we try adding the hosted ceiling lights into the group. Revit doesn't like that and asked us to "fix group". however the options given are not what we want to do. I have been going back and forth with Autodesk support and haven't resolved the problem.

In creating the ceiling we use the pick wall command. we place the lights, dimension them to be EQ/EQ. When i add lights to one unit, before i click "finish group", i open another floor level where that unit occurs to see what is highlighted and what Revit is telling me is wrong. i see that some of the lights do not stay with the original hosted item, that it is kicked out about 3 to 4 feet away from the original location. This only happens on ceiling hosted lights and not wall base lights.

We are using the lights from Revit, not our own. any suggestions would be much appreciated. if we can solve it right now, then we just have to leave them out of the group.

[greg.mcdowell]

If I had to guess I'd try deleting the dimensional constrains first... there might be something going on with the lights trying to stay constrained to something. I can't think of any particular reason for lights not wanting to be part of a group. You might also try placing the ceiling in the same group as the lights... something about hosted elements in a group that don't include their host can cause some problems.

[nnguyen]

We tried it both ways, meaning placing the lights that are constrained in the group, and placing lights that are not constrained in the group. both way causes the error. the only difference is that constraining it cause an error stating that Revit can't keep the constraint, but after i unconstrain, it goes to the error i listed previously.

We also add the ceiling first to the group then the light. tried it also vice versa (light then ceiling) and Revit didn't like it. still receive the error.

[greg.mcdowell]

Then try recreating the family as a non-hosted element... or make it a face-based family instead and see if that helps.

[dhurtubise]

Did you tried with a ceiling not made from walls but sketched ?

[nnguyen]

okay i tried creating the ceiling using lines and locking them to the walls and that seems to work on one of the units. however, drawing each line and contraining them to the walls (so when the walls move the ceiling will move with them) is a bit more time consuming than just picking the walls...but if that is what we have to make it work then we must do it right? i guess we will pick that up after the new year!

[greg.mcdowell]

Since it's a group I probably wouldn't spend too much time on ensuring that as the walls move the ceiling does too. I mean it technically can but you do start to run the risk of group errors. In general the more a group can be "dumb" (and by that I mean dumb in the relational-database sense) the better it will behave.

[dbaldacchino]

okay i tried creating the ceiling using lines and locking them to the walls and that seems to work on one of the units. however, drawing each line and contraining them to the walls (so when the walls move the ceiling will move with them) is a bit more time consuming than just picking the walls...
That shouldn't be the case. When you select the line tool, on your options bar you need to select the Pick Lines option (the arrow button). Also, check the Lock checkbox in the options bar. Now just go around and pick your walls, trimming as necessary. Use the tab key to cycle though until you highlight the wall face and click away.

[nnguyen]

i spoke too soon. i tried it on another group that occurs on different levels, and the pick line tool with lock, and just drawing the lines and locking doesn't work. Revit tells me the same error as i have previously stated. I don't know what to do. we have been just copying from one level to the next...real bummer. but i still love Revit!

[greg.mcdowell]

Have you tried not constraining it to anything?

[nnguyen]

well, we did try that too. but in reality, we don't want to not constrain the ceiling, because if walls move, then we have to go and edit the ceiling again. which we believe that is one of the many advantages of Revit, that it eliminates the inefficiencies of having to coordinate simple things like that. But thanks for the suggestions. any other ideas out there why this is happening?