Annotation not showing for electrical equipment.

[mjdanowski]

I have a face based motor starter family which will not show any annotation symbols in plan as electrical equipment, but will however do so as an electrical fixture.

Is there some sort of parameter or toggle which controls this behavior?

[ahefner]

I assume you're adding the annotation to the family, then loading that family into your project?

I've tried this several times and found the annotations will not follow. You have to annotate in your project after the family has been loaded.

The other thought I had was, what template did you start with when you created your family? Maybe you've created the family with the electrical fixture template and not the electrical equipment template (each one has different "catagories" loaded that will assign the geometery to that family type (ex: electrical equipment or electrical fixture). It might not matter for the physical lines, but maybe it does with the annotation.

[jvedio]

Can you post the family?

[mjdanowski]

I ended up putting an Autodesk support ticket with this, and what I eventually got back was that lighting fixtures and electrical equipment automatically have annotation turned off. (why I have no idea)

I am therefore just putting my switches and controllers on electrical fixtures, and my emergency exit signs on lighting devices, and they seem to work fine.

Another element on my wish list I guess.

[Mottiqua]

You're right....they have that feature turned off....I have to put all my wall mounted lighting fixtures on Lighting Devices.....thing that sucks is that I have to add in all the extra parameters

[ekulenica]

Anyone knows a solution yet to this problem.
I am trying to design a new Transformer family for my company, but annotations don’t work for electrical equipment. We need the annotation to work as we usually scale the drawing to customer preferences.
If changing the Family setting to Lighting Devices or Electrical Fixture (by checking “Maintain the Annotation” box) the family will keep the annotation, which is ok but then the family will be under a different category when it’s loaded into a project, and it will need to have new parameters added as the parameters that the Electrical Equipment have.
For the Transformer case there are some parameters that I don’t know how they’ve been created as Rervit won’t allow us to modify these default parameters to see how and what kind of parameters they are. (i.e. Distribution System Types (default) is neither a number, nor a text). What is it?
HVAC Total Estimated Demand (default is a parameter driven by something else (that’s why is grayed out). How can I create this parameter and allocated correctly?
Please help as I am in a very critical position.

PS: Does any one know how to access these parameters to see what discipline they correspond to and what type they are?

Thanks,

[mjdanowski]

Anyone knows a solution yet to this problem.
I am trying to design a new Transformer family for my company, but annotations don’t work for electrical equipment. We need the annotation to work as we usually scale the drawing to customer preferences.
If changing the Family setting to Lighting Devices or Electrical Fixture (by checking “Maintain the Annotation” box) the family will keep the annotation, which is ok but then the family will be under a different category when it’s loaded into a project, and it will need to have new parameters added as the parameters that the Electrical Equipment have.
For the Transformer case there are some parameters that I don’t know how they’ve been created as Rervit won’t allow us to modify these default parameters to see how and what kind of parameters they are. (i.e. Distribution System Types (default) is neither a number, nor a text). What is it?
HVAC Total Estimated Demand (default is a parameter driven by something else (that’s why is grayed out). How can I create this parameter and allocated correctly?
Please help as I am in a very critical position.

PS: Does any one know how to access these parameters to see what discipline they correspond to and what type they are?

Thanks,

I believe what you are referring to are "Part Types." If you change the part type to Transformer, then you will get all the transformer system parameters, etc.

As for the annotation thing, there is no fix for this other then just using a different category.

[ekulenica]

Of course, I did that, but not all the parameters are being carried over.
See the attached images:
Electrical Device Transformer shows the Family Type window pop-up with setting applied to a Transformer as Electrical Device.
Electrical Device Transformer shows the Family Type window pop-up with setting applied to a Transformer as Electrical Equipment.

Thanks,

[ahefner]

Anyone knows a solution yet to this problem.
I am trying to design a new Transformer family for my company, but annotations don’t work for electrical equipment. We need the annotation to work as we usually scale the drawing to customer preferences.
If changing the Family setting to Lighting Devices or Electrical Fixture (by checking “Maintain the Annotation” box) the family will keep the annotation, which is ok but then the family will be under a different category when it’s loaded into a project, and it will need to have new parameters added as the parameters that the Electrical Equipment have.
For the Transformer case there are some parameters that I don’t know how they’ve been created as Rervit won’t allow us to modify these default parameters to see how and what kind of parameters they are. (i.e. Distribution System Types (default) is neither a number, nor a text). What is it?
HVAC Total Estimated Demand (default is a parameter driven by something else (that’s why is grayed out). How can I create this parameter and allocated correctly?
Please help as I am in a very critical position.

PS: Does any one know how to access these parameters to see what discipline they correspond to and what type they are?

Thanks,

What type of annotation do you want to add to the drawing which is tied to this family? I would assume you're calling it out as a (using your example) 15kVA TRANSFORMER, or some variation, but knowing what type of annotation you're wanting will help.


Of course, I did that, but not all the parameters are being carried over.
See the attached images:
Electrical Device Transformer shows the Family Type window pop-up with setting applied to a Transformer as Electrical Device.
Electrical Device Transformer shows the Family Type window pop-up with setting applied to a Transformer as Electrical Equipment.

Thanks,

The System Parameters are hardwired into the category. So if you change the category to Elec Device you have one set if parameters or if you choose an Elec Equipment you have another set of parameters. Autodesk has predetermined which parameters are in each category, and those cannot be changed, but you can add custom parameters which hold the same information as a system parameter (but it will need to have a unique name).

Say you want the "WALL OFFSET" in the Elec Device and it's not there (which I know it is, but for an example). Simple "ADD" parameter, Name it "TRANS WALL OFFSET" and there you go. Now if you want to be able to schedule it or tag it, you'll need to create a SHARED PARAMETER which I think is what you're after.