Creating Custom Piping Valves as pipe fittings to change pipe size and valve size at one time

[asc]

I've been working on this to make it easier for our design teams. I was able to modify my ball valve family with out any problems and it seems to work well (I adjusted the family category to "pipe fitting, union" and I changed all the parameters from the original valve to be "instance" parameters instead of "type"). I then set my routing preferences for the pipe system to include my new valve under the union section of the routing preferences. This all is working fine its when I go to add another custom fitting that everything seems to fall apart.

When placing a ball valve and a check valve on the same pipe and you select them to change size, the check valve will change to a ball valve. I've tried adding both of the fittings under my routing preferences but it seems that it will always change the one fitting/valve to whichever one is listed first under "union. Has anyone worked through this? Any suggestions of help is greatly appreciated. Thanks

[Archredcat]

You will want to switch it back to a pipe accessory or other category. Unions and flanges (as part of the default routing preference) will set the default fitting whenever the pipes are updated. That is why you see this switching. Having the element as a pipe accessory should still allow it to pull the pipe size, and it won't change based on the routing preference. You will have to do some linking with your connectors in the family, and most of your dimensions will have to be instance to link to your Nominal Radius from the connector.

Hope that helps.

[neightyeight]

I certainly understand why you would want the behavior you describe. Currently, when selecting a section of piping and any associated accessories you cannot change the size in one step. Generally, you first have to change the pipe sizes, then select each accessory and change the size for each one. However, making pipe accessories as fittings will introduce a slew of additional issues as you are finding out. Aside from the item you described, there are implications associated with the engineering data associated with the piping network. Even if you're not using that data now, likely it will become more important down the road.

All that being said, the only way I think you could get what you want using a fitting for pipe accessories is to create a very thorough valve family that contains each valve option and can be switched via instance parameters. Then you would have one "union" fitting (this valve family) to list under your pipe routing preferences. After insertion you could switch this to ball valve, check valve, gate valve, globe valve or whatever other options you build into this family. I've often used an instance integer parameter as a sort of radio button for purposes similar to this. I include a text parameter that describes the current option.

<2 - Ball Valve
=2 - Check Valve
=3 - Gate Valve
>4 - Globe Valve

The geometry within the family would need to be shown/hidden based on this integer parameter. A lot of work, but definitely possible.