How to Modify Library Parts!

[Cosmic Traveller]

HI! Does anyone know of a way to save a copy of a library part so that it can be moved from the content center & modified! I am finding that I have a lot of steel angles & HSS Square Tubing that needs to have the lengths modified! Do I have to delete every single item that has its lenght changed slightly & then re-insert the new component with the length changed! Surely there must be a way to do this! Any ideas! TIA!
Paul

[jonathan.landeros]

HI! Does anyone know of a way to save a copy of a library part so that it can be moved from the content center & modified! I am finding that I have a lot of steel angles & HSS Square Tubing that needs to have the lengths modified! Do I have to delete every single item that has its lenght changed slightly & then re-insert the new component with the length changed! Surely there must be a way to do this! Any ideas! TIA!
Paul

Try moving the part from the content center to the workspace. As long as you move the parts withing the project influence (and you're not using the Default Project), it should be fine.

[Cosmic Traveller]

Thanks Jonathan! Still getting used to the program! Have a good one!
Paul

[nightwing46561]

HI! Does anyone know of a way to save a copy of a library part so that it can be moved from the content center & modified! I am finding that I have a lot of steel angles & HSS Square Tubing that needs to have the lengths modified! Do I have to delete every single item that has its lenght changed slightly & then re-insert the new component with the length changed! Surely there must be a way to do this! Any ideas! TIA!
Paul

Which parts liberary are you wating to save. I found that even though you might install your MEP or any of the other various autodesk products that on you main c drive are hidden folders which contain all of your information. It is usually in your profile at C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Autodesk\ACD-MEP 2009\enu\

Once there you will see your
AEC Content
Aecb Catalog
Aecb Content

After you find all of that I made a copy of all of those files and put them on the drive in the folder that I have installed MEP. Then when i was in MEP i went into my options and found the tabs that included those name folder up above and changed the path to this new folder. I hope that this helped you some. If you need more instuctions feel free to ask. Im still relatively new to MEP. I have only been doing it for a few months. But I'm still playing with all of options. And setting up to work easy for me.

[mflayler]

If you are changing the Lengths of the Steel all the time, try RMB on it in the Assembly and selecting Change Size.
Or
You can use Frame Generator
Or
Instead of moving them around in Windows place it as "Custom" instead of "Standard" when you are in the Length selection dialog box.