MEP CONDUIT SIZE

[andrzej_makaruk]

Does anyone know how to alter the standard conduit sizes to the proper outside diameter, in other words , a 2"conduit really is 2.197 etc, I a getting tired of always manually doing it one by one, also how can you adjust the conduit bend radius
thanks
Andrzej Makaruk
Contra Costa Electric

[Stadtler]

Does anyone know how to alter the standard conduit sizes to the proper outside diameter, in other words , a 2"conduit really is 2.197 etc, I a getting tired of always manually doing it one by one, also how can you adjust the conduit bend radius
thanks
Andrzej Makaruk
Contra Costa Electric

Andrzej,

You would have to modify the catalog for each part which currently uses the "wrong" size by replacing the appropriate dimension. This would include not only the conduit but also the fittings. The catalog file you want is "Conduit (US Imperial).apc"

If you are serious about this (and it sounds as you are), then make sure you generate a copy of the catalog and rename it to something like "CCE Conduit (US I,perial).apc" and make all changes to that file. Any upgrades to the ACD MEP program should leave your modifications alone (unless you want to go through the whole exercise again...)

This is not a small undertaking as you have to be sure you cross all t's and dot all i's for everything which works together - if you want it to look correctly.

I have worked on something similar with cast iron no-hub pipe fittings. It seems that the people who generate the content don't bother to get the industry standards which would show all the dimensions that need to be included. Nothing more frustrating than to insert a pipe fitting in a tight condition which isn't accurate / correct / precise. It may seem to some as a insignificant thing but if you are routing things within concrete and steel buildings and you are off by a fraction of an inch, things don't work.


Stadtler

[andrzej_makaruk]

Thanks
but silly me how do I get to the catalog ?

[stelthorst]

Does anyone know how to alter the standard conduit sizes to the proper outside diameter, in other words , a 2"conduit really is 2.197 etc, I a getting tired of always manually doing it one by one, also how can you adjust the conduit bend radius
thanks
Andrzej Makaruk
Contra Costa Electric

Hi Andrzej,

Unfortunately, this can't be done easily. It has been a wish list item of mine (and many others) for a long time. If you look at the conduit and fitting catalogs conduit sizes are listed literally thousands of times and would all need to all be changed to get everything to work properly. As a workaround what we do is run all of our conduit and then select a size and right-click and click "Select similar". Change the size to the proper OD in the properties and click the "change connected objects" button on the dialog box that shows up. You will need to do this for each conduit size you have on your drawing.

NOTE: If you are like me you like to run conduit with bottom of pipe elevation. Since the new diameters are from center of pipe it will change the top and bottom of pipe elevations.

As for your second question. There are two things you can do here. If all you need is a close approximation of the actual bends you can go into the fittings library and change the radius multiplier to 6.16 (This is about the average of all conduit sizes except 1/2" which is 8 ) for standard radius bends or 4.98 for short radius bends. The second option is to create a new bend catalog for each bend size and change the bends to the proper catalog per size (A pain but more accurate) In addition you can create (as I have) bend catalogs with 24, 36, 48 etc in radius's.

If you need more help with this post back and I'll go into more detail.

Hope this helps,

[stelthorst]

Sorry for the redundant post I was working on my answer and got sidetracked and stadler beat me to it.

[stelthorst]

Thanks
but silly me how do I get to the catalog ?

If you don't have the CAD Manager pull down open go to WINDOW - Pulldowns and turn it on. Once you have the CAD Manager pulldown then go to CAD MANAGER - Content Editing - Catalog Editor and open the correct catalog.

If you're a "typer" the command is: _LaunchCatalogEditor

Good Luck, You're a braver person than I am.