Crane Family

[jsteinhauer]

Hi All,

I've been tasked to generate a crane family for a project. I have a few ideas on how to approach this task. But, I wanted to raise a flag to you all to see if there are any ideas for me on how to proceed. Here are my ideas so far.

1. Review crane design information from different manufacturers for common/industry standards.
2. Match up parameters in the family to the standards in crane design.
3. Use a "Generic Family" template, and layout reference planes/lines for as much info as possible.
4. Flex said geometry to make sure all works before adding 3d info, or line work.
5. Build 3D info or nest in structural families, and constrain to dimensions as needed. Flex whenever a new object is added, to make sure things are working.
6. Load into project.
7. Rejoice with the other peasants when everything works correctly.

What I would really like to do is control the dimensions off of an "instance" steel member’s dims. I don’t want nest all of the possible steel members into the crane family. So, is there a why to call out a member, then it will reference the steel families to get all the info from there? This would be kind of a hyperlink to the steel member’s properties inside of the family’s parameters. The dimensions of the steel would then control the reference planes/lines in the family.

Am I way off base here, or is this possible. I was thinking of creating this family, and then a “Type Catalog” for people to modify the parameters as needed for each project. They could plug in the name of the steel member, and it would automatically change in the family. Please let me know your thoughts, and suggestions on how I should proceed.

Thank you in advance,
Jeff S.

[artgurlie]

Hi Jeff,
I am in the same boat now. I have found a bridge crane on Revit City that is HORRIBLE but a starting point but not having any success making it flex. The parameters are set for just one beam size and when a new beam profile is loaded I get error messages stating that the "Constraints are not satisfied". Any tips or help would be very appreciative. What worked of you and what not to do would be great!

THanks,
Anna

[jsteinhauer]

Hi Anna,

It has been a very long time since I built the Bridge Crane family. This was one of my first complex families, and would probably want to rebuild it from scratch at this point. Without having access to your family, it is difficult to figure out what is causing this error message to appear. As with any family, start with your reference planes & dimension parameters. Make sure they flex correctly. Then build in the 3D geometry, each time flexing the family to make sure it behaves. If you get all the way to the end, without testing, there are to many variables to search through. I nested in Structural Framing families and labeled them so I didn't need to recreate their profiles. It also reduces the number of parameters you need to create.

Cheers,
Jeff S.

[Duncan Lithgow]

Wow, this is an old thread. Have you guys seen this great Revit crane: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7Cp5SsfTPs