RL-inc

May have to do that- just in a time crunch

Does anyone have a symbol of a Timber Truss similar to the one in the attached detail? Thanks in advance. timber truss details.pdf

Happy Holidays all- Thanks for all the contributions in the past year and all the best in the year to come.

Agreed again- I use the display on floor above or floor below tool for site plans but i have to create a cad detail of the footprint and then go back and display the roofs on the floors i need them on in plan view. Maybe a "display on all floors" option for roof planes This somewhat relates to another issue i posted on regarding plan footprints and the wall layer that they snap or dimension to. It would be better if we could control the wall layer that the plan footprint generates from- main framing layer would be my choice. Then the main floor plan on most projects could be used as the plan footprint with the dimensions going to the main wall layer and also being able to show the roof planes from all levels.

Agree with Perry- I like to chase point loads as they relate from floor to floor. Point loads that land on floor beams or headers on upper floors will then be transferred to the ends of those members and those loads chased down again. When i get to the foundation i only show the loads that are relevant to that floor and the associated footings. Additional references to loads farther up the path would be clumsy and confusing IMO.

Glenn- Why do you start on the lowest floor and work up when the loads generally get created at the roof in the first place? Then additional loads are created from floor to floor as new members are introduced. I find that if I chase the loads from the top down I can transfer load through the structure as it naturally occurs. Just asking.

I use a method very similar to Joey's. Working from the roof down with "Pt load form above" and "Pt load to below" posts or cross boxes I simply start chasing the loads down from floor to floor. As I go I just copy in place loads from above and change them as needed to loads to below. Loads that land over openings receive beam support and those beam loads are chased again. This, combined with using reference displays and different colors makes for a consistent way to track loads from roof to foundation.

It seems like we should be able to have the plan footprint select from any wall layer we want. Similar to dimensioning.

Here is the plan file but in general the wall layers are very standard. The screen shot I attached earlier is showing the "main layer only" layer turned on in the plot plan layerset. Thanks for taking the time to look it over. CURFEW 2ND IDEA.zip

I searched this forum and came up empty so I thought I would post. I am wondering if there is a way to have the plan footprint shown in the site plan dimension to the wall main layer. When selected, the plan footprint from the main floor highlights to the outside of the wall assembly and not he main layer- this is also where it dimensions to. See attached screen shot. As usual, I'm probably missing something simple but I need to show the floor plan level on certain site plans and dimension the structure to the main layer.

Here's a Central Oregon winter shot. If it will work I can email

As I mentioned earlier, the main reason for my request is a consolidation of information provided by the supervisor electrician. I am not trying to do the calculations or any of the engineering work. One of the recent projects he worked on was a tenant improvement for a marijuana growing / processing company and it required a 2500 amp service. The local building authority wanted the load calculations and an electrical layout. He did the drawings by hand and the building department reluctantly accepted them but wants cleaner cad drawings in the future.

I think Roberts solution will be a viable work around. Still think that being able to add the load in watts or amp to a fixture and have it show up in the schedule would be a simple improvement for the CA wizards

The guy I am talking about is a supervisor electrician in Oregon and is one of the best tradesman in any field I know. He does all his own load calculations and what I want to do is have the ability to help him with the quality of his drawings and load tables. He will do all the calcs and checks, I will be doing the layouts and drafting. That said, as we discussed it tonight I started thinking that if CA had the option to specify the electrical load in amps or watts for a certain fixture in a DBX, that column could be added to the electrical schedule and then each column could be tallied and the total load for a building could be calculated. CA wouldn't have to determine the loads for each fixture- that could be added by the user when the spec's for that fixture were established. Then just set up the schedule to complete the calculations. May be a nice feature to add for X8.

I realize I may be dreaming but I would love to use the actual fixtures and assign a load value to them. Then as they are placed the schedule could update and we could calculate the actual loads as the model evolves.

A good friend of mine is a supervisor electrician and wants to be able to have me help him with electrical load calculations. He will do all the heavy mental lifting I just want to be able to use CA to create the layouts for him and then calculate the electrical loads. does anyone know of a program that I can use with CA that I can input the loads for certain fixtures and them create total load calcs?

Yes sir

Tried using just the viewer as well same result. Crazy- has to be a simple setting somewhere. I'll keep fiddling with it- Thanks for all the help Appreciated as always.

Perry- Thanks for the video- that confirms that I am executing the process as all of you are. Must be something on my end in Word I guess. (I am using 2007 - that may be the issue.)

Ya- open word doc. looks just like it does in the screen shot i attached group select all the text and table. open rich text box-right click- paste....looks fine click ok- all messed up this may just end uo being one of the great unsolved mysteries of my life i have to deal with

Tried paste special - same deal I tried it a couple more ways and still all jacked up. I do see how changing the size of the DBX changes the table display. Johnathan- it appears that he lines for the cell blocks in your version are different than the ones in the snips i posted- and i cannot edit or delete those individual cells, which would allow me to re-align the text as needed.

I am probably not proficient enough with word to know if there is a setting I am missing on that end. I have attached the original doc here. Dent SWSchedule.doc

I can - and have. Just seems like there should be a way to drag and drop and have it maintain the proper alignment. I am guessing I am missing something in the Rich Text dialog box but I have tried all I can think of

My engineer sends me schedules (shearwall, header, footing , etc.....) in word. I can copy the text and paste it into a CA Rich Text dialog box but when I click ok out of it shows up completely out of alignment. Please see attached pics for cut copy and paste process. SW1- copied directly from word to Rich Text SW2- shown on layout page after "ok" SW3- shown back in Rich Text after reopening Any suggestion would be great- hate to have to recreate the whole thing.

He wasn't sure- said he would try. I sent it to him in DWG I think he is new to the program and still learning with it. if it is a widely used program in the industry I have to believe that it has the capability to import standard file types.