RL-inc

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.

My landscape designer uses a program that works with .LNF files. Any way to export a DWG or other CA supported files as .LNF files so he can edit?

That was the ticket. Thanks Michael. The symbol looks great with the door closed in 3D. Can't really show it open due to the fact it needs to be classified as a hinged door- single door only in CA. had to do a little cad add on to make the plan view work as well. As always good help found on this forum.

That did work what am I missing?

Here is the file i downloaded. If i had to bet.....based on past experience it's something simple I'm doing wrong. FoldingSlidingDoor5t.zip

I have bee trying to download some bi-fold door units from 3d warehouse and when I try to import to CA I get the error "couldn't create symbol, no 3d surfaces found in data file". Seems like there should be 3d info there. ( forum won't let me upload the SKP file for me to post here.)

I thought it was every sept?

"Okay, so Johnny and Rob started this mess" Glad i could be partly responsible for something. Been meaning to get up to the UGM in Idaho again - maybe next year. ​This could be a nice little spin off topic for one of the advanced sessions.

I do like Joe's system for a separate plan file for foundation details, roof details, framing details, etc.... and then stored in a common folder Seems like a clean way to stay organized.

Ya- One plan file for each detail- My machine and my brain would be overwhelmed.

All very interesting. (Scott was right on track about opening a dialog for the different methods.) Joe- I am guessing that when you say "CAD detail window" and "present to layout" you are referring to the active plan file for the project. Then the "Warehouse plans" would be similar to what I am doing by keeping my details in plan files in folders with my base layouts. When I am ready to send drawings to layout for a particular job I copy the base layout that has the details on it from my "Warehouse plans" to the job file. That way the layout file can reference both plan files. Does this sound similar to the way you keep the details linked to the individual job files?

Perry- I want to make sure i understand this correctly. You don't have details in your standard layout template? You create a plan and have a layout saved in the same file and then pull the details you need for that project from your library into that particular plan and the send them to layout?