Floor to Floor Light Switching

[lavorhaynie]

I've been an active user of Chief Architect for about 15 years now. I am currently using the X11 and have an SSA.  In all of these years using the software I have been frustrated with a couple things in the electrical area. First was the terrible placement of electrical connectors, they were never placed in a way that was visually appealing. I was always wasting time adjusting the lines after placement just to make them look nice on the plan.  Thank you Chief, in X11 the lines now, most of the time, place in a visually acceptable manner. A great time saver when doing the electrical! 

 

The second, frustrating issue is the lack of programming to address the floor-to-floor light switching. I have over the years visited ChiefTalk hoping someone had a good solution to address this issue. I have never liked any of the proposed solutions, namely placing the correct 3-way or 4-way switch on each floor then placing cad arcs or splines to represent the electrical connector. I felt it to be a time waster and it just did not feel right using a cad line instead of an electrical connector. 

 

So, in response to my frustration with floor-to-floor switching I came up with an idea and ran with it. I created two floor-to-floor connector symbols. The symbols are identical except that one is designated as being switched and the other is not switched.  Both are, in plan view, a 2" circle, defined as an electrical item, In 3D they are a 2" clear glass sphere and attach to the ceiling, being virtually invisible in a 3D rendering. When I am doing a floor-to-floor switch connection I place the switched symbol in the stair well then connect the switch to the symbol. The switch then automatically changes to a 3-way. I have a set of text labels that I then place over the switched symbol to indicate the usage of the switch, i.e. "To light above", etc. I have attached an X11 library containing the two floor-to-floor symbols, (switched and not switched), and the text labels I use.

 

I hope these will save you a bit of time. Enjoy!

LaVor

ELEC CONNECTORS.calibz

[Kbird1]

Thanks for Posting the Library , will be interesting to have a play with....

 

M.

[lavorhaynie]

Mick, 

 

Feel free to contact me with question and ideas.  

I realized today, while running electrical in a plan that the two symbols need to have the, (I think it is), "Report in schedule' checkbox cleared so the items are not listed in the electrical schedule.  I do not use the schedules so did not think to clear the checkbox when I created the symbols.  

 

Have a super day!

[Alaskan_Son]

Here’s one of my methods...

 

Place all the objects in that circuit onto a single floor.  Then place those objects onto unique layers as necessary, and  finally...use layer set and reference display capabilities to hide/display as desired.