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CETLV

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Everything posted by CETLV

  1. hopefully soon, but the mid connections of mod truss do not even work, lets figure out both!
  2. You can also import the truss intl your drawing and from your resource manager select the truss and edit the 2d and 3d components by just selecting the box surrounding them and deleting. This will also allow you to purge the unecessary classes since there will be no data in them.
  3. Hey there, is there a way or in the works a way to give a total seating count for multiple selected sections or do we just have to add them all up individually?
  4. Also, you have to note that a "drop" is meant for vertical tension dead hang either with or without a motor. So when it says "the system is not properly supported" it makes sense, imagine trying to attach a pipe with a piece of chain or a steel sling. It does not assume you are using a cheseboro. Honestly I think the best way is to do the math for a cantilever out, get the forces, and simply put a simple point load on there to get the weight into your calcs with a decent safety factor built in keeping in mind you will not have deflection due to truss twisting and balance in the equation, but one leko on a pipe is pretty insignificant. I think the equation is F2=(- D1/Span)(W) and F1=(- D2/Span)(W) to get both upward and downward forces if my memory serves me right.
  5. 🙂 at least its on the list. The math is insane, so I know its a lot more than just an auto connection... Thanks sir!
  6. Awesome! I look forward to it. Also, why does the auto connect not work on anything for mod truss? I spoke to the ceo of blizzard at LDI and he let me know that all data has been passed on for mod truss. I know its gotta be pretty nuts for the auto connect for mod truss with all the different configurations, but is there any plans to get that going?
  7. Good thread! Also, I just wanted to also state the obvious and let you know that if you are using the tomcat library, make sure you are actually rigging tomcat truss otherwise the cross sections are not accurate and your calculations will all be wrong. I have ran into this problem, but in a different way with the XSF library. XSF does not have ANY corner blocks in their library, just a 1ft stick of plated truss... do not use these thinking they are corner blocks, auto connect will not work, calcs will be wrong. BW has come a long way, but there is a long way to go!
  8. Sorry I just cant make sense of that. If you are attaching that motor to truss, thats where the load falls. If the truss is supported by two points on each end, its a center point load on the truss. Whether the motor is up or down should not make all that much of a difference in the numbers unless there is a ton of chain out... Is the truss deadhung?
  9. when you use the hoist tool, there is a choice of hanging the motor with hook up or down. This option inverts your motor from step one. Then this reverses all the data fields. For instance the "hook height" becomes the hook on the hoist, and the "Load Trim" becomes the chain side hook.
  10. I have noticed this, and what I have chalked it up to is sling height. Honestly how often do you actually put the hook at the exact same height as the top chord? even if you bottom choke and put the hook on the inside, your hook is still lower than the top chord. personally, I just simply connect all the trusses with the tool, so it makes an entire completed system, select one piece, and put a Z value in the change height of system to desired bottom chord height, then snap all your motors to it. who cares if the drawing shows the hooks 6" up, thats where they would be anyways most of the time.
  11. Using rigid cross section data confuses the calculation algorithms. You do not seem to have weight on this unless its hidden, and its hard to read if it is. But basically with more than one hoist and rigid cross section means that the weight is all calculated on the closest hoist point. At least this has been my experience in chatting with the vectorworks engineers in my service cases. You must also take into account the chain lengthen feature to make sure all the chains are level. if you think in the real world, the middle motor would have deflection in it, thus the middle motor would be an inch or two shorter than its outer partners. So with all these calculations fighting against each other, with a rigid cross section makes the numbers not really reliable. Certainly use paper and pencil to make the numbers verified. You also have to take into account that VWX uses a 2:1 safety factor by default I was told, so you may have to check your settings. The engineers are working so hard to try and get data uploaded for each truss manufacturers cross section data, so in my opinion, just like mr brooks... only use the truss that is in vectorworks and stop using tomcat, thomas, etc... maybe they will fess up and give them the numbers... who knows, maybe Thomas truss really is and they know it, thats why they wont release the numbers!
  12. fantastic! Thanks so much for your continuing efforts!
  13. oh yeah! I would LOVE for everyone to stop using tomcat, A because they are twice as expensive as they need to be, and B they are a@@holes... but I digress... I know that you cannot make up cross section data, and I applaud you for not hiding that fact in a product... but without the data, the product is flawed... you CANNOT rely on the numbers that braceworks spits out with wrong information. I have put the loads on load cells like I said and the true weights are far heavier. even WITH a 2:1 safety factor built in. loads do not transfer to dead hangs correctly, etc. do not get me wrong, I really do love the product, but its serious flaws have made me just simply stop using it altogether until the data is in there for more than just a simple audio hang on a single motor with no trussing whatsoever. has there been any chain cross section data uploaded at all or is all the chain still rigid?
  14. Hey sir, I will quote directly from engineers here. I reached out to our engineering team for some clarification and to see if they could explain why the calculations are showing what they are. In your calculation, all materials are stiff so there is no deflection in the system. This is because you have not selected a cross section for the hoist and there is no cross-section data for the TC12 today in Braceworks. If you place a load directly under a hoist normally all the load goes into this hoist. If this was a flexible system, some load would go into the dead hangs as well because of the chain lengthen from the hoist and the stiffness from the truss. However, there is no lengthen on a rigid frame so all the load goes into the middle hoist. If you would add a user cross-section for the truss and the right stiffness for the hoists, you would get different results Rigid is basically the worst calculation you can use. With no deflection in the system whatsoever the weight distribution is not even close. For instance in this scenario I had a 1050lb audio dead hang on a 10ft spanner truss. taking the safety factor into account the calculation had 2200 lbs on the deadhang and next to nothing on the motors. There is also a chain leveling function that needs to be worked in as well that will greatly effect your numbers. In my biggest setup recently here at LVCC I had 3300 ft of truss with a huge number of motors. I was using XSF truss (which wasnt loaded in at the time) and put load cells on key points and the numbers were consistently 30-40% heavier then were calculated. BW is nice, but in many ways you really do need to really know whats going on. The donovan thumbs are a good place to fall back to always but there are a lot of calculation safety factors built in for deflection, force, torsion force and bending force and momentum force that you HAVE to have accurate cross section data or its useless.
  15. Also keep in mind that very few popular manufacturers have actually given vectorworks the cross section data, which means even if you have a brand switch, its likely you will have to use a custom cross section anyways... and without some numbers you cannot accurately rely on the numbers BW gives you. It will be a fantastic platform when they figure out all the kinks
  16. I would create three identical sets of truss and assign a different class to each set with a version number or something.
  17. just as long as you guys realize that these custom bars that are being made are NOT accurate in the braceworks calculations. unless you have the exact cross section data you cannot reliably use anything generated from braceworks.
  18. Yeah, i know you all work really hard to make the best product you can. and you cant get blood out of a turnip.
  19. Nope, as soon as you replace the symbol (which changes the cross section from what I can see) it breaks all your connections. I ran into this many times already. I have not found an easy fix but you can just grab each piece individually and the snapping should work again. if you replaced it correctly it should have all the same coords, so all you need to do is snap that connection again. just make sure all your cross section ID's match or the connection wont happen.
  20. cool, as long as you know not to trust the numbers lol. without the proper cross section data every inch you move that motor in either direction falsely calcs the weight. until they get this cross section disaster figured out I am not using braceworks at all, I am putting pen to paper on everything. It seemed in SP2 they focused on all the annoying fixes like auto snapping loads and things, but not actually getting it to calculate correct numbers, granted they cant calculate what they dont have as far as manufacturers go, so its a pass on that front. but no bridles, no ground support, only a few european truss manufacturers in the database, missing motor speeds (which is really huge in figuring force with starts and stops) inability to put in things like ribbon grids, fixed points to attach to just things like that have made this from my view an extremely ambitious but very flawed launch. I used braceworks for a massive GS over CES this year and with 3400 ft of truss, 160 some motors, spanners, bridles etc it was a nightmare... I bet when it all gets figured out its gonna be awesome though.
  21. This was a fantastic thread. But just out of curiosity are you trying to actually calculate braceworks paperwork from this octagon? If so, you have to realize that the cross sections are not accurate and will likely give you false numbers. If you are using braceworks at all, make sure all your cross sections are not set to rigid. If they are, you are getting false numbers. Is there a hinged plate from a manufacturer that has released its cross section data? If you are not using it to calculate the loads, what does it matter if it connects or not, just get it close :-) hah.
  22. absolutely, I know its not for lack of trying! I know everyone is working hard. But I cant help but feel as though I am paying you to be a beta tester. As for the rigid structure you cannot accurately do that as the numbers are way off as I found in submitting a file to SS for clarification. Rigid cross sections just do not provide numbers that can be used. I DO however love the fact that loads are finding their structures, motors are intelligently attaching themselves and a lot of the other bugs that were so frustrating at the launch. However I feel that if you found early on that no manufacturers would give you any data perhaps rethink the launch of the product. Its a very dangerous tool for novice designers. Had I not known better and not known something was fishy with the numbers given to me with the rigid cross sections, things could have turned ugly. And no disclaimer can bring back lives.
  23. Soooo, we were told that braceworks would have some actual functionality shortly after its release. Its still pretty useless to this point. Hardly any cross sections that US designers can use, no bridles, no ground support.... is it just me or are they waiting for 19 to make us all buy it again? If This has all been corrected and its actual functional then I stand corrected, and possibly be pointed in the right direction? So far I have been very disappointed with the product.
  24. My experience with atomic has been great. I get most of the new ones as soon as they are made public. However I always have to clean them up and make the extrudes work for my workflow here at my job. They make them all in other programs, and there is always issues importing into autocad. but it can be done.
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