Vertical hanging Truss

[Nathaniel.C]

I've run into a hiccup where if i want to hang a truss vertically from a single motor Braceworks defines it as not properly supported and requires the second motor to be attached.

 

As the truss is hanging vertically it is sufficiently supported.

 

Same as if using a T or X join peice of truss, if all connection points are not connected it believes it is not supported.

[jcogdell]

I will have to ask the developer if your first issue is works as designed or a bug. I know that trusses do get hung this way in the real world but I am unsure if it is against the manufacturers usage guidelines, which we have to follow if we want the Braceworks calculations to be valid.

 

Regarding your second issue, I think what is happening here is that Braceworks automatically assumes that because you have added a T corner that the system requires a 3rd motor to compensate for any torsional forces acting on the system. This is an edge case and I will bring it to the developers attention.

[Nathaniel.C]

These are my own symbols with no cross section data currently.

 

With the T section i did some further testing and did find it did exactly as you mention where once you add the third piece it is happy.

 

However with Cubes is a different story, I'm getting mixed results and not sure if its something with my symbols or something else. As you can see it is happy with the larger cubes but not with the smaller ones.

(this was run without our braceworks licence enabled just to do a system check)

 

Happy to PM you the file, just let me know.

[jcogdell]

If you can pm me the file I'll look it over,

 

which trusses have you custom created?

[Nathaniel.C]

PM sent

[Nathaniel.C]

On 7/6/2020 at 8:54 PM, jcogdell said:

If you can pm me the file I'll look it over,

 

which trusses have you custom created?

Bump PM sent and no reply.

[jcogdell]

Hi Nathaniel

 

Sorry I missed your PM

 

I've looked over your trusses and there seems to be 2 issues, both related to the truss properties
 

In the truss properties dialogue the 'type'  field is what the 'Connectable with field' is checking against to see if a truss section can connect. This means that the fields should match for auto-connect to link the sections into a system,

For example the CLS 200mm truss should use CLS_200 in both the 'Type' field and the 'Connectable with' field.

The second is related to the dimensions, for the trusses to connect correctly, with the auto-connect crosses correctly positioned, the dimensions in the truss properties have to be correct and correspond to the 3D geometry of the truss symbol.

using the CLS 200mm 3m straight section as an example, the height and width should be 257mm (as measured inside the symbol)
The tricky one is that the CLS 200mm box corner is larger than the CLS 200mm straight trusses, 276mmx276mm. This means you will need to vertically offset the corner 3D geometry in the symbol for it to line up correctly with the straight sections, in this example -10.5mm on the Z axis.

 

let me know if there is anything else I can help with

[Nathaniel.C]

I don't believe you are correct, as you will see the 500 box and the 400 box don't have the errors yet all have the same type, connectable field setup like the 200 box/tri truss and the cube is larger also.

[jcogdell]

The other trusses are also not correctly set up either, because you have used CLS as the type in every case and CLS_**** as the 'connectable with'.

Yes you can set the truss up this way but it breaks the Auto-connect connection checking function, enabling you to join sections of truss together that are fundamentally not compatible, for example in your file you can join the CLS 400mm to the CLS TRI truss together, which should not be possible if the 'type' field and 'connectable with' fields are used correctly.
The dimensions in the truss properties dialogue are what braceworks uses to perform its calculations and check that everything is correctly connected and orientated to each other. Even the corners that are calculating are not displaying correcting in a 3D view, this shows they are also not correctly set up.

 

[Nathaniel.C]

I'm following you with the errors that i need to fix up, but i still don't understand then why does the the 400 and 500 not error out where as the 200 and tri does???

 

I just did a quick edit and matched the type field for the 200 to the connectable and adjusted the 3D geometry and still have the same issue with the 200 but not the others.

[Peter Neufeld]

Dear Nathaniel,

Ditch those symbols!

In the Premium libraries there are now new symbols called "CLS (Australia)". The Australia Live Industry Alliance website had a news item about it in October. Thanks to CLS for investing their time for this as they have also supplied the necessary data for Braceworks calculations. We are hoping to have that implemented very soon for actual calculations.

In the meantime check out the symbols which have been painstakingly redrawn to be optimised for use in the program by the great content development team at Vectorworks, Inc. They put in a huge effort for Australian users.

 

This will not fix all your issues but at least you should be using these symbols as a starting point. 

 

Cheers,

Peter

[Nathaniel.C]

Thanks Peter, as you can see all the above posts are pre-october. Using the new library now, looking forward to being able to use the braceworks data also.

[Peter Neufeld]

Dear Nathaniel,

Ok great. I wasn't sure you knew but just wanted to make sure you did.

 

Cheers,

Peter