Jump to content

Power drop locations & scale


Recommended Posts

I am looking for some best practice advice for showing power layouts on our drawings.  What I would like to do is quickly and easily drop a symbol on a plan view of the drawing indicating where 15 or 20 amp power drop circuits are needed.  I am not really looking to sort out cable length or path, just where the power drops are needed, and have a way to print it that is easy to view and understand.

 

This seems simple at first, what I am really struggling with is how to deal with different scales of drawings and the symbol.  Sometimes we are in a 40x40 ballroom and other times we are outside in a park (much larger).  If I draw a symbol for an outlet that is say 1' x 1' and drop it into the ballroom then print a ballroom overview on a reasonable size piece of paper it is a good size and easy to interpret.  If I take that same symbol and start laying out outlet locations in the park example the symbols are so small you can hardly see them when the scale is zoomed that far out to fit on a piece of paper.  

 

I don't really want to have to re-draw the symbol to get it to visible scale/size for each different drawing.  

 

So, am I better off drawing on a design layer? 

Maybe the design layer with outlet locations is a different scale than design layer with the site layout?

Is there a tool or plugin that does something like this already?

Is the best practice to do this in annotations on sheet layer? 

Any creative solution to this that I am missing?

 

Thanks for any wisdom the group can provide.

 

I am using VW spotlight.  It seems like the there might be an outlet tool in the MEP version according to some other posts.  Is this available in VW spotlight?  I can't seem to find it.

Link to comment
  • Vectorworks, Inc Employee

Hi Ace...

 

 

1. have a look at the preview features (there are more improvements coming in the next few months). In here you will find multi soca boxes and fan outs etc.

2. You don't have to use this you can just create your own symbols and insert.

3. I understand your scaling issues you have two choices...

 

 - Create a data tag for these items to denote their position, these can be larger than the drop symbol and you can also scale the data tags (data tags would also be useful to display other data).

- Your second option would be to create a symbol with 2 classes one which controls the visibility of the larger outline and one which controls the smaller outline. Then you could insert the symbol and toggle those classes on or off to control their appearance.

 

I think the data tag workflow would be easiest to manage further down the line.

 

Hope this is helpful.

  • Like 1
Link to comment

One solution that you might consider using for your symbol is to set it to have size be page based rather than world based.  To do this, I would recommend creating your symbol directly on a sheet layer to determine best sizing.  Then in the Create Symbol dialog, select Page-based under the units section.  This will create a "green" symbol and will always appear to be the same size when printed regardless of scale.  This holds true whether the symbol is inserted in a design layer or as part of a viewport annotation.

  • Like 3
Link to comment
  • 3 weeks later...

I have symbols for 480v access, 400 amp drops, 200 amp drops, 15 amp drops, and lots of others.  All of the symbols have records that allow me to specify vendor, location purpose, cost, etc.   I drop those symbols where I want them, and that generates a worksheet I can hand to house electricians.  The show I'm on currently has around 200 power drops documented this way.  I can use the select similar tool and scale all of the symbols to whatever size works best for the particular set of drawings I'm making for that show.   Hope that is helpful!

 

Rob

  • Like 1
Link to comment

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Restore formatting

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...