The H-Factor

Reducing Entropy

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Adding Hanger Types to HydraLIST

If you want to use a new type of hanger, or are a fab shop that gets a job from a contractor that uses a hanger type that you do not have, it is easy to add that new hanger type to your own machine. A hanger is an assembly, and an assembly is just…

by art July 31, 2026

Welcome

Recently our previous blog service (Typepad) ended their business – so, we have a new home. It will take a bit to get images back and displaying properly, but we are working on it! Final pageview count of original Typepad blog: 387,232

by art October 20, 2025May 21, 2026

Using a Non-Standard Pipe Type in HydraCALC

A customer called today asking how to enter a 1″ black plastic underground pipe for the calc. This particular situation sounded unique enough that I did not tell him to add that pipe type to our database, as I would have if he expected to see this pipe type used repeatedly. I told him to…

by art May 6, 2025May 21, 2026

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Using the Rename Tool in AutoCAD to Rename Layers, Blocks, and Other Things

March 30, 2016

I had no idea this command existed, but found it when looking for a better way to rename a layer after a customer reported an error while running an AutoList.

The cause of the error was that the pipe block layer, SPRKDATA, was built in the drawing as sprkdata (lower case). While may of HydraCAD’s routines are trained to work with either lower or upper case names, this routine was not.

Enter the RENAME command. As you can see from the dialog below, you can use it to rename many things in the drawing.

There are also command line options, to automate the renaming of many layer at once, for example. Such a procedure will be added to checkups in a future HydraCAD update, to eliminate such problems.

Posted in HydraCAD