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Recent Posts
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…
Using the Hydratec Software Download Area
Hydratec uses ShareFile to distribute our software installs and updates. New customers, or those without access, must request access to be able to get at these downloads. Access is only available to customers with a Hydratec subscription or those on an update plan. You can access the download area and request access by picking the…
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Author: art
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SMaRTools will, by default, place Drop tags on all of your drop-style sprinkler heads. We have had feedback that people like this, but wish the text ere not so obtrusive. The good news is that you have complete control over what those tags look like, and you can even shut them off if you don’t…
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In HydraCAD V45 (AutoCAD 2007, 2008 and 2009) we switched to using AutoCAD’s version of Layer Isolate. Some users, however, don’t like the fact that this version fades and locks the layers chosen instead of turning them off. This, like most things, can be changed: 1. Pick HcadTools->Layer Control->Layer Isolate Note the command line says:…
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Suppose you want to place notes on the fabrication report denoting how certain hangers are to be assembled, or made. Notice the Fabrication Notes column on the Hanger tab of HydraLIST. Type in up to 32 characters of a note to be printed on the Hanger reports. If you have a common note to be…
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The AutoCAD Join party, that is. I confess I did not know this command existed until a customer in NC pointed it out last week. The JOIN command is found on the Modify toolbar between Break and Chamfer. It will join a line, polyline, arc, elliptical arc, spline, or helix. The first three are the…
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The numbers menu and the tablet menu (digitizer) were intentionally removed in V45 due to the lack of acceptance by customers and the nature of the new menu structure provided by AutoCAD 2007 and newer. As we keep adding new features, occasionally we need to remove some to keep the program from becoming too large…
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Some people don’t like seeing the commands written out near their crosshairs. Personally, I love it because I don’t have to look down at the command line. But…. To turn off the crosshair command prompt, right-click on the DYN (Dynamic Input) button and pick Settings. Then turn off the Show Command Prompting… If you lose…
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To add your own Workspace – Arrange the screen the way you want it (command line, scroll bars, ribbons, whatever) and pick Save Current As: from the Workspace toolbar. To make your Workspace load upon opening a drawing – Pick Customize from the Workspace toolbar and then right click on your preferred Workspace and pick…
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We have long been able to convert drawings that are made in our competitors software into ours. The conversion are pretty good (if I say so myself), but all have some limitation due to the way each package creates objects. As a rule – this is the procedure to follow: 1. Start a new drawing using…
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HydraCAD has a command called Change item Colors. It is found right after Pretty Pipes on the Cleanup toolbar. What does it do? It lets you assign colors to different parts of your drawing. It is run after you run Pretty Pipes, hence it’s location on that toolbar. You can assign three additional colors to…
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While I was training a customer in New Castle, PA last week a question came up that I thought had long been answered. By the mere fact it was asked showed how wrong I was. They had trouble shipping their drawings to their engineers because the engineers could not see our 1/2 and 1/4 symbols.…
The H-Factor 