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…
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
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…
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I just had a customer who noticed that when he went to a Layout tab that all of his objects were gray. AutoCAD was apparently applying his Plot Style (Hydragray) to the objects in the Layout (and no, he wasn’t doing a Plot Preview). What to do? Apparently (after much Googling) there is an option…
More and more often we are hearing from customers that cannot submit a drawing file that uses ‘foreign’ fonts, just those that AutoCAD ships with. We added an option in the HydraCAD updates from a few months ago that can fix this for you. Pick HcadTool->Modify->Attribute->Expand Fractions or type in EXF This will start a…
From a question posed by a customer: Question: Is there a way to lock and password protect drawing layers so I can email them to someone and them not be able to change the drawing. Also is there a easy and preferably “free” way to make a drawing into a pdf. I use primopdf for…
Ever need to the layer of all the attributes inside a block? Try: MODIFY > OBJECT > Attribute > Block Attribute Manager > select the block > EDIT > Go to the PROPERTIES Tab > Change the layer name > OK > APPLY Thanks to Robert at Northstar for this one Also, If you need…
If you have a dry system to calculate you might have gotten frustrated by AutoCalc setting up C=120 piping. A really quick way around this is to create new pipe types in HydraCALC/Utilities/Fittings that have the same properties as Sched-10 and Sched-40, but with a C-Factor of 100. That way you can set your schedule…
Hydratec delivers four plot style files with our software: Hydragray.ctb, Hydracolor.ctb HydraLayerGray.ctb (all color dependent plot styles) and Hydragray.stb (named plot style). These are found in the HES\HydraCAD\Ver50\Programs\Version5# folder, depending on your version of the software. To use these files it will be necessary to copy them into the AutoCAD plot styles folder and then…
This is a quickie – Sometimes you want to refer to a point that just doesn’t exist. In the example below there is no intersection between the two lines drawn. Or is there? Lets say you want to pick the Intersection of the two red lines in that picture. When prompted for a point, pick…
If you use the same types of sprinkler heads in your jobs, consider setting them up in your template so they are available for each new job you start up. 1. Pick the Open command2. Set files of type at the bottom to be Drawing Template (*.dwt). This will display all of our templates.3. Pick…
Little known secret – Autodesk’s programmers hid ‘easter eggs’ in various versions of AutoCAD In AutoCAD 2004: Start the Color dialog (e.g. with the _COLOR command). On the Index tab, Ctrl+Left click on the color box 152 (the "Autodesk blue"). And, voila – Autodesk developer team presentation will run In AutoCAD 2005: …
Once you have your palette(s) set the way you want them, you may want to be nice and share them with others. This will require and Export from you and an Import to them. But first you may want to combine them into a Group. Right-Click on the tool palette and pick Customize Palettes… This…
The H-Factor 