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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You likely know that Ceiling Heights and Drop/Sprig Lengths are inserted using the same tool, but here is a list of some things you might not know about this tool: 1. If you are manually specifying the drop lengths, then use the User Specified setting under Length Determination. If you want the computer to figure…
These four commands really make it easy to modify drawings. Move Main and Move Line have different options, but Erase Main and Erase Line work the same as each other. Move Main Move Main can be used to move your main over just a little, or over a lot. It can even be used to…
Sometime back, I don't know when (between AutoCAD 2010 and AutoCAD 2013), AutoCAD altered the command line so that you can select the option on commands instead of typing it in. To see what I mean, type in ARRAY at the command line to see an example. Select any drawing entity and press enter. The…
The Lay Out Hangers command came about because one of my coworkers suggested that it would be cool if a hanger command existed that acted like Main Couplings. Why? Well, Main Coupling will allow you to pick a welded line to visualize where the couplings will go before they are inserted, and it will offset…
RapidRefs has been around for a while, previously as its own command with its own button and everything. It is now integrated into the Reference Point command as an option. What's it for? It excels at labeling ref points at the top and bottom of multiple riser nipples, as in those present along a main…
If you want to select an intersection, but don't have two lines that meet, what do you do? Many times while training customers, I have noticed hesitation when this comes up. Users will often extend lines so they meet, or try to finagle some other osnap into doing what they want. But, there is an…
If you have found that some of the commands you used to use no longer have a button, you can add the button back in yourself in most cases, because we did not delete the command, only the button. And, it isn't that hard. For example, let's say that you want to add back in…
Added in V52.4/V53.01, this new feature allows users to specify a central location (drive path) to look for sprinkler head symbols, so that all users have access to the same symbols. This is done by editing the HCAD_ENV.INI file found in the 50.3/Version53 folder and adding the full path to the head library next to…
A long time customer of ours (good guy, has poor taste in baseball teams) emailed me a drawing in which he could not explode the bulk of the building. Some research produced a solution – the block was specified to not allow exploding when it was created. This, fortunately, is easily correctable. A LISTing of…
Possibly the coolest new feature of 2015 is the Lasso. This new selection mode lets you freehand a selection set of virtually any shape, quickly and (sometimes) easily. It can be used anytime you are selecting objects. When presented with the familiar Select Objects: prompt, just hold down the left mouse button and drag the…
The H-Factor 