The H-Factor

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 most likely ones for us to use. It beats using the PEDIT command, that is certain.

Also – don’t forget the HydraCAD Join Pipes command on the Piping toolbar – Break in Block flyout. that command will join pipes together and size the new pipe.

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 your command line entirely, hit CTRL+9 or click the Tools menu » Command Line.

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 Set Default.

To export your Workspace – Pick Customize
and pick the Transfer Tab. Then, drag your Workspace from the Main CUI File
window over to the New CUI folder. Drag over whatever else you want to save (Toolbars,
Menus, Ribbon Stuff, Cursor Menu, etc). Then pick the Save command from the New
CUI window to save your changes.

To import your Workspace
(especially after a HydraCAD update) – Pick Customize and pick the Transfer Tab.
Open your CUI from the New CUI window. Then, drag your Workspace from the New
CUI File window over to the New CUI folder. Drag over whatever else you want to
bring in (Toolbars, Menus, Ribbon Stuff, Cursor Menu, etc).

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 our template

2. Insert the competitor’s drawing into it, exploded

3. Pick the appropriate conversion tool. Note which heads it finds and say no to
conversion

4. Insert one HydraCAD head for each competitors head found and restart
conversion

Note: If you don’t do steps 1 and 2, in that order, then the conversion will
not work

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 Pretty Pipes such as Existing Pipe, Demo Pipe and New Pipe. You can also assign different linetypes to these parts of the drawing as well. The colors and linetypes can be applied to the areas you select or to just one pipe if you want. Sprinkler heads and other objects will change color as well.

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 solution to this is easy, and there are a few ways to handle it.

1. Email them all of the HydraCAD fonts along with the drawing. What are our fonts? They are in your appropriate HydraCAD folder, ie: HES\HydraCAD\Ver50\Programs\Version53, \Version54, etc. They all have a file extension of .SHX. Send all of these along with the drawing. The engineers can either place these font files in their Program Files\AutoCAD (version)\Fonts folder or keep them in the same folder as the drawing, where they will be automatically found upon opening the drawing.

2. Use AutoCAD's ETRANSMIT function. This will create a package which contains the drawing and any fonts used by the drawing.

3. Use HydraCAD's Replace Fractions command (RF). This command will replace all of the fractions in your drawing with regular AutoCAD characters. This is only a one-way conversion, so save your drawing before you do this.

4. Log into your ShareFile account and download the Fonts.Zip file in the HydraCAD Data subfolder for downloading and sending to someone who needs them

This is the list of our text styles and their associated fonts:

Smooth: HCADR.SHX
Classic: HCAD.SHX
Hand Drawn: HCADH.SHX
Slashless: HCADCON.SHX
Arch/Single: ARCHAND1.SHX
Arch/Double: ARCHAND2.SHX
Arch/Triple: ARCHAND3.SHX

Does anyone have any experience with any of the PDF to DWG converters out there?

I have not been able to find any reviews of the half dozen or so converters that came up in a Google search. The ones I have found are:

AutoDWG
AnyDWG
aidecad
pdf2cad

These are all about $180. Sounds like a little cartel action going on

You wouldn't be the first (or last).

It helps to think of an armover as having three parts:

  A. The 'Up' piece (riser nipple)
  B. The Arm piece
  C. The Drop piece

Item C – The Drop piece is already handled because Drops already go into a separate branch line section in HydraLIST named DROP. Just delete it if you don't want those listed.

Items A and B are easy to handle using an OVERRIDE. Inserting the 'Arm Over' override
works differently depending on where it is inserted. If inserted on the
head, then the Arm piece B will get listed in a branch line section
named ARM1. If inserted on the riser nipple, then the Up piece will get
listed in that same section named ARM1.

For both items – Choose the 'Arm Over' override from the Line Fitting – Elbow category. Then check the Insert Multiple Overrides option and pick Insert Fitting Override. For Item A, pick one of the riser nipples to set the filter and then pick a window around all of the riser nipples to tag. One Arm Over override will be placed at each riser nipple location. For Item B, pick one of the sprinkler heads to set the filter and then pick a window
around all of the heads to tag. One Arm Over override will be
placed at each sprinkler head that matches the head you picked. Repeat for each type of head. 

Another way to do this even faster is to use Autoline to connect your armovers and add the Armover overrides at the same time. The placement rules mentioned in the previous paragraph apply.

Just delete the ARM1 section in HydraLIST to eliminate these from the stock list.