HVAC Ductwork IFC Export

David Robison (Design Master Software) on February 8, 2010

The next release of Design Master HVAC, currently being beta tested, includes a new feature to export the 3D ductwork in IFC format.

IFC standards for Industry Foundation Classes. It is an open, vendor-neutral, standardized file format for exchanging building information models (BIM).

Exporting our ductwork in IFC format allows them to import better into Revit. You can use the model to do collision detection with our ductwork and the architectural model in Revit. Previously, it was necessary to export both models to another program, such as Navisworks, to do the collision detection.

Adding full IFC export functionality to all three programs is high on our list of features to implement. Adding support for exporting ductwork is the first step toward achieving this goal. Once we have finished, Design Master HVAC, Electrical, and Plumbing will be completely compatible with projects that require BIM or Revit.

Kitchen Equipment and Aluminum Wires

David Robison (Design Master Software) on February 1, 2010

Last week, a customer requested two features for Design Master Electrical. We took a look at the requests, and decided they were not too difficult to implement. The first, new calculated kitchen loads, will be available in Design Master Electrical 7.3, which is currently in beta. The second, aluminum feeder sizes, is available now for all customers.

Kitchen Equipment

The calculated load for kitchen equipment depends upon the number of pieces of equipment. Previously, Design Master Electrical has limited you to a single diversity value for kitchen equipment. This worked fine if all your kitchen equipment was on a single panel.

If your kitchen equipment is spread out between different panels, this does not work. On the panels with one or two pieces of equipment, you need to use a diversity of 100%. But on the main panel, you can use a diversity of 65% if you have 6 or more pieces of equipment.

We’ve updated Design Master Electrical 7.3 to calculate the diversity correctly. We are adding this change late in the beta process, so we are limited to counting each circuit with a kitchen load on it as a single piece of kitchen equipment. This will undercount your equipment if you have two or more pieces on a single circuit. In a future version, we will update this to count each device on a circuit properly.

This update is available immediately to all of our customers using the Electrical 7.3 beta. Once Electrical 7.3 is released final, it will be available to all customers.

Aluminum Wires

It has always been possible to model aluminum wires in Design Master Electrical. However, the default wire sizing table we provided only included values for copper wire. We have put together a wire sizing table that includes aluminum values for all wire sizes. The table is set up to use copper wires by default. You can manually change the wire size to aluminum when appropriate. The wire sizes without a label are copper. The wire sizes labeled with “AL” are aluminum.

All the wire sizing values are taken from NEC 2005.

The wire sizes are based upon table 310.16. We use the 60 degree C column up to #1, then the 75 degree C column for 1/0 and larger.

The wire areas are taken from table 5 (THHN, THWN, THWN-2) for copper and aluminum. If you want to size your conductors based upon compact aluminum, you will want to adjust the aluminum wire sizes to match the appropriate column in table 5A.

The reactance (X) and resistance (R) values are taken from table 9.

The ground wire sizes are taken from tables 250.66 and 250.122.

To use these wire sizing tables in your projects, download this project. Open the project and look at the wire sizing table using the DM Electrical->Customization->Wire Sizing->Edit Project List.

Use the “DM Electrical->Customization->Wire Sizing->Copy Project List to Master” command to update your master. All newly started projects will include the aluminum wire sizes.

After you have updated your master, use the “DM Electrical->Customization->Wire Sizing->Copy Master List to Project” command to update existing projects.

Design Master LinkedIn Group

David Robison (Design Master Software) on January 6, 2010

Are you on LinkedIn? If you are, join the Design Master Group. My hope is that this group will allow the engineers who use our software to connect with each other. Whether you are searching for an engineer in another part of the country who can answer a design question related to a specific climate or who can help with some local field work, you can use this LinkedIn group for your search. Using Design Master will provide a common denominator for the start of your relationship.

Ribbons for AutoCAD 2010

David Robison (Design Master Software) on December 31, 2009

The latest release of Design Master HVAC, Design Master Electrical, and Design Master Plumbing include ribbon tabs for AutoCAD 2010.

Instructions for installing and configuring the ribbons are in this post.

There are two ribbons tabs for each program. The main tab is labeled with the program name. This tab includes all the non-customization commands in the software. The other tab is the customization tab that includes all of the customization commands.

The ribbon tabs are designed to include all Design Master commands on them. You can turn off the pulldown menus in AutoCAD 2010 and use the ribbon exclusively if you wish.

Design Master Electrical Ribbon Tab

Design Master HVAC Ribbon Tab

Design Master Plumbing Ribbon Tab

Installing the Ribbons in AutoCAD 2010

David Robison (Design Master Software) on December 31, 2009

To install the new ribbon tabs for AutoCAD 2010, install the latest version of Design Master HVAC, Electrical, or Plumbing.

There are a couple of configuration options available with ribbons.

Configuring Tabs

Two new tabs will be added to the ribbon in AutoCAD. You can leave them where they are, remove them if you don’t want them, or move them if you want them in a different location in the tab list.

To remove the tab, right-click on the list of tabs and select “Show Tabs.” This will list all the tabs available to you. You can select tabs from the list to turn them on or off. If you are not actively customizing Design Master, turning off the customization tab will save some space.

To move a tab, click-and-drag the tab name at the top of the ribbon.

Configuring Panels

Each tab is a collection of panels. The panels are used to group similar commands.

If there is space available on your screen, the full panels are displayed. If there is not space available, the panels at the end of the tab are collapsed. All the commands are accessible, but it requires an additional click to get to them.

For features that you do not use, you can turn the panel off. For features that you use rarely, you can move the panel to the end of the tab.

To remove a panel, right-click on the list of tabs and select “Show Panels.” This will list all of the panels in the current tab. You can select panels from the list to turn them on or off.

To move a panel, click-and-drag the name at the bottom of the ribbon.

Vocabulary

It is easiest to talk about configuring ribbon tabs if we use the same vocabulary as Autodesk. Here is a quick definition of the three important parts of the AutoCAD Ribbons.

Ribbon: In AutoCAD, you have the ribbon. There is only one. It is a collection of tabs and panels.

Tab: There are multiple tabs on the ribbon. Each tab has a name that is listed in a row at the top of the ribbon. When you select a tab, it becomes active and the ribbons displays the panels associated with that tab.

Panel: Each tab contains multiple panels. When you select a tab, these panels are displayed. Panels contain buttons and commands. Each panel has a name that is displayed at the bottom of the ribbon.