Pipe Spooling alternative software

I use AutoCAD MEP and really like it, but can't seem to produce spool drawings in an efficent manner. Does anyone have any suggestions to a third party software, besides Eastcoast and CADpipe (TSI) $$$$, these programs are just out of my budget right now.

Looking for something that I can do iso spool shots with a bill of materials... Mech-Q was also a waste of money......

THANKS

Are you trying to literally do "design to fabrication", which by that I mean what you're designing you want to send the file right into a CNC machine that fabricates the material? Or are you wanting to simply have a BOM?

 

Depending on the exact details, you can create a great BOM by setting up PSD's and Schedules. PSD's (Property Set Data) is a native function in AutoCAD MEP that can help you quantify all your "MEP Objects" in a drawing, including lengths of pipe, duct, flex, etcetera to generate an Excel style table.

I remember doing stuff like this a while back, and produced very efficient manufacture spools off MEP, simply by setting up a template which includes all your set up vports and using a standard layer convention. They included listed and numbered parts for the whole range of MEP installion and off site manufacture. You cant get any cheaper than not paying any extra at all. It is surprising, certainly to me, just what MEP can do when you push it a bit.

When I do AHU Coil connection detailing, I strugle with things like being able to do an iso shot of the piping drops and having MEP parts tags come out flat, not iso. Also I have to go into the property sets and change and add pipe schedules and such. any sugestions?

And yes, I am going from shop drawings to fab, but there are no fab machines involved. Just welders and pipe fitters.

Thanks.

I have attached an image showing what is possible in MEP if you manipulate it correctly. I will see if I can can get some time and put together a quick tutorial for it, but I'm mad busy at the moment so unfortunately cant guarantee anything quickly, if at all. I have basically worked between model space and paper space, but once you have abasic template set up, it makes life much easier. The best tip I can give, is, standard layers.

 

I hope you can see it properly, the upload limit of 250kb is really quite limiting.

 

When your adding your tags, with the part numbers or such, lock out your viewport, and add them from activating your vport in paperspace and working like that, they should then come out flat. I had to add the lines to each fitting in paperspace though, bit of a pain..........

 

You may see that I have BSS codes for direct ordering to the purchasers in there aswell, this was a very drawn out process of adding just about every one to the library, I think that Autocad may have done this now, but I may be wrong. It did however mean that I could export the BOM into Excel and run it through the desktop buying system, meaning that orders for material were taken straight from my computer, priced on the purchasing system, and processed within seconds. We did bottle it a little bit though and introduced a manual check before the order was sent.

WOW!!! That nice looking. still not clear on how you got the tags to stay at an iso plane. Here is another item that i struggle with, Valves and Acessories. how do you deal with a valve that has a end to end length different that what MEP wants to use? I wish they had like "user input" on Valves and such. I know that alot of what i want is avalible through 3rd party adds such as Eastcoast CAD, but I can't justify the additional cost (6-12K$!!) Thanks for the input!

The valves that I have used on the attached are Hattersley Hook-Up valves, but I modelled them up myself and used the model to create a custom part. I have done it with a lot of pump sets aswell, you will find that Grundfos etc have 3D CAD blocks to download on their website, you can then use those blocks to create an MV part and add additional data, with connection points and stuff.

 

The only real advantage I could see from looking at ECC wa that the majority of the leg work had been done for you in terms of the setting up of templates. I remember a bloke called Dave Quigley, marketing director over in the states coming over to see us and what I was doing, I just couldn't see where the extra money was going.......

And yes, I am going from shop drawings to fab, but there are no fab machines involved. Just welders and pipe fitters.

Of course the drawings are going to be fabricated but what I mean by "design to fab" is the file will be imported into a fabrication machine that pulls the piece part data directly from the model. So no, this would not be considered "design to fab" needs by definition.

 

Jacko has pretty much hit the nail on the head for you and I would back his suggestion. He does what I do... search the valve or fitting manufacturer for the 3D model and create a MvPart of out it, cataloging the entity for future purposes. So it's still a manual process but once you get a good procedure down, it becomes easy to do.

I know it is not AutoCAD or AutoDesk software, but the overall best program I have found for doing pipe spooling with BOM and cut lengths and everything is a stand alone program called AcornPipe. The only problem I have with it, is that you pay per drawing, so it could get costly eventually. But initially with purchase you get 100 drawings.

http://www.pipefitpro.com/