Drawing chains in Autocad

[clionutta]

Good afternoon everyone.

 

I am now working for an oil company, nd we do arather a lot of work involving lifting plans with chain hoists etc.

 

My question is, is there any way of make a linetype that automatically draws chain. At the moment, i have to manually draw a link, and copy and paste with basepoint to the reuired length, and then "block" it. however, when we come to alter these drawings, they are a nightmare to alter all the chain sections.

 

If there was a way of developing a linetype that automatically made these chains, it would speed things up so much.

 

Any help much appreciated,

 

Regards

 

Dave

[memphis710]

Have a look at the below...

 

http://www.cadtutor.net/forum/showthread.php?27454-Options-for-creating-linetypes.&highlight=custom%20linetypes

 

There is a couple of ways to do it from the looks of the post by ReMark. Hopefully one of these will help!

 

Cheers

Ollie

[ReMark]

You are doing this is 2D?

 

Will the size of the chain always be the same?

[clionutta]

Hi remark,

 

this will be done in 2d yes. And the sizes orf chain will vary with chain block used...but not by much.

 

Any suggestions?

 

Thanks for the replies

[ReMark]

Any suggestions? Yes. This...http://cadtips.cadalyst.com/standard-blocks/chain-line

[Tankman]

Some interesting chain work here, http://www.cadforum.cz/catalog_en/?q=chain&page=1

[clionutta]

I fogot to mention i am running LT at the moment so lisp wont work?

[ReMark]

I fogot to mention i am running LT at the moment so lisp wont work?

You're right. Lisp routines won't work.

Please change your profile so everyone knows what program you are using.

I think you have two options. 1) Do it as you have always done it. 2) Open the lisp file and see if you can ascertain the methodology used then write a diesel macro that emulates it.

[irneb]

You could conceivably make a complex linetype with 2 alternating characters drawn from an SHX. But there are pitfalls in this as bends would become ever worse as the radius decreases, and you can never be 100% sure that the scaling is perfect (especially if you're printing to multiple scales).

 

If you cannot use lisp, then perhaps you could try using a dynamic block (one length parameter with an array action) for at least the straight portions of the chain.

[Mike_Taylor]

A dynamic block with visibilty states and a stretch/array action may do it as well.