Help me get started on MEP please.

[cadgal]

hello -

My company is wanting to go to MEP/3D work and pretty much I've been nominated to do all the work (which is great because I love 3-D and learning new things, but bad since there is no training.)

 

I was hoping if I come in here with some basic beginner questions, you guys could help me out?

 

My first question is: I need to draw a pump station. the outside diameter is 33', the walls at the lower level are 18" thick. How do I draw this? I dont' want to use the circle/circle/extrude/subtract method available in Autocad, because if the engineer comes back next week and says "oh, make that wall 24" thick, I want to be able to just type it in, not delete it all and start over.

 

Under MEP Arch I found that you can draw walls easy,but not circluar structures. Or am I just drawing an "arc" wall?

 

ok, enough rambling - thanks in advance!

[tzframpton]

You can do what you're doing in MEP, but to do it right will be a HUGE jump for you at a beginner level in MEP. There's a lot of prep work involved in create a custom MvPart that would be your pump station.

 

If this is a one timer kinda project, then me personally, I would use much of the MEP portion of CAD to draw the pump station, but rather do it the old fashioned way and make it dimensionally accurate.

 

But, to answer your question, you still would do it the old fashioned way to create the 3D part and make it a Block, and then use the Content Builder to create a MvPart and add it to the catalog in MEP. In the help file there is a pretty detailed tutorial that gives you step by step on how to create this for future reference.

[cadgal]

I guess I'm not sure what you mean by one-time. This is the only time this particular pump station will be drawn, but that is true of any pumpstation - I will be working on this project (pumpstation) for the next 6-9 months.

In MEP Arch you can draw walls as easy as drawing a line, I was wondering if drawing "circular" walls was just as easy, but I guess for now I'll use the "arc wall" command.

 

thanks!

[dumfatnhappy]

I guess I'm not sure what you mean by one-time. This is the only time this particular pump station will be drawn, but that is true of any pumpstation - I will be working on this project (pumpstation) for the next 6-9 months.

In MEP Arch you can draw walls as easy as drawing a line, I was wondering if drawing "circular" walls was just as easy, but I guess for now I'll use the "arc wall" command.

 

thanks!

 

 

there are a number of ways to get where you are going, when all else fails you can draw your arched wall in plan using a pline, then extrude it to the proper height, then clicl on it to highlight (grips wise) then right-click and convert to: select wall, then it will ask you what kind (i.e. concrete, CMU, etc. The key in MEP is to go in and edit the styles (slabs, walls, doors, etc etc... to get the desired look, i.e. concrete hatch to show when you cut a section, etc.

 

strap yourself in Cadgal, you are in for quite the ride with MEP, this thing is huge.

[Doove]

Hi

 

I'm basically going through the same thing.

Architecture & MEP are really different from 3D autocad.

If you need your pump station in a hurry then do it in vanilla 3D or 2D.

 

Essentially, an AEC Wall object is NOT an autocad solid. It is more like a dynamic 3D block that does all sorts.

You can download tutorials on Architecture & MEP from Autodesk website.

Start with Architecture, get used to it, then do the MEP tutorials.

Investing in a little training like the Architecture Essentials course would be well worth the money.

 

For your query; lets say you need a circular pit 5m outside dia with a 250mm overlapping base slab.

Draw an AEC slab 5500 x 5500, draw a closed polyline 'circle' on the face of the slab, then trim the slab to the polyline.

Offest the polyline by 250 then start AEC wall and type 'a' for the arc option, use the polylines midpoints and endpoints.

 

NOTE: many AEC objects have directionality, always draw walls clockwise, you can edit them but it's a good habit to get into as very soon you'll start running into cleanups and endcaps etc, which are basically the detail of how walls, openings etc interfere. You know when you've got a problem as autocad puts a big red warning sign on the problem spot. If you just use the standard styles you tend not to get too many of these.

 

You should now have a circular slab dia 5500 and two curved walls making up a circle.

You can use the properties pallet or there is a shortcut menu command to justfy the walls, at present they are justified to the wall's 'baseline'.

 

In the standard wall style the baseline is the centreline, however some styles (like a brick outer skin with block inner, and plasterboard etc won't be baseline = centreline).

 

Change the justification to left or right to get the walls outer surface to match the polylines.

 

You can use the properties pallette to change wall thickness and height.

 

I have not been able to join or merge the two walls.

 

Anyone out there know how to draw a continuous circular wall?

[cadgal]

thanks! I'm been playing around with the piping for the past two weeks. I can do what I "need" to do, but I feel like I"m learning bad habits by not knowing the proper way to do things.

My company does not have any money available to go to a training class at this time. I've been asking for 3 years, but no dice. The "head" guy keeps telling me to self-teach myself, but I'm finding that hard.

I'm the only one at the company doing this work, so there's nobody to ask if I get stuck.

It's frustruating, but fun also when I figure something out!

[Noahma]

thanks! I'm been playing around with the piping for the past two weeks. I can do what I "need" to do, but I feel like I"m learning bad habits by not knowing the proper way to do things.

My company does not have any money available to go to a training class at this time. I've been asking for 3 years, but no dice. The "head" guy keeps telling me to self-teach myself, but I'm finding that hard.

I'm the only one at the company doing this work, so there's nobody to ask if I get stuck.

It's frustruating, but fun also when I figure something out!

 

There are a few good books available if you find learning that way worth it. I used the Book "Mastering Autocad Architecture" by Paul Aubin, and from what I gather MEP is very very similar to ACA.

[aczeller]

i was in the same boat a while ago. I started with a new 2009 subscription to Revit Suite and never got into the Revit portion of it. When I got hired on, the company was using QuickPen and it was a PITA and a POS program as far as I was concerned. I talked them into getting MEP after the trial period and taught myself to use it comfortably within a couple of months by using the tutorials and samples in the program, as well as looking online for forums (like this one for example), you tube videos, articles, etc. We always had the money to send me to a training class, but not the time. When I got hired on 6 months ago, we were about 2 years behind of schedule. within 6 months, we are within a couple weeks of being back on top of it all. mind you, i am in a whole new industry also. my main background is in manufacturing and tool & die. I am now the lead CAD tech for a multi-state mechanical contractor. it can be done... it just takes a while to get the hang of it. after you do though, it's a hard habit to loose. you will get another chance to use basic AutoCAD and curse every time you want to draw an elbow and find out that you have to draw the profile and extrude it. lol

 

Later,

Andy