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Hi. I'm Ursula Sadiq, Senior Product Manager with Autodesk Plant Solutions.
In this video we're going to use AutoCAD Plant 3D Catalog Editor
to modify piping components in a catalog, and to create a new component.
Here we have the Spec Editor open, which is also used to edit catalogs.
Let's Open the ASME Pipes and Fittings Catalog. I'm going to quickly draw your attention to
an area in the Spec Editor, called the Catalog Browser, at the bottom
of the page. Now we'll go to the Catalog Editor, so we
can modify our catalog. We see in the Catalog Editor tab that we have
a Catalog Browser similar to the one in the Spec Editor.
But we have the added ability to either display individual component sizes, or to group all
sizes into a single line. Here we click Show All Part Families to keep
all component sizes in the Browser on a single line.
And next we'll set the filter, to ELL 90 LR. Selecting this elbow class, we can see at
the piping components editor at the top, a dimension preview.
We can see information about the connected Port Properties, Piping Component Properties.
And in the Sizes tab, properties that are unique to each component size.
Now that we've briefly looked around the interface, let's make some changes to the catalog.
Let's start with something simple. We're going to assign the Material of Carbon Steel, to
this elbow class. So in the piping component properties, I find
the material, and add CS for Carbon Steel. When I press Save to Catalog. The next time
we use this component class in a spec, we will get the material assigned CS.
It's important to notice that we just modified the default AutoCAD Plant 3D component. Typically
we'd want to duplicate it instead, and have our own component.
We've clicked Duplicate Component, and we're going to enter a new description.
In this case we'll add the material code, and the schedule, to this Elbow class.
When we click Create, we have our own component. There are now two sets of elbows.
They are the same except for Long Description, they have the same 33 sizes.
Now let's assign schedule 40 to the ports. There are two ports, so I'll assign Schedule
40 to both port one, and to port two. We'll also set a Piping Component Property.
We'll set the Material Mode. And we just copy the end of the Long Description.
And copy to the Material Code. And then I'll save it to the Catalog.
Next I'll switch over to the Spec Editor to see what this new component set looks like
in the spec. We're going to load an Empty spec. Filter
on the Short Description to ELL 90 LR. And add our components to this empty spec.
We can Edit Parts and note that the Material Code, and the port schedule, are set for these
new parts. Here it is, the port schedule.
Good our properties were there as expected. Now I'm going to close this spec, and return
to the Catalog Editor. So we see that modifying existing components
is easy. Let's move on to a bigger challenge. If you click Create New Component, a dialog
appears. First we need to choose what kind of graphics
to use. We can choose parametric graphics, or Custom
(block based) graphics. For block based graphics, we need to draw
an AutoCAD block for each size. We'll do that in the next video.
Now let's take a look at the Geometry available for the parametric graphics.
We select a Category, in this case Piping Component, and End Type so we can browse through
the geometry. You can see that we have quite a few parametric
graphics to choose from. For this video, we're going to create a segmented
elbow. For the Geometry, we'll select Mitered Bend.
For the Short Description we enter ELL 90, SEGMENTED.
And we'll set an initial size range of 4" to 12".
You can change the description and sizes after we create the component.
You cannot change the Geometry type, the Piping Component type (which is the Plant 3D class),
or the Primary End Type. Although you can set actual connection port properties, after
you create the component. All right, we'll hit Create to create this
new component. This new component is added to the catalog.
Let's set the Short Description filter to see it.
Then we can select the component, and we can Minimize the Catalog Browser to get some more
real estate. In Piping Component Properties, we can set
the Long Description. Usually after you create a component, most
of the work is done in the Sizes tab. Defining the dimensions, for all the different
sizes. Here we can add and remove component sizes,
and set dimensions. Notice our initial 4" to 12" size range.
We're going to remove all the sizes between 4 and 12 for this video. And also, we're going
to add a 1" size. At first, an added size is undefined. What
will make it a 1" component is setting the Nominal Diameter.
The Matching Pipe Outside Diameter is the value used to make connections in the model.
Connection Port Properties are the same for port one and two.
So all we have to do is check All Ports Have the Same Properties, and fill out one of them.
The red outline indicates required values, which are the Nominal and Outside Diameter.
We'll also set the Long Description (Size) that is specified for each size.
Now we'll enter the Size Parameters. These are the dimensions for the parametric
geometry. We'll start with D, which is the same as the Matching Pipe OD.
If we hold the mouse over the parameter name, we will get a tooltip.
These tooltips are important to pay attention to, because many parameters have special values
for defaults. A special value might be a zero, or a negative
one. Special values indicate that we want to allow the model to calculate a default.
This is especially helpful as the models become more complex.
We of course have to fill out the dimensions, for all of our different sizes.
So this was the 1". We want two (2) segments for it.
For the 4" part we also need to fill out these five parameters.
And finally for the 12", fill out values for it.
For the 4" and 12" part we want four (4) segments in our mitered elbow.
With our parameters set, we click Save to Catalog.
Now let's see how this new component would look in a model.
First thing we need to do is add it to a spec. We'll open up an existing spec.
Filter to find our new part. Setting our filter to ELL 90, SEGMENTED.
Pick our new three parts, and add it to the spec.
There it is in our spec sheet. We'll now Exit the Spec Editor, saving on the way out.
And launch AutoCAD Plant 3D. In AutoCAD Plant 3D, we're going to open the spec viewer.
In the spec viewer, we'll see our spec sheet, including our segmented elbows.
There are our three elbows. I'll click one, and insert it in the model.
Here's the 4", with four segments, inserted in the model.
And let's insert the 12" also. There's the 12" with four segments inserted in our model.
So this is how you can add new parametric components to a spec, and then to a model.
In this video, we have used the Catalog Editor to modify existing components, and created
a new parametric component. In the next video, we will show you how to
use the Catalog Editor create block based components, and to work with Valve actuators.
Thank you for watching.