Revit Electrical Diagram

[Cora Hickel]

Afundamental part of the electrical design process, this one-line diagram feature in ElectroBIM will save significant Revit engineering time by allowing sheets to always have the same information and thereby eliminate duplication errors. Additionally, our feature sets provide electrical engineers consistency in their riser diagram drawings by using shared parameters that update automatically with revisions and allow for more prompt responses by architects.

Advanced electrical design projects require feeders and branch circuits to maintain an acceptable voltage level. In ElectroBIM, voltage drop is calculated using the selected wire sizes, and feeder and branch circuit lengths are calculated based on equipment location in Revit. Concise documentation of the calculated values is possible with the voltage drop schedule, and engineers can see that voltage drop is monitored in all areas of the project.

Unlike performing common manual fault calculations, ElectroBIM simplifies the process by allowing for easy location of panel and connection configurations and calculations for the available fault current of electrical equipment placed directly in the Revit model. Additionally, the fault current schedule lets engineers document the appropriate fault current and AIC rating and ensure feeder lengths provide accurate distances between panels for fault analysis.

1: The company is trying to push the idea of using Revit to manually draft 2D electrical/mechanical/plant schematics. Other engineers at the company and I are opposed to this move as we feel auto CAD is much better suited to the task and we have it already set up for the job. Has any one got any views on this? Can Revit be used effectively to manually draft schematics or are we better off using AutoCAD?

2: If we persist in using Revit for drafting schematics what is the best way to create 2D schematic symbols? The way I have been instructed to do this is to create groups of annotative lines and use these as a "block". These are then further grouped to create a single system "blocks" that can be moved around and connected using lines to build a schematic. I don't think this is the most effective way of using Revit and see it becoming a problem in the future. Are there any better options or are my concerns misplaced?

Let me ask you a question: If I ask you to open any of your projects and ask for the quantity of anything and I want it in Excel format, but before that, I want you to make around 30 changes on 3 different floors. How quickly would you be able to provide me with the info? You'll need to open and revise 3 different DWG files, then do the counts or extract it from the drawing, or populate Excel manually depending on how your files are setup.

I can basically open any project in Revit, have a detailed schedule of every element within the model, it auto-updates as I draw and I can literally provide a comprehensive Excel sheet as soon as I finished with the drawing/design updates. Revit feels like you have more control over more things in one centralized place. I hope this example made sense, efficiency within an office or disciple can greatly be increased.

All and all, I would make the shift to Revit at it is "future proof" as some clients/architects require everything to be done in Revit and this will become more common all over and you would not want to be "left behind".

We've seen absolutely no good reason to switch to using Revit for those PID's when we have everything already set up to do it quickly and efficiently in autocad. At the end of the day, the tools we use to accomplish our goals are determined by; what is the most efficient and/or what is the best and/or what the client demands.

We have hundreds of symbols set up for use in autocad, and we're very good at creating PID's in autocad, and literally not a single client has ever demanded PID's be done in "BIM" (why would they? After all, "BIM" has nothing to do with 2d PID's).

Everybody thinks Revit is useless for Schematics until they use it and find that its just the same as AutoCAD except when you move things lines follow what they are attached to etc, its a nicer tool IMO.

All your sheets for the project come from Revit along with the revision history and all the other data, I can't see a reason to put up with the titleblocks and revision system in AutoCAD when Revit does it so much better.

I have been through the process you are currently going through, with huge initial resistance from users, but it's just a lack of knowledge and familiarity with Revit. Once you bite the bullet and actually use it, it handles schematics just fine.

It's not the problem of having to do it in autocad. But after making the whole system 3d, You have to do it again in 2d. And if you need to modify something, you have to re-check the 2d drawing as well.

Revit has it's own benefits, but this is a big waste of time.

I don't understand why there is no progress in this area?

IMO its faster to draw & amend schematics in Revit than it is in Autocad, Plus you have the advantage of all the schematics in the same place the titlesheet is the same one for all your drawings. if its dwgs you increase the change for inconsistency if you change say the project name you only have to do it once in Revit if you have 10 or 20 dwg schematics you would have to change it 10 or 20 times

It's not the problem of having to do it in autocad. But after making the whole system 3d, You have to do it again in 2d. And if you need to modify something, you have to re-check the 2d drawing as well.

Revit has it's own benefits, but this is a big waste of time.

It's a waste of time to build something in 3D that I do not use. It's embarrassing to have the potential to make something really usable, but it can not be.

All the information is in the Bim model, which must then be typed manually into the 2d plans.

Those of you that are using an AutoCAD based workflow for your schematics may be interested in something we allude to in the Revit Roadmap related to this topic. In the MEP section, under the Create group, Intelligently Connected Schematics and Models.

For more information, see the Revit Roadmap, and if you're really adventurous, we'd be interested in hearing more from you in the beta forums... there is an email link at the bottom of the Revit Roadmap for access.

I use detail items in Revit for the diagram symbols so I can attach shared parameters to them. I also use the Parameter Linker by RushForth Projects to link the data between the diagram and the floor plan elements so you can do some quick quality checks. It can also help you create any diagram or floor plan elements if there are discrepancies and they are missing on one or the others. Full disclosure, I wrote the Parameter Linker software because of the gaps in the process I needed to do my job effectively (including non-diagram related processes). Even if you don't link the data in Revit, it is still better to draw the diagrams in Revit for a bunch of reasons. It does, however, require some time to build your symbol and content library.

Learn the best practices leading electrical engineering companies are using to create their single-line diagrams in Revit. Top firms were able to cut their design time in half with these techniques!

We just use a drafting view and draw them using lines and detail items, much like traditional AutoCAD with lines and blocks. One add-in that comes to mind is called MagiCAD. They create an add-in that assists in the creation of schematics.

How have you been doing this in the past? AutoCAD? There are add-ins but I'm not a fan so I will not suggest any. If you want to use all revit elements, then you could start a drafting view in Revit and start drawing things from scratch. My preferred method would be to link an AutoCAD single line diagram into a Revit drafting view, then slap that drafting view on a sheet.

What size is your project's single line? Is it easily contained within a single view? If not, you may have to create separate DWGs for each single line and put each one on a different drafting view. That is unless you're okay with scaling your imported DWG file in.

the way i see most companies do it (and the way i setup templtes) is with drafting views. you need symbols created as detail items so that they don't scale and then of course all the associated linestyles created. don't forget you can't have text in linetype so if you have text in autocad linetypes then it's best to approach that with the sooner rather than later. usually when i'm working in a joint venture with another company and they suggest schematics in autocad it's an indicator to me that they don't really have their act in gear.

based on feedback i've received from electrical guys i work with, i would highly recommend powercad-m, it's about $100 for a licence and it does all the single line diagrams for you.. not to mention if you can get the electrical engineers on board with it, they can take responsibility for the schematics themselves and it avoids the markups/drafting cycle of producing schematics.

I'm relatively new to Reivt, I don't have to many templates setup as yet. Could explain more about creating symbols as detail items please. I need to build up families/library asap, and any tips would be a great help.

you may need to slightly adjust some of your symbols as revit can't do tiny lines and circles. but usualy you can get pretty close. for example i had a symbol that has a 0.25mm circle in a symbol but in revit i had to draw it 0.35mm or something like that.

make sure you have your line styles / categories in your symbol. i suggest you create your own symbol template. this just ensures that you have all the correct line weights in your family and then in the future if for whatever reason you need to adjust your line weights, all of your symbols will update together.

as you're new to revit (and i'm not sure what your experience level is) then it's also worth pointing out that when you're creating symbols for your 3d elements, your lights, air terminals, drainage pits etc. should have their symbols created with detail items so they always display the correct regardless of the scale of the drawing. this is for coordination purposes.

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