It must be the alignment of the stars or some such phenomena that I worked my way through a Revit MEP Fitting issue on a Ideate support customer case earlier this week, only to find that a few days later that David Butts (Gannett Fleming) and David Pothier (Autodesk) had posted about Revit MEP Fittings and Slope Adjustments on their blog, The MEP BIM/CAD Engineer.
In my case it was a Revit MEP out of the box WYE fitting on a sloped pipe that just would not connect correctly for the client. I found upon “editing” the family that the Revit MEP “connectors” had been set to Fitting (for the life of me I still do not know truly why) and had no ability to set Slope Adjustment.
So, the variable lets you establish whether pipe attached to the connector can be sloped. If you do not select the box, then when you apply a slope to pipe that is connected to the connector, you will receive an error message that the angle between the elements is too great, and the pipe will become disconnected from the equipment.
If you draw sloped pipe from a connector that allows for slope adjustment, the Pipe Connector Tolerance angle defined in the MEP settings of your project will determine the maximum angle that a sloped pipe can enter a connector. If the angle is exceeded, a straight run of pipe and an elbow fitting will be drawn from the connector prior to the sloped pipe.
Here is a short video showing how and where to make the change on a Revit MEP fitting.
For more information on the software solutions, training and consulting Ideate provides, please visit the Ideate, Inc. homepage.
Bill Johnson
Senior Application Specialist MEP/AEC Solutions
Bill has over 25 years experience in applying MEP & AEC design solutions for large commercial companies, this has led to actively developed Autodesk® Revit® implementation strategies, techniques, and procedures for architectural and MEP companies. He has worked for TEECOM Design Group, GTE/GTEL, Greg LeDoux and Associates, and Scottish Power in England. Bill is an Autodesk MEP Implementation Certified Expert, and has been the Lead Designer for several multi-million dollar communication sites which have included structural, electrical, HVAC, conduit, cable plans and equipment layouts. He graduated from the Pasadena Institute of Technology and has a Sustainable Design Certification from the University of California at Berkeley.