Category: Precast Blogs
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What is concrete cover? Why is it important? (Precast)
What is concrete cover? Cover refers to the distance between the outside of a concrete structure and the reinforcement. Perhaps see this from the diagram below: You need to have a minimum cover: There needs to be a minimal distance between the reinforcement bar and the outside of the panel. Why do you…
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Bubble Deck Panel Outline – Fire Collar Clash Check (Precast – Bubble Deck)
We’ve been noticing an increasing problem in that certain items are clashing with BubbleDeck Panel outlines. In order to eliminate these types of errors we’ve instituted a new check in our procedures. Everyone is now required to specifically check for this type of situation. This adds to our check list which is already quite long.…
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Finding Blocks “Colliding” with Shear Lig Points (AutoCAD .net, Precast – Bubble Deck)
It’s a common problem apparently. There are far too many block references placed a little too close to those pesky shear lig points. It takes discipline, but when you have 5-10 people all working on the same drawing, with different practices, it’s something that’s really easy to miss, but really expensive to discover. So I…
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How Tek1 solves the problem of Ordering Items in Precast Panel Detailing Projects (Precast)
Counting Items is difficult Ordering parts in precast panel projects is tricky. You need a BOM (Bill of Materials). You need to know what you need and how much. When there are thousands upon thousands of parts – that can be a very tricky endeavour. Why should you bother counting inventory? It all comes down…
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What is a lifter? What is a tail bar? Why are they required in precast panels? (Precast – Lifter Series: Part I)
Precast panels are heavy. Cranes are used to lift the panels into place into their appropriate place. Because the mass involved is significant, it is very important that all the components of the lifting system are properly engineered and designed. If this is not the case then the panel could fall – and that can…
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Demo: Select (Panel) Lines which are Open or Closed (Precast, AutoCAD .net)
Sometimes we have a need to identify – and quickly – lines which are open and lines which are closed – especially prior to running any operations on those lines involving regions. Here is a demo of a little plugin I wrote. It goes through the modelspace and finds all the line segments which are…
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How to Easily Compare Precast Panels in AutoCAD (Precast)
Suppose someone makes a change in the layout but forgets to do so in the shop drawing (and vice versa). If you move a cast in plate, and if it’s actually produced and taken to site, then you have a big problem, and a big cost. How are you going to identify the differences…
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Demo – Create Revit Panels Directly From AutoCAD Panels (Precast)
This is a demo of my latest plug-in which demonstrates a proof of concept – i.e. a MVP (Minimum Viable Product). The programming was a little trickier than normal – because we are not using the .NET API, but the COM Interop API and the Revit API – something which I have not really explored…
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The Curious Case of Overkill Not Working (AutoCAD)
A very perplexing question: Why isn’t overkill working? The result will stun you. As you can see in the above picture, the top row of panel voids were doubled and in some cases tripled up. Obviously we don’t want this. Ordinarily, when such drawings are passed on to us we employ the overkill command. But…
