Tag: autodesk

How to Make a Template in Autocad

Posted onAuthorTruXterLeave a comment

My Autocad templates are full of blocks that I have created and named to make the jobs that are repeated similarities, much easier and much more correct and uniform. I made these templates to simplify repeated drawings that have the exact same floor plans or layout and use the exact same equipment. The equipment is in separate blocks to be layed out per each individual locations unique requests. Maybe this is what you are looking for for your Autocad template.
For this “How to” I am using Autodesk Autocad 2014 in classic view.
If you have never made yourself a  template file for Autocad and have a reason that you may need to use the same design on multiple occasions and be able to pull up the default version of the Autocad design with ease. Then this might help you.
In the most simple way, right click any cad file and select “rename” and change the file from DWG to DWT. save. Then place the file into your templates folder.

In a more complex way but not real bad.
Open a cad file, then go to the menu area and select “save as”. Now name the file and below the area you name the file is “file type” select “dwt”. This will automatically place the new Template file in your templates folder when you select “save”.
cad-menu1

Now to load the template, you select file in top left of your screen, then select “new”. and in there will be your template file that you just created.
You can update the file as you go along, just be sure to select “dwt” each time you update the template.. And select “dwg” when you have designed something that will not be your default.

Designers You sicken me

Posted onAuthorTruXter

I am not talking about interior decorators who call themselves designers when all they do is coordinate color and move chairs around. I am not talking about the clowns who conceptualize stuff and grab an under-paid lackey to “make it happen”. I am talking about the over paid lackeys. The ones with autodesk or autocad and designing buildings for large corporations spitting out a building with perfect dimensions. Your drawings sir look wonderful. Your drawings breath the ever existence of symmetry while coordinating flow of traffic yet still staying well with in codes. but.
It’s the stupid stuff you do to your cad files. Why must you all use some strange blocks and layers with in the blocks. I understand the use of layers, but it only makes sense to use the layers if you do not put walls and furniture on the same layer while putting the doors and plants in the same block. You guys sicken me with your redundant over use of blocks. Okay… we get it. You can make a block. Any idiot that can right click can make a block.
And you no good for nothing designers who like to pull your practical jokes by going into paper space zooming way the heck out, finding some spot far from the display area and dropping a tiny dot …… You sir need to be kicked in the face.
and you Cad file creators who like to put xref within an xref within a dwg, but you only send out your dwg file in emails as if you are supplying the world with your greatness. You know that you are an idiot that likes to use xref files. everyone knows you are an idiot that likes to use xref files. Will you please for everything sane, if you send out that dwg,COPY EVERYTHING THAT YOU SEND, AND YES CREATE THE FOLDER THEY ARE SUPPOSED TO BE IN BECAUSE WE HAVE TO REBUILD YOUR USELESS LAZY CRAP WHEN WE GET IT.
And you idiotic people who hire them and say that you are happy the other guy is so thorough for going the extra distance in design, STFU, just STFU. Do not speak to someone who can work the damn program and have some authoritative mentality with your bulldog wanna be face, you have no idea what you are talking about. You need to be tripped and stomped for the level of disrespect you just displayed. You sir are an idiot, just give me my money like a good little monkey as I ignore you hoping you make another designer laugh at your arrogant ignorance.
Please. Quit milking the design with your redundancies. Unless you just do not want to share your cad files with others.
Fire sprinkler designers. You clowns have so far over complicated your designs to increase your purpose in the fire safety design business, it takes another add-on software to complete what you need, you can barely work that program and you can do nothing with out it. Stop making it look like it’s more than it is. Crap runs down hill, you get paid on Fridays. That simple.

Look designers. You just have to come out and say it ” I can do it, you can not, that’s why you pay me”. and raise your fee, no sense in this big dramatic show. You kind of bother other designers with this stuff.

Battery Calculations and Voltage Drops For Fire Alarm Design

Posted onAuthorTruXterLeave a comment

So far I have found a great Voltage drop table file for when I do fire alarm drawings in Cad.
Same site also has a battery calculations table and excel file.
Of course each fire alarm parts company offers some sort of tool. but not one person has pressed out a fire alarm battery calculations LSP file. and well that kind of frustrates the heck out of me.
I have tried a few times to build one but failed. Plus I work so much I really haven’t the time to build an LSP that does actual calculations.
but the excel file or table are just fine.
So if anyone knows of a battery calculation lsp file for autocad
Please respond to this thread.

I would be quite thankful.
Houston fire alarm guy

Fire Alarm Cad Template

Posted onAuthorTruXter12 Comments

fire_alarm_title_block

(Give me a like on a social site or share this with a friend, I don’t have a 2000 pr team, it’s just me here)
I have been working on a template in autodesk for a year or so, trying to eliminate all issues. I have not yet prevented everything that I may encounter, but I have reduced the amount of issues that can come. So no this is not a perfect download. It is how ever as close as I have come this far. Fire Alarm Legend and Title Block is now for sale only. There are tons of websites that help you get the Symbols for you legend and there are many sites that give you fire alarm sprinkler addons for autodesk autocad. There is very little for fire alarm. So it is a rough start.

Most of this is my own work, but much of this is what I have gathered around the internet doing searches In Google and Bing and Yahoo and Ask. There just was not enough out there for me to get the job done. What you see there in Layout view is nothing compared to what is going on  in Model. Everything you see there is through view ports. All of my view ports are built to scale.

The trick is to drop all images into the square above the  title-block  and then scale it so that it prints out to scale. there is a second view port in layout view that opens to that location.

If you are in need of this whole Fire Alarm DWG file, let me know I will set it up for upload and message you when it is ready.

There is a huge original version of this, so what you are seeing in those two pdf files would be the light weight trimmed down most used items version. There is a huge one with everything I can possibly use, that would look like a train wreck though.

******update*****
I have the cad file listed for sale. I will be emailing the DWG DWT file to every person who pays for it.

All prices are marked and made easy.  Major credit cards and paypal are welcome, If you require any other method of payment, use the contact form on that page.
Simply because I would prefer to sell the thing for at a lower price for the basic and limited tools.
There is a full version with full tools and all addons to make it easier to complete your fire alarm
design in cad. Oh and the one I had here on the site, Is about 10 versions old.
The new one has a few Candelas tools in it already and many block features that most people do not even know
exist.
This Template comes with a my personal created method to measure Candelas , Smoke coverage, a battery calculation addon that I created, Blocks for every device to me inserted, and instruction manual with short cut codes for calling the block.
This Fire Alarm Template has everything I use on a daily basis and will shorten your design time, reduce room for error and simplify fire alarm design so much that you can give someone a computer with this template and they will be designing fire alarm systems like a pro, as they read the “HowTo” file.
So Simple, even your boss can use this .DWT file.
If you want a copy just reply with a comment, all messages here are filtered so they will not post till I approve them.
All personal information will not be shown here.
******update*****

**update** This post is 4 years old. There have been many updates to the fire alarm template. It is no longer free. I have listed it for sale. The update to this is located here Fire Alarm Design Made easy

(Here is the 2014 version of the fire alarm template)
and here is the fire alarm template version from 2015 (Videos showing function) <– NEW
Also please notice I added a fire sprinkler template and an access control template with symbols.

Work Pc bad performance, Pci Slot Need Help

Posted onAuthorPoit388

Ok I am going to post a copy and paste of what I was saying in forum on pcpitstop. Not much help there, even though the title says, well… you will see..
actual convo : http://forums.pcpitstop.com/index.php?showtopic=165060

<i>I am using a dell dimension 3100 with a 2.9 g single core
2 gigs pc 3200
I have a video card in this old beast I bought from staples
the video card is a verto pny 8400 pci (not pci-e)
when I take the bench tests without the card, I get a better score in 2d.
in fact , if i have the card in it takes about 45 seconds to perform that part of the test.
without the card it is instant.
Anyone have any old pci tips I can use to get this thing off th ground and moving faster?:
I really need the tips, since I am limited to this machine and use it for cad and flash and photoshop

I understand that.
But the 2d takes about 40 seconds to complete.
as apposed to less than a second like it used to do.
or as it does with my home pc. i’m just looking for some old school tweaks.

Bios only allows me to select auto or onboard. sadly enough.

I have two gig pc3200 (the machine is a bit dated but it’s a work pc)
when I am in cad, as I scroll down pages I actually see waves like as if I haven’t installed drivers
although it will allow me to crank video setting to 32 bit and 1280/1024 and i have the nvidia control panel
just like if if the drivers are installed. so it acts like there is no drivers while it shows drivers. have uninstalled and reinstalled and updated and updated . I think I’m at the latest 181.22 or something .

The thing acts worse than if I used onboard.
I mean while in adobe flash, in autodesk,cad, photoshop, or anything that uses video. I have probably 12 grand in software installed on this machine so moving to another is not foreseeable any time soon.
and yes I am a long time pc gamer so I know how to reduce start up programs and disable items as I run another that uses tons of resources.
as i remember there used to be a driver addon we used to use for agp slots called a “gart”. and if i remember correctly, there was something for pci slots, but of course it’s a dell pc so drivers and software are limited.

I am tempted to locate a modded bios for this and set it so I can turn that dang onboard gpu off.

and yes what finch was saying is perfectly correct. But for the 2d segment of the pcpitctop test (the part with the descending rings) to take 45+ seconds. Something is clearly wrong. I have taken this test on probably all of about 17 computers here in the office, some with radeon pci-e some radeon agp some with nvidia agp and or pci-e some with onboard gpu and the ring portion always takes less than a blink. never does it take it take 45+ seconds except on my machine with an 8400 gs pci card or on a machine that has no drivers yet (we recently added monitors to a few pcs for the ladies here to watch a buncha junk going on with our installers and tracking). i just know i am forgetting to do something.</i>
Sorry, but reallu I am that dang lazy, I wrote all that out once, and it seemed to hit the mark. but erm it fell on wrong ears, or at wrong pace.
Heck I dunno.

and yes, that is pci slot, not pci express.

Autodesk Autocad help

Posted onAuthorTruXter

Working for a company that requires me to use autodesk all the time I some times run into stuff I do not yet know. So i have done tons of searches for helpful stuff to make my Job/career of work on a computer, a little more stable and simple. So i have collected a bunch of links, I should share with you.

Heck if anything this will surely be aback up of my cad autodesk help links.

Autodesk faq 

The book

Addons

more addons

aid pdf is good for converting pdfs to cad. Gotta buy a key after like 30 uses or 60 days or something though.. Works better than most pdf-dxf converters… but make sure to clean the pdf before converting it.

Messing around at work

Posted onAuthorTruXter

[tags]duct detector, fire alarm, fun, job, photo beam, pull station, smoke detector, work,employment,job,photoshop,autodesk,cad,ion photo sensor,houston[/tags]

I decided I would make a fricken long website address.

here

I do not think the boss liked me just jacking around like that while on the clock making that link.

but it was a way to show off what changes I did to the actual site.

Of course it is hosted on my own personal site. Simply because I am new and thew doubt me.

It’s understandable. I am still being trained by people on how the actual job it’s self works. After my 90 days evaluation period ends. I will start showing some of my better quallities. I mean there are two i.t. guys there , and it’s not like I dislike them. It’s just they have the “i.t. guy” territorial thing going on. Well i do not need people getting territorial on me while I am still learning the mechanics of the job.

After march I will probably start posting news and updates on how I may or may not be doing this fire alarm company some good. No I am not pulling wires or turning screws or even carrying a ladder, Autodesk/cad and photoshop and the like all day long while searching the web for references, because I do not want to ask for help.

Project from hell

Posted onAuthorTruXter

[tags]computer,blue print,autocad,autodesk,employment,new job,career,construction,build out,ground up[/tags]

well after the project has been changed and modified and rejected like 20 times since October, They give it to the new guy.. yeah that’s right.. Gave it to me.cad1.JPG

Well I finished the blue prints for this build out. Of course I asked for help and yes I needed it but it is finished, now we wait and see if it gets rejected yet again, and if the owners have changed the plan on us yet again while we where not looking.

print1.JPG

Ok I will be a little more descriptive.. sorry..

I got a new job after a long job search while in a job I really wanted out of. it was in no way a career and never was going to do anything for me or my future. no insurance or bonuses (rlp shell of the woodlands texas) (leeches). It was just to be a temp job  but night shift and met  a few women next thing you know it’s 8 years later in a go no where job. then one day someone came to me  with a job offer, his boss was looking for someone who spent lots of time on the computer and well :)  they found me.  so here I am on third week , between learning what I can with resources available and meantime building site for owner of company. Then BAM they drop the dreaded ugly blue print on me.

Well I made due and it’s complete … the pics are the proof.

New job!

Posted onAuthorTruXter1 Comment

Probably not the most techy news I have done here but I got a new job working for a company called “HiTech” Fire detection.

A fire alarm and sprinkler company from out in Houston area. The guys here are great and very relaxed. Kinda strange to me because I have never been this comfortable in a work environment.

Well forget all the intros let’s get to the bone. I seem to have been assigned a task of building a website. See this guy Eein that I am working with built a site straight from css and tables and stuff which of course i think is fine and runs circles around the current site . But the owner saw me messing around with some flash ap and just jacking around with my desktop and a web template . Now see, I didn’t really want the task of building the site, simply because if it looks lame to me I will rebuild it , and rebuild it and it will never be finished. I have scrapped it like five times now already.

Well if a site is what they want then a site is what they get. You see though, I like the site that Eein built. It just looks better and is more sound and can be easily updated when needed, and it can be crawled at any time by any search bot. The owners of the site want a flash intro and a flash ap on the page , a flash ap that I really do not want to get buried in. They want a room to navigate in with a fire extinguisher and a sprinkler and a horn strobe and a lighted exit sign above the door in the back. I am sure I can do it, but man I would hate to have to edit it. I can edit it but dang .

You guys tell me what looks better. I really like Eein’s site I have said that from the start and am really against a bloated flash site. The current site is done in mostly Iframes and I really cannot see a bot crawling that which really is not a helpfull thing, ya know? See I know that they are going to be expanding to Austin Dallas and San Antonio real soon, like before the end of 2008. They surely will be wanting an update to the site telling people in those areas that it would not take long for us to get our guys on the site. Now that is becoming bigger work. I am still learning the ropes of the job and if I spend all my time on the clock building a site, when my evaluation period ends and I don’t know anything……. dude I will be screwed.

Looking at hours of photoshop and adobe flash cs3 man,!!!!

The dell machine and adobe flash cs3 and if you could zoom way in, you would see photoshop somewhere in the taskbar. This sad little machine is a trooper though, it is doing all that with only 512 mb ram, minimum for flash install. The 3.2g pentium is the life saver there though.

looks like houston.com has them in the forefront