cad – TruXter Tech

How to Make a Template in Autocad

Posted on2013/08/132016/10/08AuthorTruXterLeave 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”.

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.

How to Create Blocks in Autocad

Posted on2013/08/132016/10/08AuthorTruXterLeave a comment

Let’s start with creating a simple block for this post.
Creating a block is a good way to to lock a set of items in one place to prevent deletion of useful items during editing. creating a block is also useful if you want to use that same block multiple times and call that item back up again with the quickest methods.

First you have to draw the item you want to be in a block.

Once the item is drawn, you can now highlight the item you just drew in cad, and then either right click and select “paste as block” or if you are on a newer version of autocad, you have to turn on the menu at the top of the window . once the menu is activated in Autocad, select “edit” in the droop down menu you will see “paste as block” select “paste as block”

You have now created a block.

Now double click that block. and you will see block editor open. The block will be highlighted in the list of blocks. The name should be random alphanumeric and symbols.

Let’s name that block something you can remember.
Now at the top of that list there should be a space you can type in. The blocks name will be in that spot. Go ahead and copy that name and close the block editor.
Now in the command area type “rename” a new window should pop open.

In the area that says “Old Name” paste in the name you copied, or you can scroll down the list of blocks on the right until you see the name of the block you want to rename. In the field below “Old Name” simply type in the new name of the block and press “Ok”.

You have now created and renamed a block in autocad.

you can easily call the item up with the “Insert command” or just type “i” and press enter.

Please let me know if this was informative enough, or simple enough or not.

Fire Alarm Design Made Easier

Posted on2013/06/062017/03/04AuthorTruXter7 Comments

I have put together a collection of great homemade tools that I have been building for fire alarm design in Cad since 2007.
Over the years these tools have evolved and gotten better looking with deeper detail, yet increased design speed while keeping a nice uniform appearance to my fire alarm designs.|
The videos and pictures below are some of the earlier on functions. I have created so much more and still maintain a (better than) fair price for such a large collection of design tools.
Click the link below if you want to just skip right to the tools, or continue reading the article to get a better understanding. More recent videos are in the link to the fire alarm design tools website.
Fire Alarm drafting files for sale

Detail

This Fire Alarm Template, along with all of the addons mentioned, there are also a few items and hidden gems. Such noting in the printed fire alarm lay out, you will see original date that each specific job is started, and the date it was printed. This protects the fire alarm company and the fire alarm designer. Gives the designer proof of date of file creation and print out, if there is ever any wonder if someone else has messed with the fire alarm design. at the same time, you will also see the name of the person who printed the drawings. So if Dave grabs Bill’s file and edits fire alarm system and prints this fire alarm system out, Dave’s name will be on the printed file along with that date. If Bill goes back and prints that fire alarm layout, the drawings will now have bill’s name back on the drawings. Where this protects the company, is the date of file creation and date of printout. if you add that to the date your fire alarm drawings are submitted to plans review plus date of notification of acceptance, you have further support of your contract if the customer has any issues with your productivity time.

Titleblock

There is also a location with in the fire alarm template, with in a block that allows you to insert project numbers and permit numbers. The intention of this option is permitting purposes. County/City/State project numbers and building permit numbers to be specific. I did this for the occasional issue that would come up when our Plans and permitting department would have the random act of luck, and just not have everything with him. I make sure he has the permit number and project number in the exact same spot every time.
Also there is a spot to type in the AHJ. City/County/State information goes there. There is also a spot to note if the building is fully sprinkled (fire sprinkler existing) or not. Some jurisdictions this is needed. So when Permitting guy is at the plans review office, the answer to that question is readily available.

For organization efforts, there is a location to add the salesperson’s name. For the occasional moment when no one knows who sold a specific job, and no one wants to claim it. That person’s name is right there on the fire alarm drawings locked in a block. helps prevent many disputes, and possible conflicts of interest.

Candela

The candela tool is made for ceiling mount and wall mount visual notification devices. So a fire alarm designer can know exactly what candela setting the device should be. This helps with battery calculations and voltage drops.

Also allows you to not have a mess load of full on technicians at a location and allows the chance for a trainee/helper to get his hands on experience with less people standing over him while he works. This was to reduce failure at plan review in the city/county/state. This turned out to have many benefits for the company. This allowed us to work on a lower budget and kept us all free from common errors.

Legend
The legend has a space to show device count for new,existing and relocated devices. Helps with ordering. If there are certain devices in the legend that you are not installing with this design, you can just look for this symbol’s name in the layers menu and just click the light bulb to the left and turn that device off. This also helps if you have to make major edits( but the “already placed” fire alarm symbols will be fine where they are), you just turn them off for a moment, make your edit, then turn them back on.
If you made it this far here’s some free samples
Cad blocks

Gimp Brushes

——————————————————————————————

***THERE IS AN UPDATED VERSION OF THIS 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.
Please like and share this post.

2009 , I created this post about a fire alarm autocad file I was giving away. I was steadily making changes to the cad file. Adding blocks, different fire alarm symbols, legend, battery calculation spreadsheet, Candela measuring tool, smoke array tool and many functions that just made the job easier. Every time I would get a new idea, I would add it to my template. After much time, I decided that I have way too much work in the thing to just give it away. So if you were not here through the beginning phases, Sorry.
(Here is the 2015 version of the fire alarm template)
Along with a fire sprinkler template and an access control template.

The fire_alarm.dwt file is no longer on the server for free, but here is where you can purchase it. Fire Alarm drafting files for sale.

Designers You sicken me

Posted on2011/07/062015/04/06AuthorTruXter

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 on2010/08/052018/09/06AuthorTruXterLeave 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 on2009/11/022017/01/23AuthorTruXter12 Comments

(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 on2009/02/04AuthorPoit388

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 on2008/04/23AuthorTruXter

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.

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 on2008/02/06AuthorTruXter

[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 on2008/01/02AuthorTruXter

[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.

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.

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.