Take the Load Off Your Electrical (Engineer)

JON ATKINSON: Welcome to the first session of AU.

AUDIENCE: Good morning.

JON ATKINSON: Good morning.

AUDIENCE: Good morning.

JON ATKINSON: So let's start with some morning calisthenics. How many first timers to AU? Wow, it's a lot. Architects, other hand. One, two, three, four, don't be shy. Mechanical folks? Good. And finally, electrical people? Lots of you. Excellent.

Well, let's do this. My name's Jon. I'm not going to spend a whole lot of time talking about myself. If you download the handout, you can see that. But I've been working as a CAD manager in the AEC industry for 21 years.

BLAKE GUITHER: And I'm Blake. I'll be representing the mechanical half of the room. I've been working in Revit for about seven, eight years, and been doing some very heavy development and family content the last couple of years. So we're going to push the gaps that are there currently.

JON ATKINSON: There's a lot of information here, so we will be going rather quickly. But suffice to say a lot of this stuff is duplicated in your handouts. So the synopsis, we're going to learn how to use formulas, to push some data from our mechanical equipment into our electrical circuits. So we can make our engineers life quite a bit easier just by utilizing formulas.

So our objectives-- how do we get that data flowing from one family to another? How do we use formulas to automate those tedious day-in-day-out calculations? And then, schedules to maximize productivity. And finally, how to populate text parameters in a lookup table. We're going to be talking quite a bit about lookup tables near the end.

But first, in order to begin the electrical coordination process, we need to start addressing the mechanical workflow. How do we get all this information rolling? How do we get it from one piece of information supplied into our family to populate all the information upstream?

BLAKE GUITHER: So that's where I come in, I guess-- the beginning of the process for the mechanical-electrical coordination. So we're not going to spend a whole lot of time on the mechanical side. We're just going to get the step setup to give electrical what they need, essentially, in the fastest way possible, and in the most dynamic way possible. So we'll touch on spaces, zones, load calculations. We'll touch on space airflow and the Revit model, once we have our calculated results from load calculations. We'll talk about some VAV-box sizing, which is just one case of electrical coordination. And then, we'll talk about other types of equipment as well.

For the coordination piece, we're going to be looking at two different scenarios. One is mechanical-electrical in the same shared model. That is the optimal situation for coordination. One data set, one piece of information, voltage in the panel schedule, and equipment schedules is the same in the mechanical schedules. And then we'll look at a linked-model situation, which is also probably more common out there currently.

We'll talk about family creation-- getting the connectors set up to do all this. We'll talk about formulas that we're using. And we'll talk about lookup tables. As Jon mentioned, lookup tables are very powerful. And really they have just been used in their infancy, in my eyes. There's so much more we can do with them. They represent a big piece of the future.

And we have a PowerPoint. We have a live demo. So the PowerPoint, we're going to kind of go through quickly. We'll get to some demo pieces, so you guys don't get too bored. I know this is the first class in the morning, so we're waking up.

Spaces, zones, essentially you can do the calculations in Revit. You can export the bounded volumes, from the architect to a third-party program, like Trane Trace, or IES, or whatever, and get your calculations. The important part that I'm stressing today is to get those calculations into Revit. And you'll see why. Just because it's going to make your whole workflow so much smoother downstream. You're going to get to your final results much faster. You're going to eliminate data entry. You're going to shed a lot of time in your process.

So we'll talk about air terminals. We'll talk about getting the calculated airflow at the air terminals. There's lots of ways to do it today. And then, we'll talk about what we can do with that-- in the ductwork, in the air streams, in the hydronic systems. And then upstream to the pieces of equipment-- once they have connected airflow, now we can start doing our engineering calculations that we do day to day, in these families.

So it all starts with having that information at the air terminals. And it all flows downstream. So, first demo. I touched on thermal zones. Spaces in thermal zones-- this really has to be step one for mechanical. A lot of times we're recreating all this information that the architect has already put together for us. They've already created these spaces-- names, numbers, identities, volumes. We need to learn how to use them. And if we're not getting a good volume from an architect, we've got to talk with them.

We've got to make this process smoother, because we don't want to duplicate this information. We don't want to add datasets to the process.

This is the second level of a sample project. So I have the thermal zones already created. So the tags can convey all that calculated load information. You can do that in schedules. There's a lot of ways to get designers the information they need to do their design, to lay out their ductwork, place their diffusers, all that type of stuff.

Same with volumes, too. This space, and the thermal zone volume, we need to start looking at in different ways. We can't just look at these thermal zones in plan view. We need to know how high they go. A lot of times-- kind of the age-old discussion with ceilings. You know, ceilings, are they bounded, are they not bounded?

I don't know. I have my preference. My preference is not bounded. I want that space to go all the way up to the bottom of the deck. I want my outside wall to be full height, and I want to account for that. So everything is kind of changing over time. We just need to make sure that we have all the information available at our fingertips, and we're giving that to the entire team-- to the designers, to the people-- trying to get production done.

So I'm not going to spend time here running load calcs, or importing-exporting GBXML information. That's been done. People have talked about that a lot. I want to talk about what we can do with that, after the fact. So I'm in the pan over here to just a very simple ductwork plan.

So for this example scenario, we've got some VAV boxes, that go up to variable-volume rooftop units. And let's take a look at what we can start doing once we have that connected in from those calculated loads in the model.

So first is space tags. We can use a space tag to show what the calculated airflow is, to what the actual airflow is. There's so many ways we can slice Revit on how we want to look at the information. So in this case here, we're flowing up to a VAV box. This one's an electric reheat. And we have some tags, that are also conveying some information, so you guys can see this as we flex it.

We're at a minimum size right now. We have no coil load, because we have no airflow. We have no apparent load-- nothing like that. So let's give these linear-slot diffusers some airflow.

So tags like this, it's just one more method for helping designers balance out that airflow throughout the building. In all honesty, I'm not going to spend a whole lot of time talking about this either, because I think Dynamo is entirely going to rewrite this whole process-- and automate this process-- of getting these calculated airflows to the air terminals.

So just adding in that airflow now, this VAV box now has updated its size to a five-inch neck. We have a load that's being calculated. And just by having this connected to the ductwork now, once electrical chooses voltage and phase, we're able to give them apparent load. Just like that, or KW, whatever they want to look at.

This given box here-- so let me zoom in. So we're doing our calculations in these families. So we're getting a heating-coil capacity from our connected airflow. And we've got some design rules in here. So it's actually delta t's. And then we're converting that to a KW, which electrical can use. So we'll be talking more about these formulas later on.

Just the same up here. I'm going to put some airflow in this VAV box, because Jon's going to do some things with this one downstream as well. I guess what I was going to show with this air terminal here is there's lots of ways to balance out these calculated airflows. We can use a schedule. This is a space schedule, that has an embedded air terminal schedule. Space schedules, you can embed a lot of types of schedules in them. In this case, I'm doing air terminals. And this really is nothing new. I'm sure people have seen this as well.

JON ATKINSON: Can you read that? Is that legible?

BLAKE GUITHER: Legible in the back? I got a nod from the [INAUDIBLE] [LAUGHS] So this schedule is showing spaces, and it's showing the air terminals found in a given space. So this supply diffuser right now is 0 CFM. We have our calculated airflows, and our actual airflow. So it's just another way to slice the information, on how we want to look at the data. So let's give this air terminal some airflow, which Jon will be using for part of his presentation. So just another way to do it.

Once again, we're back at this box, and now we have our loads. And we can go from there.

JON ATKINSON: And using a table like that to specify your airflows, you can literally do thousands of air terminals in a couple of hours. You can resize your entire project.

BLAKE GUITHER: So that's the start of it-- getting the information to the pieces of equipment, so now we could have air streams up at the air-handling unit. And we could start doing calculations there, which we'll talk about later on. Once you have airflow in your systems you can, of course, use the native Revit sizing tools, for ductwork and for piping. You need to make sure that all the air terminals are connected. So there's some things you want to set up to do an air check, and make sure that you have all the airflow in your system. But then you're able to use the tools, and put the [INAUDIBLE] down, or duct sizer down-- and do it in an automated process.

JON ATKINSON: So how do we get this data from our mechanical into our electrical-- something useful for our electrical engineers to use? So families should be reporting that correct data as early as possible. I don't know how many projects I've worked on where the electrical department was literally twiddling their thumbs until the last week of the project, and then it was mayhem. So what we're trying to do is provide them good information earlier. The more information, the better.

As long as your families have that information, then they can start verifying the voltage is correct, the phase is correct. And then we're going to circuit that equipment. We'll verify the max overcurrent protection device, and then we'll schedule that, and start tracking those changes.

With a linked model-- if we're bringing in a mechanical model into our electrical-- it's pretty much the same process. We're going to use a dummy motor with a symbol, but it has all the smarts. It can still pop in the information, populate your schedule, and off you go.

You can also check "include elements in links." And what that's going to do is allow you to schedule your mechanical equipment, and verify that you're putting in the right amount of information, or right values. And the last couple of steps are exactly the same, if you're doing a shared model.

So if I come over to my electrical circuiting, here I've got a couple-- here's that VAV box Blake was playing with. All I need to do is power that up, pick a panel. Let's see, let's take 103. And all that information is going to start populating, and going into my circuits.

BLAKE GUITHER: So this would be, obviously, the shared MEP model.

JON ATKINSON: Now, we'll pretend that this particular VAV box is coming from a linked model. So we've got VAV 2-4. So I'm going to take this-- basically, just a symbol. It's a full mechanical equipment family, but I'm just using the symbology for it. I'm going to name that the same as my VAV box. And I can start verifying the information. If I know that that's going to be 2,500 watts, or VA, I can pop that in up above, and start getting coordination. I'm going to set that back to 0.

Or, I can make a schedule. And here I've got my VAV 2-4. You see two instances. One is from the mechanical model, the first one. The second one is our motor family. So if I double-click this schedule, I can come up to this element-- say, 3,000. And that's it. I'm pretty much set. All I have to do is verify at the end of-- where's my voltage? There it is. Verify my volts, my phase, and I've got my input all ready to go. Now it's just a matter of going back to my floor plan, circuiting that back to my panel.

So then we get into family creation. This is really kind of the nuts and bolts. This is where all the magic happens. So geometry is really irrelevant, as far as the data goes. It's not say it's not important. But really, what we're trying to do is coordinate that data. We're getting that information moving from one discipline into another. One of the key things, don't over model. You don't want your families to be too heavy. There's no need for 3D text.

Also, when you create your families, where's that information coming from? Where's it going? What's it going to do when it gets there? How are we going to use that in the future?

And every connector you place in your families associate to a parameter. So we've got two electrical settings in here that you can't associate-- system type, and power factor state. Those are the only two. Typically, you're going to set those and leave them.

BLAKE GUITHER: Then on the mechanical side, there's a handful of connectors we can't link. So why does this even really matter? Because anything we can't link parameter to, we can't manipulate the value in the project. And that's where your families get that much more flexible, and that much more powerful. So here are some of the limitations right now, on some of the mechanical-connector sides.

And then once we start getting into how the connectors get set up, it really goes like this. So the calculated setting for connectors, which we'll pull up in a moment here, essentially that's used at the pieces of equipment that are receiving all the data. So this would be the supplier connector at the air-handling unit, or the rooftop unit. It'd be the hot heating water connection at the boiler. The boiler needs to know how many different coils are pulling GPM off that loop-- what the flow is.

Preset, in this case, is going to be the connectors that are sending the data. So this would be the air terminals that are using the airflow. This would be the coils in the air-handling units and the boilers. Those are usually set to preset. They're driving values into the systems.

And then, system settings, I've really only found one use for-- and that's with pumping systems. If you guys have another use for them, I'd love to hear.

So we'll go and take a look at a couple of those connectors real quick. So this is the VAV-box family we are looking at previously.

JON ATKINSON: Notice that we've got the system type power balanced, and set to lagging. And you'll notice on the right, you've got this little equal sign. That's showing that we are associating those two parameters within the family. So load classification, if you ever need to change it. You can also do your voltage. The most important one is going to be that apparent load, and a power factor. So make sure you associate those two parameters within your family.

BLAKE GUITHER: So I'll switch the type to heating water reheat box. So once again, the hydronic connector is over here. Here's what we're linking to those parameters. So flow, pressure drop, diameter. So once we get into pressure-drop calculations, we want parameters tied to some of these. And it depends on what end of the stream you're on-- if you're on the pre-set stream, or the calculated side.

For the VAV box, too. So this would be our discharge for air. So where I was mentioning before, that would be the calculated settings-- so supplier out. System classification, you really wanted to find in all cases that you can, except for where it could be two different things. And then the main situation I come across is return air and exhaust air.

So air terminals, I don't want a different one for whether it's return or exhaust. So I set that to global. But in most other cases, system classification, you want to define. It just is a little bit better user experience in the project environment. And then on the inlet side of the VAV box, that's a preset, sending data up to the air-handling unit.

JON ATKINSON: Formulas-- whose done formulas before? Bunch of you, good. Because this is where it gets fun. We want to make sure we simplify our life with formulas and lookup tables. You know your industry-standard formulas. Put them into your families. Stop punching that calculator. Human error is about 2%. Yes, we go back and check, and double check. But what if you're wrong? How much is that going to cost you? So put that formula in your family. Do it once. Do it right.

And then we can use lookup tables to get our manufacturer content within our families. So you can put that catalog down. You can just build a spreadsheet, with all that information already in it.

And then, formulas-- these can be used for any arithmetic, algebra. Does anybody even remember algebra? But, conditional statements-- we've got if, and, or, not, and yes and no. This allows us a ton of flexibility. And then we can round any of those values up, or down, or either. And there's no limit to the length of complexity.

So I know in Excel, previously, you were limited to about 100 conditional statements. Revit doesn't have that limitation. Excel finally caught up. You can do unlimited.

BLAKE GUITHER: That we're aware of.

JON ATKINSON: This is one formula. That's not even all of it. We actually cut about half of it out, just so it would fit on the slide.

BLAKE GUITHER: That's a formula for an auto-sizing linear-slot diffuser. It has a lot of conditions we had to check.

JON ATKINSON: And if you sit really close, you can see we're using lookup table here. 3/4 of this is just referring back to our catalog-- what are we pulling in? So a tip for writing formulas-- I use Notepad++ plus quite a bit of time. I highly recommend, because it'll show you the corresponding opening and closing parentheses. And then if you haven't, do a search, find Revit formulas for everyday usage up on the Revit Forum. Fantastic. It's been up there for years. Great examples. Even the Revit help-- If you do a search for conditional statements in formulas, pops right up. Good information there.

BLAKE GUITHER: So some of the mechanical formulas. This is one that we all know on the mechanical side-- our Btu. Our heating load equals 1.08 times CFM times delta t. So the 1.08, that comes from supplier density, and supplier-specific heat. So those last two parameters there.

What's important here is we've been able to accomplish what we've wanted to in Revit it using all the proper data types. And that's important. Because if you're using numbers in your formulas, you're going to get limited when you start converting values. Maybe it's between watts and horsepower. Maybe it's a whole lot of conditions. So using the data types makes those conversions go through a lot smoother.

JON ATKINSON: And again, all these formulas are found in the handout. And these are the formulas we actually use in our families.

BLAKE GUITHER: So on the water side, Btu equals 500 times GPM times delta t. In this case, we're solving for water flow. It's a very similar equation. So we can't just stop with an equation like that in your families. You need to build your families, to protect it from breaking itself, from killing itself. So what kills a formula? Well, dividing by 0. There's lots of conditions that can kill a formula in a project, deleting a type from a given family. You have to protect your formulas, so they're used only in certain conditions.

A couple of things I just want to highlight in this given equation here is that, for one, that's what I'm saying. If the equipment doesn't have a heating coil, then don't do this work. Just put the capacity at 0. Another thing that we're doing, that kind of middle section there. And we're saying, if our calculated value is less than a company design standard-- say it's 0.5 GPM-- then use 0.5 GPM.

So we're building in some of those design standards into the formulas, so that you're not just getting a result. You're getting a result that fits to how you want it to fit in your design.

And then lastly, this last part, dividing by 0.1 and multiplying by 0.1, that is just cleaning up the values. So, unfortunately, project units doesn't always control the same properties in the Properties window. So if you look at water flow in Revit, in the properties, you're going to see a whole bunch of decimal places. And if you have a calculated value, even though your project units is set to only use that first decimal place, Properties is going to show some big number. So this is just one way to clean up your value, that you find in the formula.

And then we're using that now to calculate watts. So we have a performance table in the families. And the main takeaway from this is we're able to use that performance table to find our upper thresholds. So in this case, every VAV box, based on voltage and phase, has a maximum KW rating. So we've built that into the lookup table. We've said, if the calculated value exceeds that, give us this value. There's 999,999,999 watts.

So rather than zero out an issue, we chose to make it big. So it doesn't hide. So this is a load that's going to be a huge apparent load, that you're going to see right away in that panel schedule. So we don't want to hide issues. We want to make them stand out, so they can be addressed.

And then we're using a message center parameter-- just text-- to essentially give the users information when these conditions occur. So when that 999,999,999 value is found, here's what you're supposed to do. So it's just helping users walk their way back to the lighted path.

JON ATKINSON: And then, again, we've got FLA, apparent load. These are your industry-standard formulas. You're taking that heating-element power, you're dividing it by the voltage times the phase. And in phase, I say, if the phase is equal to 1 my value is going to be 1. Otherwise, use the square root of 3. Because I don't trust my mechanical designers to put in 1, or 3. I've seen them put in 2. So we want to make sure that we kind of lock that down for them.

And then, apparent load. We're going to take that FLA, the full-load amps, times our voltage, times our phase. So what are the possibilities? We can have an NEC table 430. Built into a lookup table, that makes sure that we drive the proper values. We're starting to extract good information. The apparent load, those calculations, we can get those from any user. And then we can use overcurrent protection devices. Are they breakers, are they fuses? Which column in that lookup table are we drawing from?

So let's go ahead and take a look at that motor family. We're using that same motor family from before, with the 3,000 watts of real-input power. I'll minimize some of this, so you can see it. And it's calculating my apparent load, my MCA, my MOCP, and anything else that we want. If I pull this out, I can change this to-- oops, not a 65-horse motor, just 5.

So you'll see in my message center it's telling me the FLA value is found in the table. So it's returning a yes condition. It's also giving my apparent load, and my MOCP of 40. If I don't like that 40, I have all these inputs up at the top. I can always override that. I can tell it, no, you're 60. And that's going to override down here, and say 60 amps for my breaker. We can also set that input back to 0. And I have an option, is it a fuse or a breaker? I had it set to fuse. But if I change it, that'll go up to that 60 amp breaker.

So you can build all this functionality into your families-- have it automatically calculate for you. If you don't like the calculations, you can always put in an override, and say, no, that's what this is. I can give it any one of those. I can give it all of those. I can define every single one of those, and it's not going to affect anything. Well, it won't break it.

So if I'm looking at my schedule, this is just a circuit schedule-- with circuit number, panel, MOCP. Notice VAV 2-6 is reading a 20-amp default breaker. But our calculated value for that VAV box is actually 35 amps. If I edit that schedule, and change that 20 amps to 35, this affects my panel schedule, everything else.

It's smart. I'm double checking my work. I can put my value in here. Unfortunately, we still don't have the ability to have that value calculated and pushed into the circuit for us. But here's an easy way to double check.

BLAKE GUITHER: So as Jon's getting ready for lookup tables, the important thing to understand when we move into this world of formulas is in our final values, is we're going to get to schedules that we're not going to be able to edit right there. That's going to have a formula in it.

So the strategy in the workflow kind of changes on how you manipulate the information. So you're seeing values and schedule, and it's a little confusing to people. You go to the schedule, and you can't edit those values because they're calculated. But you've got to know where to get to the inputs. You know where to drive those final values. Which once again, just set up different schedules, to slice that information differently for designers.

JON ATKINSON: Right. So here we've got electrical-motor calculations. Essentially what we're doing, you'll see we've got a size-lookup table. It's going to look at the FLA value of that column. Return is 0, if it's not found. And you can see we're using voltage nominal divided by 1 volt for our lookup table. We can use any parameter or number, to start driving values out of that lookup table.

And then we have the motor-power lookup. And this is going to around those values up for the lookup table, so that they're correct, they're accurate. Again, industry-standard formulas-- put them in there. It's going to pay dividends on the back end. It's really going to help you out.

And then, MOCP. This one gets really long. We actually ended up truncating this down quite a bit. But what we're doing is we're saying, if and the motor horsepower is above 0, and the OCPD is set to circuit breaker, then go and look at that column in the lookup table. If it's not-- if it's set to fuse, go look at that column. If neither one of those conditions are met, then look at the MCA, calculate that out, and define my breaker size based off of that value. So the MCA portion gets really long.

So when I start my formulas, I will start with a sheet of paper. What am I trying to find? What am I trying to get this figured out? I'm going to chart this out. And here's my parameter. What goes into that? I've got a formula, maybe I've got a lookup table. What drives that formula? Maybe I have a couple of controlling parameters, that are going into it. What are those values going to be? How are those being driven? Is it a user input? Is it a formula, that's driving that value? Maybe there's another parameter driving a formula that's driving a formula that's driving another parameter.

So for our breaker rating, same thing-- started charting this out. We've got a horsepower input. We've got MCA, FLA, KVA, KW. And we've got a user input. Each of those have their own formulas, with their own user inputs.

And then, I need to have one of those. We chose MCA, to drive the main formula for breaker rating, if none of these other values were correct. So all of the other values need to push up into MCA, in order to drive back down into MOCP. So when you're starting out doing formulas, start simple. Just build on it. These families literally took us years. I think one of them I've been working on-- the air terminals and VAV boxes, I started probably about seven years ago. And they just keep growing. Take small steps, it's fine.

So now we get into lookup tables. How many people use lookup tables? Just a few. So lookup tables have been historically only used for fittings-- pipe and duct fittings. Give us a length, give us an angle. But we can use them to return any number value, that we can turn into another value. We can take a [? unitless ?] number, multiply it by 1. Now we've got a unit we can use in our parameter. We can also take parameters, divided them by 1, remove those units, and use them in that lookup table.

So we can use them also to check or uncheck the yes-no parameter. Or we can use a yes-no parameter to check and uncheck the value. So you can maybe start giving rooftop unit options. Does it have an energy wheel? Does it have a hood? Does it have exhaust? And then, start maybe driving a model number, because we can start pulling text from it as well.

And we can use more than one lookup table. Our air terminal, I believe, has three. Correct? So a lot of information in those.

Lookup table file type is a CSV versus a TXT. So if you're trying to do a type catalog, you're going to export, and get a TXT. There are step-by-step instructions on how to export out of your family, to create the lookup table in the handout. We don't have time to talk about it here.

So to use a lookup table, here's our formula, right at the top-- the parameter that you want to drive. And then we have size lookup. That's our function. Lookup table name-- we drive that. You can have lookup table name 1, lookup table name 2, lookup table name 3. That's a text parameter. And then in quotes you have the parameter name, or the name of the column that you're looking for.

And again, default value, right after that. Unlike any of our other conditional statements, where it usually comes at the end, lookup table formulas put it right up at the front-- because we can start at column B and keep going. There's no limit to how many columns we can call. And when we're all done, we multiply it by one unit, to get our value.

So as I mentioned, the column callouts progress from left to right, starting at column B, and going all the way to the right. They don't need to reference another parameter. They can actually just be a number value. I learned that the hard way. And then some of the novel uses that we have for lookup tables, toggling that yes-no parameter. The big one is going to be text. So we can return that text. And the key here, using that same formula in our quotes, they're empty quotes. And that's going to return-- let me get to that here. That's going to return our column A, if you use empty quotes.

So we can start populating this column with your model number, and all of your options following that. And that's going to give you that column. It can be whatever you want.

I was super excited when I found that out. Thanks, Google.

[LAUGHTER]

And then I'll turn it over Blake, to talk about the multi motors.

BLAKE GUITHER: So you know, we worked on this motor family, and then we talked about this VAV box. But I wanted to take it a step further. So there's a lot of pieces of equipment that have multiple motors in them. This is very common. Rooftop units-- you know, any package piece of equipment, where you've got compressors, fans, whatever.

So this is kind of a concatenated version of the formulas that we've used. I wanted to be able to take it one step further for electrical. So if we have more than one motor, are they going to have to go on plug in all these inputs, and do all this or that? Or can I calculate that for them. So that's what the goal was.

These are the formulas that we use. And let's take a look at the family now. I guess this would be an example of a family. So when Jon and I worked on this, we essentially made this motor family, and made it function, with all of those electrical calculations, how we wanted it to. And then basically, I engulfed that into some of these mechanical families. So we wanted electrical to have the same functionality and workflow, whether they're in a linked model, or whether they're in the shared-MEP model. So it all looks the same to them. And that's kind of how this piece came about.

So I would consider this-- me personally, on the mechanical side-- one of the more complex mechanical pieces of equipment out there. A DOAS system, where you have energy recovery. You've got multiple air streams, multiple fans. You know, you have package [? dx,- ?] usually, or a whole lot of things that this unit could have-- whole lot of motors. Let's take a look at what we can do.

So this one's a water-source heat pump-- DOAS units set up on the roof. As you can see, we have a lot of our same inputs that we've already been talking about. So we really wanted to make this look and feel all the same to electrical.

However now, we have a couple new pieces. So if we scroll down-- me, I wanted to get to the point where we could ignore inputs for a moment. And now let's see what we can do with this family. So we have this calculated FLA, and this calculated MCA. So this was me building those values for electrical, that they could use or not use. But it'd give them a starting point.

So our DD documents, what are we doing? We're quantifying your quantities and motor powers. That's what we're doing, to price out our equipment. So I want to be able to use that information at a very early stage in a project, to get to an apparent load very early on.

So let's just say we have a couple of compressors in this unit. We have an RLA value-- a running load-amp value. Just say we plug in 20 amps. So just like that, the first component's entered. We now have a calculated FLA, and a calculated MCA. We also have a largest motor-multiplier value, that allows electrical to manipulate what that factor is, for MCI on the largest motor.

So, supply air stream-- we've got two motors. We've got 15 horsepower. So we have this any NEC table now. It's not just an electrical motor family thing. We have that in our mechanical-equipment family. So as mechanical starts plugging in their quantities and powers, we're able to get a full-load amp rating for those given motors. So motor FLA right there-- 21 amps.

We built in some functionality for electronically commutated motors, which doesn't use that lookup table. So when mechanical checks that box, which shows up in our schedules, we're not going to that NEC table 430 to return the full-load amps. You need to put in a value there, from the manufacturer, from another source.

Secondary air streams-- so we've got some exhaust fans. Let's say there's two there, and we've got 10 horsepower. You could have a heating element, control panel and interlocks. That's kind of a large piece that gets missed in some of these electrical-load calculations. I shouldn't say a large piece. But let's say it's 5 amps.

So what we're left with is a calculated FLA and MCA, from a DD-level effort, that electrical can use. So they, of course, have inputs still. They can override any of these values. But the whole idea was to streamline that information between mechanical and electrical. And that's what this type of functionality is meant to showcase.

So we have a motor schedule here that kind of summarizes some of these calculations. The second line here is that DOAS unit, that I just placed. We use some color coding in these types of schedules, which we do a lot of times, to help designers and users get to where they can override information. So in this case, blue columns are inputs or overrides. So we could input any of those values. Here's the secondary fans-- sorry, we've got a cropped line right through that. So a secondary fan, we're getting the full-load amps. Auxiliary motor, maybe that's the condenser fans, compressor motor, electric heat.

And then, essentially, we're left with this is kind of the electrical world, all right? So what have they got? What can they override? And a lot of things like that. The one last trick that we've been doing with these families is with a shared-nested family, which is very similar to our motor family. So in this case, if this unit had two circuits-- so include circuit 2. I don't know if you guys can see this here. So who knows much about shared-nested connectors? Anyone? OK, sweet.

So shared-nested connectors allows you to have a second primary connector at a given family. So we can check this box. And we're turning on now another family, that is in this family, that contains another connector. So just by turning that on you have another row that just appeared right below this. So this is that one parameter that I'm using. So if this was a motor schedule, essentially this would represent the second circuit for a large piece of equipment.

But now you have one family that can be circuited twice, without having to place another family. So you're keeping the information consistent. You don't have two pieces of information anymore. You don't have to edit unit number twice, and make sure that those stay coordinated throughout the life of a project.

JON ATKINSON: So that is the bulk of it. Really, what I wanted to close with is make sure that you build those families. Get those formulas in there. Start small, grow on it. I just showed you everything I learned in the last 11 years. That's it. Any questions? Yes?

AUDIENCE: You spent a lot of time [INAUDIBLE] I just wondered, how you address concerns about revolving content? Do you just wait a little bit longer [INAUDIBLE]?

JON ATKINSON: So, how do we address concerns about ever-evolving content, and is this going to basically become obsolete?

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE] obsolete?

JON ATKINSON: Yeah.

AUDIENCE: Or are you concerned that [INAUDIBLE] are--

JON ATKINSON: Absolutely. But when they offered Revit MEP there was no content. We had to build it. Are there people out there making content? Absolutely, there is. We do it all the time.

But if Autodesk chooses to come out with families like this, that offer this sort of coordination, I'm all in. But they haven't. And that's not a dig on them. That's just not their focus. They do the software. We figure everything else out. Yes?

AUDIENCE: Have you come up with any obvious ways [INAUDIBLE]?

JON ATKINSON: How-- of?

AUDIENCE: So automatically holding those [INAUDIBLE]

AUDIENCE: Automatically-- OK, the question is, have we come up with a way to automatically--

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

JON ATKINSON: In a linked model?

AUDIENCE: Yeah.

JON ATKINSON: No.

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

JON ATKINSON: Yeah. Copy Monitor won't update it.

AUDIENCE: Can't [INAUDIBLE]?

JON ATKINSON: If you use Dynamo, you would still have to run it. There's no fully automated, every time there's an update.

AUDIENCE: Can you Copy/Monitor?

JON ATKINSON: Can you Copy/Monitor?

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE] Copy/Monitor [INAUDIBLE] Can you change that [INAUDIBLE] to [INAUDIBLE] on that?

JON ATKINSON: If I Copy/Monitor that stuff? Yes. If I copy monitor the mechanical equipment, I can choose all of those families, and swap that out for that electrical-motor family. And then it won't bring in any of the identity data, as far as MARK and TYPE MARK. But I can still schedule that, and just make sure that I've labeled everything accurately. Yeah?

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE] in terms of the workflow, [INAUDIBLE]

JON ATKINSON: What's a good workflow for legacy files?

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE] for 11 years, or seven years, there's obviously iteration to that [INAUDIBLE]. Do you just literally--

JON ATKINSON: It depends on where in the project I am. If I'm early enough in my project, I'll definitely swap those families in.

AUDIENCE: Well, we have a history of repeat customers where [INAUDIBLE]. And it's basically the same [INAUDIBLE] upgraded and changed over and--

JON ATKINSON: As long as your shared parameters haven't changed, you're fine. Once you start, oh yeah, we updated all the shared parameters, and now you push them in, all your schedules are broken.

BLAKE GUITHER: Or tags, or--

JON ATKINSON: Right.

AUDIENCE: How do you deal with [INAUDIBLE]

JON ATKINSON: Right.

AUDIENCE: Because they're a customer.

JON ATKINSON: How do you deal with vendor or manufacturer created content?

AUDIENCE: Yeah. Or like how [INAUDIBLE].

JON ATKINSON: There's a couple of ways you can do it. One way is to nest those families in to a base family, that has all your parameters ready to go. And then you just map those parameters back to that nested family.

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]? Or you guys are creating all your--

JON ATKINSON: You can.

BLAKE GUITHER: Yeah. I've actually done a lot of development on that side. And this host-family functionality, there's a lot you can do with that. So if you had a family that has all your parameters, has all your formulas, does everything you want it to do, you could nest the mechanical family from the manufacturer in there-- and use that for geometry only. So you could control it with visibility, for a given type. Or you could use a label, to cycle through different shared-nested manufactured families.