Making a connector

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PRESENTER: In this course, we will create an item connector.

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This is part of item creation for fabrication

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and the first step in connectors.

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I figured the best way to show you

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how to build a connector is to show you

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a project I'm working on and we build a connector together.

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This is the Evans press lock stainless steel fitting.

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And on this 90-degree elbow, we're

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going to build this connector.

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Go ahead and right-click on the item,

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edit, go to the Other tab.

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See, there are no connectors.

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On this arrow, if you select that,

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it will take you into the connector database.

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On the connector database, we're going to select the New button.

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We're going to name our connector.

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The next cell type--

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we want to set that to the pipework.

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All of the other settings we will leave.

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But let's select Breakpoints, Draw Information.

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And this is where we will enter our connector dimensions.

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The first cell is a diameter.

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We're going to set that to a half-inch.

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Extension, we're going to leave that is zero.

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The snap offset-- what that is?

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You bring the PDF over here.

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If we Zoom in on this, we can see

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that it gives you an I dimension and that is the insertion

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depth of the pipe.

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That is the snap offset.

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For this 90-- it is 0.8.

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Now, the snap offset works like this--

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a positive number makes it go away from the fitting.

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And a negative number brings it back into the fitting.

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And because the pipe is going in, it'll be a negative number.

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Also, what has to happen is it has to be twice the amount

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that you wanted to go back in.

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So our 0.08 is to be a negative 0.16.

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The thickness, that is going to be the thickness of the body.

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The way I had to get that is I had

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to contact the manufacturer because it's not

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on any of their documentation.

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They sent me a SAT file, I brought it in,

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and I pulled the dimensions myself.

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The thickness of the half-inch is 0.606.

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The length as that I dimension of 0.8.

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The body is set back, we're just going to leave it where it is.

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The swaged setback-- what the swage is,

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that's going to be this flare.

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And because the flare is on the end,

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we need to set it back because the flare starts here.

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And we need to move it all the way back the entire length.

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And once again that's going to be a negative number, which

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can be negative 0.8.

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Now, the switch length, that's this thickness.

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The thickness of it that I got from the SAT file is 0.806.

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But on the swage length, you have

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to subtract the outside diameter of the pipe.

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And this is tubing, so we're going to subtract a half-inch.

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So this is going to be 306.

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We click out back in and we can start

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to see what we're looking like.

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Now, it doesn't quite look like this but let's go ahead

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and click OK because we have our dimensions in.

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Click Close and then we want to go to the drawing button

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in the toolbar at the top.

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In this, we have some more options.

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If we double-click on the press lock connector

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that we've started, we can see more options.

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We can change the color or connectivity.

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We're going to call that orbital.

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We're going to leave the End Type as standard,

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but we're going to change the extension includes diameter

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to yes.

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This would be better label thickness includes

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diameter instead of extension.

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Let me show you what I mean.

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This 0.606, that's the thickness of this whole body.

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We wanted to include the diameter

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because if we said that is no, here's

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what it's going to look like.

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It is putting this thickness saying

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that 0.606 is this thick.

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Go back in.

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Change that to include the diameter.

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Now, it's showing the thickness all the way across is 6.06.

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We can have the connector to the other side, redraw,

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and now, we have it just for that size.

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So let's go ahead and get the calculations

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for all the other sizes.

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The best way to do that is to get an Excel spreadsheet

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to do the calculations for us.

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In the PDF, we have the I numbers.

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So I took a spreadsheet, I put in the size

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and/or I dimension, and then, from the SAT files,

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I pulled the body thickness in the flare diameter

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for each size.

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Now, in Excel, you can do a table.

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And we can do our calculations.

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Because we know the length, we can tell to equal that cell.

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We can tell our snap offset to be the length times negative 2.

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The thickness to equal our thickness

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in our sewage to equal the flare diameter minus the pipe

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diameter.

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And if you do that on the table, you can drag it down

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and it'll calculate all the sizes for you.

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And we can select the body, copy, come back to our item,

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edit the connector by double-clicking, breakpoints,

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and now, we can paste them in.

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And you can see that our

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We don't need two of them.

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So we'll delete that.

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Now, we have each size.

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Click OK.

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Close.

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And OK.

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And now, we have our connector for all the sizes.