Just started using PlantSpace Design Series XM 08.09.04.17. I like some of the new changes in Raceway, like the ladder cable tray, however my horizontal and vertical fittings doesn't draw with "rungs" like the straight sections of tray. This makes for a very unprofessional looking presentation in the model. It looks as if we made a mistake or that our software is not as sophisticated as other software used by our competetion. Is this something that will be addressed in a several of years with the next version, or do we go back to using the solid tray even though in real life that is not what we are using?
TIA
Hi Mike,
I'm glad to hear you like the new tray modeling capabilities in PSDS 8.9.4.17. I'm sure you will be equally happy with some of the additional routing and placement tools that will be in the 8.9.4.34 release coming out next week.
I appreciate your comment about the rungs and understand the appearance while not being completely pleasing is accurate for design and construction purposes. We had a bit of a trade-off regarding providing new routing tools and spec driven tray capabilities versus adding all the rungs to the tray fittings for this release.
We will certainly take your comments back to our developement team and put them in as a feature request for upcoming releases.
Cheers,
Ian Robinson
In a past life, I was on the electrical design side of things. For the life of me, I can not think of one instance or circumstance in which I'd even want to see tray rungs, either in the model or on a drawing. Then again, I've seen people model facets on nuts and bots. Often, we have to remind ourselves, around here anyway, that the level of modeling effort/detail need only produce an effective deliverable, be it an orthographic drawing, interferance report, or visualization.
Respectfully, I would argue that there is little or no "ROI" (learned that term from Bentley) when it comes to tray rungs. It costs me in terms of added geometry/cpu time, orthographics drawing vectors, and even ink.
Not having seen it myself, is there some re-symbolization that can take place, eliminating the rungs?
Jeff
Hi Jeff,
While I agree to a certain extent about the extra time and cost of having high levels of detail are concerned there is value in detailed representation of certain components.
As far as re-symbolization to remove rungs the easiest thing to do is not use that tray type.
Ian
Ian,
One other problem to look at before the next version comes out is that if I draw a piece of tray ≈ 200' long it will not maintain a constant elevation (e.g. I start at 68' elevation and the end is at 67'-11 7/16") this varies by length of tray but consistantly downnill. Maybe since I am now using solid bottom tray PlantSace want it to drain ? Played with the "Placement Settings" - "Align Tolerance" with no effect. I have even drawin a line with both ends at the 68' elevation and snapped to both ends when placing the tray and still get the same results. I have no view rotation, design file settings accuracy to 1/16". Not a huge deal, but when you check the elevation to label the tray it is wrong.
[V8i SS4 08.11.09.829, BRCM, Promis-e, OpenPlant Modeler, OpenPlant PID, STAAD, RAM, ProSteel, InRoads, FlowMaster, Map, PondPack, StormCAD, Descartes]
What version are you using? I just placed a 200' long tray using PSDS 8,.9.4.34 and the beginning and ending elevtations are identical. Hopefully this has been resolved with this version.