MagiCAD Product Data Specialist Jarno Järveläinen takes us behind the scenes of the development process of the recently added Radiator connection set feature in MagiCAD for Revit and AutoCAD and explains how the feature makes a dramatic difference when connecting radiators.
“If it was easy we would have already done it”. A colleague of mine is fond of this saying and it applies very well to the development of the Radiator connection set feature. According to our developers, this has possibly been our most complex product feature from a coding perspective. It was far from easy, but we made it anyway.
Development
The biggest challenge in developing the Radiator connection set feature was that it required supporting something outside the normal operations of Autodesk Revit. We wanted to pursue it, however, as there was a lot of demand for the feature from many different market areas.
When we started investigating connection sets, we realised that Revit does not propagate systems through connection sets because it interprets that the pipes are not directly connected to any mechanical equipment or piping fixture. This means that a radiator that is connected to a radiator connection set is not assigned to a system and, as a result, not included in calculations. This issue was eventually resolved with the help of our own Change system function, which allowed us to automatically add systems to radiators when they are connected with a connection set, which in turn enabled network calculations.
Benefits of radiator connection sets
When radiators are assigned to systems, a radiator and a radiator connection set can be easily installed together in the same way as radiator valves previously. The adjustment values for the radiator can be defined with the Balancing function and later used on-site to balance the radiator network. All the items included in a radiator connection set, including product codes and amounts, are also included in Bill of Materials (BOM) listings after the network is ready.
Manufacturer and custom connection sets
Radiator connection sets can be created from manufacturer products simply by combining a mechanical frame and a suitable valve. The frame and valve combinations can be saved and then installed together. Manufacturers can also supply ready radiator connection sets based on their products and many have already included connection sets to their offering in MagiCAD Cloud.
If there are no localized or manufacturer products available for a needed radiator connection set, you can always use our creator tool MagiCAD Create to create custom frames and valves.
No need to search, configure and install each component individually. Simply select a radiator and a connection set and let MagiCAD handle the rest!
