The Cable packet function in MagiCAD for Revit unlocks many benefits and advantages in Electrical design from accurate cable length calculation to cable data and layout evaluation. Product development engineer Mika Pohjolainen explains the ins and outs of using cable packets.
From measurement to calculation with Cable packets
Calculating accurate cable lengths for supply cables can mean a lot of time-consuming work. With Revit functions this means manually defining a route, estimating offset lengths for each circuit and then selecting what to measure (longest branch length or total cable length).
With the Cable packet function in MagiCAD for Revit there is no need to define each supply cable separately. You can simply use draw a single cable packet for all the supply cables. connected circuits will then get their cable length information from the cable packet and both supply cable length and longest branch length are calculated automatically.
Every elevation and level change is automatically taken into account and the orthogonal lengths between the first device of a circuit and the cable packet connection point, as well as between the cable packet starting point and the supplying switchboard are added to circuit cable lengths for detailed accuracy.
Connecting circuits to a cable packet is simple. You need to simply link the first device of the circuit to the cable packet in one of three ways: with a logical connection from the device to the cable packet, by drawing a wire and making a logical connection from a wire tag, or by drawing a wire from the device to the packet.
Drawing made simple
Drawing a cable packet is like drawing a conduit, simply define a starting point and draw the cable packet “tree” to add cable lengths from every part of the switchboard supply area. However, since cable packets are often drawn along the same route as existing cable trays, this can mean duplicate work.
To avoid wasting time in repeating existing routes, MagiCAD lets you draw a cable packet automatically between a defined start and end-point. The cable packet will follow existing cable tray systems and in case there are gaps between segments, the function will simply identify other nearby cable trays and determine the best route to continue. The size of the gap that a cable packet is allowed to cross between segments can be freely defined.
Other benefits to using cable packets
Cable packets themselves offer many benefits with the data that is linked to them. You can tag the amounts and types of cables they contain, as well as the cable IDs. You can also view and tag the total width of the cables and the total area they take up in each segment. This requires that wire type properties have been set in the Wire Type Management tool.
With the Cable layout tool, you can assign cable packets to the cable trays that they follow. This allows you to visualize and evaluate the layout and distribution of the cables in the tray in a cross-section view. You can also divide the cables into separate slots—for example, according to systems—and see the filling ratio for each slot.
