So, the routes I have done in the past with ball valves (or any valves), I have drawn the route, then inserted the ball valve in as a part. This makes it difficult to make changes because I aligned the valve using mates. Funny how this can cause a rats nest of parts with no undo.
We only use welded pipe and all rf weld necks. What is the easiest way to place a ball valve in a route? Draw the route with the rf flange, then insert the valve? Ive noticed that all of the tutorial videos place a flanged valve into a pipe with a split line. The mating flange is non existent, or the flange might be a slip on with pipe in each end.
I tried using the flanged check valve. I inserted the check valve to the route, but I cannot simply add the rf weld neck flanges that will mate with the flanges on the valve.
I attached a screen shot of a route where I inserted the part file of a ball valve I downloaded. Again, the valve was inserted as a part. Can someone please explain the simplest way to draw this with the ball valve saved as a library part with connection and route points?
Do you guys treat each flange to flange weldment as a seperate route?
I believe once I get past this simple task of adding a valve with mating rfwn flanges, I will have a nice head start.
Monty,
If you haven't done so yet, try to get the solidworks routing training by your VAR. It should explain some basic concepts as well as help you figure out what is needed and what not in a design table for routing parts.
to the matter at hand :
1. give your valve part an Rpoint in the center, and a Cpoint on either end on the FOF. Don't forget to add the 'Axis of rotation' and having an Axis called 'Vertical' as the very last entity in it's feature manager.
2. in theory the weld neck flanges, or whatever kind you want to use, should be able to be dragged and dropped on the route with automatically snapping on the flanges of the valve . Look at the standard flanges provided with the program to see how it's build.
3. you could also set up the part so that it comes with it's own pre-counter flanges so that you don't just drop the valve on the route but the valve and the duo of flanges. For this you might want to look into 'Assembly Cpoints.'
4. Treating each flange to flange weldement as a separate route is not a bad thing however and can make life much easier once you get to making the drawings with BOM's. Especially seeing that the spoolpieces functionality was still not fully prime time in 2017SP5 (haven't tested it yet in 2018). Truth be told, I only used it once during the 2017 versions the reason being that I found a glaring bug with it in my first route.
5. Another way to insert a valve is to leave the necessary gap between two flanges for the valve while still having both what happens before the valve and after the valve in one route. See link :https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J3oFyLxn24k
6. Or having the 'spoolpieces' as sub routes in one route (= having several pipe asm's in one main ISO asm) or even as entirely separated routes (=having separate ISO asm's for each separate route). This way if for instance the type of valve changes, it's far less of a hassle to adjust the route because it's removing the old valve and adjusting distance between valves before or after inserting the new valve. If you use a perpendicular construction line to determine the mid point of the valve you can use dimensions to control that line and there for the valve and even the orientation of the valve (handle on top, on the side, on the bottom....) just as one would do to determine if an Exec.Red. would be flat on top or flat on bottom.
Hope the above helps you at all or gives you some ideas.
Have a nice one
Peter
PS:
On a side note, in that youtube it also demonstrates the problem, as I see it, with the automatic Iso drawing. Just look at the dimensions and you'll immediately see that they are nonsensical whenever it involves flanges. There's no self respecting piping designer that I know of that would give you the dimension to the back of the flange instead of the face. Which is why I never bothered with that at all.