AutoCAD Plant 3D – Add a new type of Piping Connection

By Andy Davis

General

AutoCAD Plant 3D comes with many catalogues of piping fittings having various types of connection, buttweld, socketweld and threaded for example. However, not all types of connection are available. It may, therefore, be necessary to define a new type of connection for a specific family of fittings.

Let’s look at how we might define a new type of connection to enable us to model Lokring fittings.

A connection to a Lokring fitting is made by inserting an almost square-cut pipe into the fitting and then compressing the joint using the fitting tool. No additional fasteners are required.

Define Endcode

To identify the Lokring connection, we will create the endcode LK.

To do this, we run the command PlantEndCodes from the AutoCAD command line inside Plant 3D and choose the Add option, as shown below.

Create Piping Connection Setting

Now that we have defined the endcode, we can create a piping connection setting to enable us to connect the Lokring endcode to a plain pipe endcode, PL.

Here, we create the new simple joint Lokring Connection under Piping Connection Settings in Project Setup:

The Lokring Connection is saved within the DefaultConnectorsConfig.xml file as follows:

<Joint Name="LokringConnection">
<IsImperialMetric>false</IsImperialMetric>
<OffsetTolerance>0</OffsetTolerance>
<SlopeTolerance>0</SlopeTolerance>
<FittingElements />
<JointElements>
<JointElement PartType="Universal">
<Queries />
<PortOut>S2</PortOut>
<PortIn>S1</PortIn>
<Filter>NominalDiameter=E1.NominalDiameter</Filter>
</JointElement>
</JointElements>
<OptionalMatchCondition />
<MatchCondition>E1.NominalDiameter=E2.NominalDiameter</MatchCondition>
<PartTypes2 />
<PartTypes1 />
<EndConditions2>
<EndCondition>PL</EndCondition>
</EndConditions2>
<EndConditions1>
<EndCondition>LK</EndCondition>
</EndConditions1>
<Description>Lokring Connection</Description>
</Joint>

Update Isometric Style Settings

For our Lokring fittings to be shown correctly on an Isometric fabrication drawing, we must add our new connection type with endcode LK into the IsoSkeyAcadBlockMap.xml file.  Here we specify that the AutoCAD block “Press” is to be used to show the connection to our fittings on an iso.

The EndTypeMap definition of our endcode is:

<EndTypeMap SKEY="LK" AcadBlock="Press"/>

Finally, if we want to show the correct pipe end preparation in the cut piece list table on an iso, we must add the pipe connection type LK to the appropriate IsoConfig.xml file.

The definition of our connection is:

<Item Key="LK" Value="Square cut" />