Forums >> Revit Building >> Technical Support >> Help - New door family error

RFarley

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Joined: Wed, Sep 26, 2007
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I am using RAC 2008 and working through the tutorial on creating a door family. I created a metal door family with panic hardware applying what I had learned in the tutorial. My door family works fine when placed in a wood wall, but when I try to place it in a masonry wall I get the error; "Can't create family". Other door families work in the various wall types, so I must be missing something.

My second question on this door family is this; after creating the left and right panic hardware plate and actuators I dimensioned them and flexed the design. They adjusted to the door width just fine, but when I added dimensions to the height of the hardware from top or bottom of door I get a "Can't satisfy constraints."  

Please advise.

Thanks 

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RFarley

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Joined: Wed, Sep 26, 2007
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Hmm. Lots of helpful replies to my thread so far.

Like so many issues that come up when someone is self-taught like I am, one gets very frustrated. Tutorials are great as long as you stick with the simple, generic subject matter. Deviate by trying to take the subject to the next level and there are no trouble-shooting suggestions.

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JAMESHGRIMES

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I will help as much as I can. It doesn't matter what material the wall is. What matters is how the family reacts to different thicknesses of wall. In order to test this you will need to flex the wall thickness in the door family. When you get the "Can't create family" error it usually means by placing the item in a particular host the result would be geometrically impossible, so you need to make sure the family has no issues with wall thickness before inserting into a project. If the family is done properly it should be able to be placed in any thickness of wall.

As for your second question I would guess that by dimensioning the object you have overconstrained the object. Check to make sure nothing else is constraining the items or reference items. This may take some doing.

Let us know how your progress goes. Also post pictures, families, or anything else that will better help us understand the problem. I haven't found many problems that somebody wasn't able to work out in some way.

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RFarley

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Thanks for the reply. I am not sure  how to show you what I have created other than attach its file. If there is a better way, such as a thumbnail screenshot let me know. I'm new at this.

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RFarley

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Here is the original door family I created by following the tutorial that comes with Revit. As you can see there are fewer constraints. However, this family still gives me the "Can't create family" error when loaded.

I will examine this to see if I can figure out what is wrong in  the mean time. 

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NKramer

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Joined: Tue, Oct 9, 2007
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I tried adding in new wall types and managed to break the family. See attached for a screen shot of what the problems are. It mostly has to do with some symbolic lines and 2 dimensions. I dont have the time to go through and figure it all out now but try redrawings your symbolic lines on the attached file and then flexing the wall. Make sure that you lock the symbolic lines to reference planes and not the opening or door mass (hover over and wait a second, it will tell you what you are going to lock the object to, if it is not what you want then tab through the stached objects)

Also a quick thought on your dimension problems. I have found that Revit does not like to have dimensions in multiple views (ie Door Height in front elevation and a similar dim, labeled or not, in side elevation). This seems to over constrain the model for some reason... So double check your constraints and let us know what you find out.

HTH

Nick

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JAMESHGRIMES

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I confirm Nkramer's post. I quickly tested the family and got the same errors. I tend to make reference planes for thing I want to constrain and lock the items to those planes. Revit seem to work better with reference planes than locking geometry and dimensions to other geometry.

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RFarley

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Thanks for the suggestions. Following your advice I removed the lock constraint on the work plane that the tutorial called for on the exterior door opening. That seemed to fix the problem. I can bring the family into a project without the error and flex the wall thickness just fine. The symbolic lines of the door show up too. The only minor issue is that the door hardware is in the center of the wall while the door symbolic lines are at the exterior edge of the wall.

I have to ask; are there any good "trouble-shooting" tutorials to teach me what to look for when these problems arise? 

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NKramer

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I dont know what tutorial you are useing but a few basic rules of thumb are:

Draw all of your Refence Planes first

Never constrain one object to another (use ref planes)

Dimension, eq, etc. your planes and then flex them

After you are sure that all of your planes and dimensions work then start drawing your geometry.

    I scoffed at the idea of having to flex at every step when I first started but as I get deeper into families I find that it really is nessisary. Otherwise you find out that your last half hour or more's worth of work is pointless. In general I create a dummy project with a few different walls and place the new family in there for final testing. If it passes in the dummy project then I will load it into my actual project, if not then you dont mess anything up. Patience, time and a lot of research is required to really get your head around things. I think that I am finally starting to get there (I just finally figured out shared parameters to there full extent a few weeks ago).

Also dont forget tags and schedules. You can create the best family ever but if you cant tag or schedule out the information you put into the family then its basically useless. 

HTH

Nick 

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