Symetri
An overview of the new features and updates in Revit MEP 2021
For Revit MEP 2021, I am pleased to say there has been another focus on electrical design with particular attention paid to electrical distribution. Also, the long awaited circuit naming to UK standards has finally arrived, with an easy to use, easy to set up method of customising this important aspect of working with electrical circuits and panel schedules in Revit MEP.
Circuit naming to UK standards has been at the top of many users wish list, with different work arounds devised to address this area. I am really pleased to say that the 2021 release of Revit MEP now includes a flexible way to customise circuit naming.
Electrical Setting contains a new feature called Circuit Naming. Here the electrical designer can create a new scheme, with an appropriate name, and choose from a list of properties to be included in that scheme, much the same as creating a schedule or customised tag. The available properties and set up are shown below.
Once the scheme has been created, it can be applied to a panel or switch board, from the Circuit Naming parameter, it then becomes the naming scheme for panel schedules and can also be used in tags.
Although it was previously possible to add panel schedules to drawing sheets, the only way to check which panels were on which sheets was to open each of the drawing sheets and check. Revit MEP 2021 has made this task much easier by adding panel schedules to the list of other views seen on each sheet found under the Sheets heading of the project browser.
Revit MEP 2021 allows the electrical designer to choose which phase of a switchboard a single phase panel will be connected to. Previously these would all default to the first phase on the switchboard with no way of changing that arrangement. Switch Phases is a new feature specifically designed to address this and allows the electrical designer to select any single phase load on a switchboard panel schedule and to move it to a different phase.
The property Maximum Number of Single Pole Breakers found on panels and switchboards determined the number of slots available within the respective board. For switchboards this proved to be a problem as 3-phase circuits only took up one row on the panel schedule giving an inaccurate view of the number of available slots. A switchboard with a value of 12 for the maximum number of single pole breakers would become full after adding four 3-phase loads, while the switchboard panel schedule would show only the first four rows as occupied, possibly giving the appearance of available capacity.
For switchboards this property has been changed to Maximum Number of Circuits so that the number of circuits created now correspond with the number of rows occupied on the switchboard panel schedule.
Two specific areas have been addressed in Revit MEP 2021 for single phase circuits and panel schedules.
Previously:
The first point has been addressed In Revit MEP 2021 so that all single phase loads now connect to the same phase on a distribution board. Secondly, when editing a panel schedule template, the previous option to hide or disable the third phase has been replaced with hide or disable columns for unused phases, meaning that schedules for single phase panels now only show the connected phase.
When adding a spare into a panel schedule in previous versions of Revit MEP it would have been represented by a dash in the Frame Size column. This was because there was no frame size parameter for Spares. For Revit MEP 2021 this has been updated so that the frame value is now displayed against spares added to your panel schedule and that value can be amended in the spare’s properties.
Watch our video below to see these new features and updates in action:
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