EastCoast CAD/CAM News
A New Beginning
Introduction
Dear Customer,
On behalf of EastCoast I want you to know how much we appreciate your perseverance and support over the past few years as we reestablish EastCoast as the leading provider of HVAC and Piping fabrication software.
I definitely have some exciting company news for you.
This newsletter is our official announcement that our jointly developed HVAC and Piping venture with Autodesk is ready to be released. Fabrication for AutoCAD MEP will be available to customers who have pre-purchased the solution on Friday, October 17th. You can read details about our new solution, Fabrication for AutoCAD MEP from the product brochure found on our website www.eccadcam.com
This is a defining moment in the company’s thirty-year history as there has never been a more important product release for EastCoast CAD/CAM. It represents a huge commitment and partnership between Autodesk and EastCoast. Together, we are bringing an entirely new way of designing and detailing HVAC and Piping to Autodesk’s AutoCAD and Revit MEP CAD development platforms. One of the most notable aspects of this release is that it’s the first 100% BIM (Building Information Modeling) compliant solution in the industry for contractors. EastCoast’s fabrication solution is fully embedded inside of AutoCAD MEP. Our Revit MEP release is not available at this time but it is under development. Most important, however, is that the architecture supporting a migration path between the two MEP platforms is simple and is already in place. This one functional element provides contractors with the confidence and a migration path that ensures that their investment today will support their processes for years to come.
As always, I am happy to hear from you, with any of your questions, concerns or comments.
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NavisWorks
As an Autodesk Reseller, EastCoast has been upgraded to sell and distribute Autodesk® NavisWorks® software. Our sales organization is very excited to be able to now offer the full Autodesk construction software solution to our contractor-base customers.
Autodesk’s highly regarded visualization software solution enables project design and contractors to unite their contributions into a single, synchronized building information model. By enabling team members to reliably share, combine, review, and perfect detailed 3D design models of any size or format, Autodesk NavisWorks solutions along with AutoCAD MEP and Fabrication for AuitoCAD MEP represent everything that is needed to support a building information modeling (BIM) workflow.
One of the benefits of buying your Autodesk products directly from EastCoast or one of our Authorized resellers is that you’ll deal directly with a single source for support and for the complete solution. For more details on Navisworks or any of our HVAC or Piping products, contact sales@eccadcam.com
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EastCoast CAD/CAM Technical Customer Support
Continual Improvement –
Starting three months ago, EastCoast CAD/CAM’s technical customer service department began an aggressive internal continual improvement process to improve the quality and timeliness of how it supports its customers. What this means is that the old way of providing customer support has been replaced by a new fully renovated system and process that is gauged and judged by customer satisfaction in both the time it takes to respond to an issue as well as the quality of the resolution provided. At the conclusion of every customer incident, a full resolution is sent to the customer to make sure that the resolution to the incident is documented for the customer and the customer is satisfied with the resolution. Needless to say, as a customer receiving an incident closure (with completed resolution) we need your feedback if you are not satisfied or do not believe that the issue is resolved.
If you have any suggestions, comments or opinions about our customer support, positive or negative please let us know.
Returning to our Support Team –
We couldn’t be happier to let you know that Patsy Dipaola has returned to our Customer Support Group. He brings with him years of on-the-job sheet metal fabrication experience. Patsy has worked in the sheet metal business since 1994. He was a sheet metal sketcher in New York and Connecticut using EastCoast products since 1998. Customers won’t find a more knowledgeable sheet metal professional in any support organization in the industry. He knows sheet metal fabrication and EastCoast fabrication products. He’s very excited about the new changes inside the company especially our new release, Fabrication for AutoCAD MEP. With his real life experiences with EastCoast’s software he’s confidant that he’ll be able to help you and your organization be successful. For those of you who have worked with Patsy in the past feel free to shoot him an email to say hi.
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New Update to DuctMaker Version 1.1
Version 1.1 of DuctMaker is being released at the same time as Fabrication for AutoCAD MEP. The primary reason for the same day release is that a big piece of the DuctMaker release is the 1:1 mapping and synchronization of our new CAD Fabrication software with our CAM solution. Basically, every duct fitting that can be created inside of AutoCAD MEP will be able to be downloaded and fabricated inside of DuctMaker.
Additional functionality in this release includes:
- Liner compensation
- A vastly improved and streamlined Set-up process for including individualized shop specific specs and allowances
- New nesting algorithm for faster and more efficient nesting
- Bug fixes (see product release notes for details).
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Upcoming National and Regional Conventions
 SMACNA –Maui, Hawaii Oct 19 -23 – EastCoast and Autodesk are jointly demonstrating this complete lifecycle CAD solution. Sheet metal contractors wishing to see first hand how this remarkable solution will advance and change the way contractors design and fabricate future construction projects should contact, Contact sales@eccadcam.com
 SMACNA NY November 12 - New Yorker Hotel, New York City – Todd Etna, EastCoast CAD/CAM’s National Sales Manager will be in the city and would enjoy the opportunity to demonstrate why we believe our joint Autodesk, EastCoast Fabrication Solution will be so successful for you and your organization.
 Autodesk University – Las Vegas, Nevada December 1st – 5th – Randy Swaim will be facilitating a 90 minute primary training lab on the values and benefits of fabricating on AutoCAD MEP. For more information on Autodesk University contact sales@eccadcam.com
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Training
EastCoast CAD/CAM provides a variety of Fabrication for AutoCAD MEP training venues that match whatever method of training that best fits your organization’s needs. Here are your choices
- Free hour-long weekly live webinars – sign up from EastCoast’s website http://www.eccadcam.com/company_webcast/signup.shtml
- Archived Webinars - Listen to Free earlier recorded webinars http://www.eccadcam.com/company_webcast/archive.shtml
- 3 – 2 Hour web-based Private Tutor Sessions – This Inexpensive private bundle of one-on-one web-based private sessions connects you online with an AutoCAD MEP expert who totally understands the needs of a contractor coming up to speed on AutoCAD MEP and Fabrication for AutoCAD MEP. You’ll find that this type of venue, that you can do from the office or at your home (without traveling) not only saves you and your company lots of money it also directly deals with your specific training needs making sure that your take away leaves you with the tools and the skills to incorporate this Single Fabrication Platform into your daily CAD detailing and processes.
- Formal Training Center Education – EastCoast continues to offer its formal in-house technical training for all of its tools including:
- Intro to Fabrication for AutoCAD MEP - 3-day lab and training
- Intermediate AutoCAD MEP – 2 day lab and training
- DuctMaker
- On-site Personalized Training – For larger organizations where it is more cost-effective to bring the training directly to its own personnel, EastCoast will deliver its Fabrication for AutoCAD MEP curriculum and professional instructors directly to your place of work.
For details and prices for all of the above programs please contact sales@eccadcam.com
Free Webinar five day, one hour/day Internet-based Web Training
Monday, October 27th to Friday October 31st
Every day at 2:00 – 3:00 est
Attendees must register online prior to training. Each attendee will be course training materials prior to each class
- Monday - Getting Started with AutoCAD MEP - Interface and Tool Overview
- Tuesday - HVAC & Piping Creation - Adding piping and duct to your drawing
- Wednesday - HVAC & Piping Modification - Modifying piping and duct designs
- Thursday – Mechanical and HVAC, Basic Annotation in AutoCAD MEP - Using annotation scale to add simple text, dimensions, tags, and labels
- Friday – Mechanical, Using AutoCAD MEP Schedules - Adding schedules and tags to your drawing and simple customization
November 11th – 13th in Littleton, Massachusetts – EastCoast CAD/CAM Training Center
Intro to AutoCAD MEP and Fabrication for AutoCAD MEP (3 days)
3 Day Training Outline:
- Creating an HVAC System
- Starting a Project.
- Drawing a Duct System
- HVAC Construction Documentation Display Properties
- Layout Preferences
- MEP Snaps
- Adding and Modifying HVAC Equipment
- Adding MvParts.
- Adding 1-Line Ducts and Fittings
- Verifying Connections between Objects
- Connect Equipment to a Duct System
- Sizing Ductwork Systems
- Adding Rigid Ductwork and Fittings
- Adding and Configuring Hangers
- Collision Detection between Crossed Objects
Introduction to AutoCAD MEP Training
Day 1
- Demo of AutoCAD MEP & ECCAD Fabrication Tools
- General Interface
- Ribbon/Pulldown menus/Menu browser
- Tool Palettes
- Workspaces
- Status Bar & Drawing Status Bar
- Mouse Settings (zoom extents, pan, right-click options)
- Display Configurations
- Layer Keys
- Properties Palette
- Quick Properties
- Dynamic Input
- Osnaps & MEP snaps
- MEP Compass
- Tool Tips
- Content Browser & Design Center
- Layouts
- Recover
- Blocks, MVblocks, MVparts
- Grips
- Options
- Setting up and saving your workspace and your personal profile
- Receiving files and starting a project: best methods for workflow
- Types of files, types of objects, insert vs. open vs. xref
- Using a template
- Brief overview of Systems and Preferences
Day 2
- Adding Duct
- Drawing a duct run
- Adding duct with grips
- Vertical duct
- Sloped duct
- Duct fittings
- Takeoffs
- Breaking duct
- Duct labels and flow labels
- Adding MVparts
- Duct layout preferences
- Modifying Duct
- Duct connectivity
- Changing duct elevation and size
- Modifying MVparts
- Breaking and merging duct
- Controlling display of duct
- Properties Palette Display Tab
- Display Configurations
- Adding & Modifying Piping
- Overview and comparison of duct and pipe design
- MVparts and systems specific to piping
- Piping system routing preferences
- Piping preferences
- Piping labels
Day 3
- Interference Checking
- Adding Annotation to your design
- Scaling Annotation
- Label Styles
- Tags
- Mtext & Text
- Dimensions
- Multileaders
- Creating an Elevation
- Brief Overview of Property Set Definitions
- Adding and simple modification of schedules
- Sharing drawings
- Proxy objects
- Export to AutoCAD
- Create .pdf
- DWF Files
- Purging drawings
- Plot & Publish
- Drawing Compare
Intermediate AutoCAD MEP –
Everything else you want to learn about in AutoCAD®MEP
Includes 2, one hour webcasts
Participation and ongoing support from the EastCoast Training Blog – “Space and Elevation”
Days 1-2
- Creating Construction Documents
- Creating and Managing Plotting Sheets
- Single line diagrams and schematics
- Annotating Drawings
- Annotation Data
- About Label Styles
- Adding and Modifying Tags
- Working with Schedules
- Property Set Definitions
- Process of Creating Schedule Tables
- Guidelines for Creating and Editing Schedule Tables
- Sections and Elevations
- Creating MvParts
- Modifying MvParts
- Using Paperspace and external references
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Tech Tip
Matt Dicken
If you've ever received drawings from someone else only to find that you are missing xref's, plot styles, images, or more then you'll appreciate eTransmit.
Autodesk's e-transmit
This feature has been available for several years, but only a handful of users seem to be aware of it.
From the File pulldown menu in AutoCAD MEP, you'll see eTransmit. The dialog boxes you get will depend on the version you have. This examples used in this help tip come from 2008. All versions have some similarities.
The beauty of eTransmit is that you create a .zip file that includes everything needed with a drawing in one easy step. You can even include other documents.
By default, there is only a Transmittal Setup named "Standard" which is basically how you package the drawing. . It's easy to customize and add your own preference setup, but in this help tip we’ll stay with standard..
Choose Transmittal Setups and then choose the Standard on the list and select Modify and you’ll be able to tell it what file format you want it saved to , you can tell the program where you want to save the file folder and there are 10-12 transmittal options below where you include all sorts of options.
Follow these four simple steps to bundle and to send the entire package of drawings, xref's, plot styles, images, etc.
- File Format: Choose from current to older file formats. Also, there are options to do an Export to AutoCAD functions for those using AutoCAD Architecture (ADT) or straight AutoCAD MEP (ABS).
- Maintain Visual Fidelity: If you are using the 2008 Annotative Scaling, each scale of annotation will be placed on separate layer for recipients using older version.
- Transmittal File Folder: Location where you want to find your .zip file.
- Transmittal Options: Consider putting all files in one folder if you have xref's. (It's also helpful to make sure your xref's are relative path.) Also, nice to "Set default plotter to 'none'". When the drawing is opened and plotted by someone else, the user won't get the dreaded error of your plotter not being found on their system.
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