Tutorials BimCraft help Walkthroughs
Connect pipes and ducts to equipment
Start or end a pipe or duct on a port so it takes the port's size and system and stays fixed to it, then check the connections — open ports, size and system mismatches, runs with no source.
Written for BimCraft 0.7.1. The same help is inside the app: press F1.
What you'll do
Join the runs to the equipment so the model is one connected system: a pump's outlet to the pipe that leaves it, a diffuser's neck to its branch duct. Then let BimCraft list what is not joined up.
Draw from a port
- Choose Pipe or Duct.
- Move the pointer onto a port of a piece of equipment (the small circles; an open port is drawn in the warning colour). The pointer snaps to it and says on a port.
- Click: the run starts at the port's height and takes its size and system (a pipe also takes the system's usual material). The status line says what it took.
- Draw on as usual. Ending a run on another port fixes that end too.
A run's end on a port is fixed to it: move or turn the equipment (in Properties) and the run's end goes with it; edit the run and that end stays on the port. The run's other corners stay where they are, so after a big move the first leg may come off the port at an angle: move the next corner too.
Check the connections
Open Build and click Check connections. The list under the bar shows:
| Line | What it means |
|---|---|
| A port is not connected | A piece of equipment has a connection nothing is drawn to |
| Nothing on its end | A run ends in the air |
| Joined ports of different sizes | A run of one size meets a port or run of another without a reducer (a pipe's nominal size, a duct's shape and sides) |
| Joined ports of different systems | For example a return duct on a supply diffuser |
| A pipe joined to a duct | Two connections of different kinds meet |
| No equipment in its network supplies it | Nothing that a run is joined to, however far along, has an outlet. Drains, storm and vents are not asked this: their water comes from fixtures |
| Fixed to a port of equipment that is not in the model any more | The equipment was deleted; draw the end again or delete the run |
Errors come first. Click a line to pick what it names. Close hides the list. The check reads the model as drawn: it checks connections and sizes, never flows, pressures or balancing.