cad duct software

[viviancarvalho]

Hi Friends

I am working for an HVAC company in the gulf. Basically we do jobs like A/C works for villas & residential buildings. Jobs which are not of a much big scale.

I am just intrested to know if anyone has used the software called as CAD DUCT for hvac drawings. Could it be helpful for us in anyways for small jobs ? Is it a user friendly software ?

[Strix]

I've moved your thread to the tech forums to see if somebody reading there can help

[viviancarvalho]

Thanks Strix

But no reply from any of the members as of yet

[Le Teace]

I use CadDuct all day.

I can't see it being much of an advantage on small jobs.

It would be a big financial outlay to recover.

It is great for large jobs, office blocks etc. where a lot of co-ordination is needed with other services.

It is user friendly but requires a lot of setting up to get max. return.

[viviancarvalho]

Le

 

Thanks for that reply.

How was the learning process. Was getting your hands on it simple ??

[Le Teace]

Le

 

Thanks for that reply.

How was the learning process. Was getting your hands on it simple ??

 

Learning to draw with it is easy.

It is the database setup that takes a while but I had to set all ours up for direct downloading ductwork to our factory. If you are just going to use it as it comes with the standard specs & parts you shouldn't take long to get up to speed with drawing.

 

It is easy to get hold of from MAP-software (or Google Profilemaster). Your agent might be Technical Sales International.

This route will cost you quite a bit but there is no other way of getting it. They used to do a demo version which worked on ACAD2006 or earlier but they don't do a newer version anymore.

[bonehead411]

There is a lisp file here- http://www.cadtutor.net/forum/showthread.php?t=30545 that some of our members in the HVAC sector use. Reckon it speeds up their drawing time in a big way. Any use to you?

[viviancarvalho]

Thanks Bonehead

that helps.

[tzframpton]

If you are wanting to use CAD-Duct for smaller jobs, then that would be a COMPLETE waste in my honest opinion. To me, that is like buying a semi tractor-trailer to carry a load of maybe 20lbs. First off, CAD-Duct from MSI is $10k per license. Second, it is a "design to fab" software, so unless you're sending your files directly to a plasma cutter, there's no real "need" for this software.

 

I see that you already obtained the multiline LISP from the "Need Better Multiline" thread. Is that not working good enough for you? And have you given AutoCAD MEP some thought? Even if that's too much (which it probably is) then there are cheap HVAC packages out there that are just simple LISP add-ons but work extremely good, from what I can tell.

 

Just my $0.02 is all.

[viviancarvalho]

Hi StykFace

 

Speaking frankly i am of the same opinion as of yours about cad duct & i also think working manually on Autocad desktop is the best option in this part of the world. I make a dwg in a day & it has to be kept on revising for more than 2-5 times, depending upon the clients / consultants wish. It is revising that takes more pains than preparing a new one. In such type of case none of the softwares would do me any good.

Thanks for your advice. Are you also working in the HVAC field ??

[tzframpton]

Hi StykFace

 

Speaking frankly i am of the same opinion as of yours about cad duct & i also think working manually on Autocad desktop is the best option in this part of the world. I make a dwg in a day & it has to be kept on revising for more than 2-5 times, depending upon the clients / consultants wish. It is revising that takes more pains than preparing a new one. In such type of case none of the softwares would do me any good.

Thanks for your advice. Are you also working in the HVAC field ??

Yeah, I work for Venture Mechanical and we are a HVAC mechanical contractor and engineering firm. I have 4 years experience in the field and 3.5 years experience as a mechanical designer. So with almost 8 years of combined field and designing experience I'd think that I'm pretty well rounded with my opinions in this field.

 

As for the revisions, well.... that's just a style of designing that you'll have to craft your own skill at. I still think for small residential stuff you don't need anything more than AutoCAD with a good Lisp routines and a good Block Library set up in Tool Palettes. I know this because that's how I set things up at my company until 3D and BIM became of interest. I would do revisions quite often and I learned out to maximize my designing time and effort and became quite good at it after awhile.