By Gary Mann
Contrary to the title beginning with “MEPworx”, this blog applies to the editing of any DB and may seem obvious by the time you have read this, but I deal with many calls with real-world projects, and it is a surprisingly common mistake.
Below is a list of the DBs available in MEPworx, all of which can be edited by the user.
Because most of the manufacturers' data is maintained within a DB it makes it a simple task to add new components, remove obsolete data and also combine different manufacturer’s into the same DB to create your own i.e. a “Preferred Suppliers DB” or “Company Partners DB”.
This blog is not about editing any of the 12 or more DBs, that is better described using the Help section which contains a number of “Editing DB” videos. See the location below:
There is also an Element database containing U-values, admittance factors and associated thermal properties accessable from within the Building program>Tools>Elements.
My main concern is that if a DB is edited, you must rename it with a unique and relevant name.
This is best done using the steps below:
- Select an existing database that you wish to modify or choose “New”.
- As soon as the selected DB is opened, “Save As” using a Company, Individual, project, client or other suitable title e.g. “Project St Aines” would benefit from an edited Pipe DB re-named “St Aines Pipes.DBP” or CadlinePipe 12-21.DBP, with the company name suffixed with a month and date if edited monthly or just a sequential number.
- Chose the closest Pipe, Fitting, Media, Insulation or Selection Rule and copy before editing, calling it “St Aines and adding a suitable name, eg. Cu BSEN 806 Max 4m/s”
- The associated notes file should also be edited with the details changed along with your name and date and also include the source of information for quality assurance purposes.
Remember, if you fail to rename any edited DB you will create an instance where you will have two different files with the same name, resulting in an existing project, which used the un-edited DB now having additional items and if your colleague opens the CYC file on their own PC they may not have the edited DB, but because it still has the default, un-edited DB name they will find themselves with “Division by Zero” error messages as the edited data is nowhere to be found in the original file with the same name – a sure recipe for disaster!