Newsletter Redesign | Electrical for Revit 2.1.1 Released | CSE 2023 POTY | Aaron Dennington | Design Mastermind Roundup
March 2023 Newsletter
Table of Contents
Newsletter Redesign—Feedback Needed
Electrical for Revit 2.1.1 Released
Consulting-Specifying Engineer 2023 Product of the Year
Customer Story: Aaron Dennington
Electrical Mastermind Roundup
Online Training
Documentation Updates
Newsletter Redesign—Feedback Needed
In the January 2023 newsletter, we asked for your help determining what we can do to make the newsletter more useful to you. We also mentioned that you can expect incremental changes to the newsletter throughout 2023.
For this newsletter, we have made the following changes:
Updated formatting
Limited the customer story to the introduction and provided a link to the full story
Added summaries of the January and February Electrical Mastermind sessions
Further changes will be based upon your feedback. Please take a few minutes to fill out our short survey on what you like about this iteration of the newsletter, and what you'd like us to include in the future.
[Editor's Note: The feedback survey has closed. Thanks to everyone who offered their thoughts!]
Electrical for Revit 2.1.1 Released
Design Master Electrical RT 2.1.1 is now available. The new features include the Override Review command, which lists all of the settings that have been changed from the default values in the Panel Edit, Circuit Edit, and Instance Edit commands.
Consulting-Specifying Engineer 2023 Product of the Year
Design Master Electrical RT 2.0 for Revit has been nominated for the Consulting-Specifying Engineer 2020 Product of the Year award in the Software category.
Voting is open to qualified subscribers of Consulting-Specifying Engineer products and ends March 14. If you're a subscriber, we would greatly appreciate your vote for Design Master.
[Editor's Note: Voting has closed. Thanks to everyone who voted!]
Aaron Dennington, PE, has designed electrical distribution systems for several MEP firms since entering the industry in 2007. “The only difference would be the kind of projects they work on,” he says. “So I was able to obtain experience in various types of construction, and in some cases, develop some project management skills.” When asked what kinds of projects, he replies, “It’s probably a shorter list to tell you what projects I haven’t worked on.”
Nearly every company on Aaron’s resume has used (or continues to use) Design Master Electrical. Aaron’s first exposure to the software came in mid-2008 when he joined Tom Green & Company Engineering, Inc. “As I moved on from there,” he says, “then I was the one that introduced it to companies after that.”
David Robison hosts a Zoom call on the 2nd Thursday of each month to connect electrical engineers and discuss the wins and challenges of their work.
In January, they expressed frustration when dealing with high-leg delta systems from electrical engineering and software development perspectives. Electrical design work is also complicated by the current long lead times for acquiring equipment. They pondered the question, "what do you do when you uncover hazardous conditions outside the scope of your current project, such as nearby exposed telecommunications lines?" They discussed in-office, remote, and hybrid work models, including mentions of helpful tools like Slack and Monday, and the book "Running Remote" by Liam Martin and Rob Rawson. Finally, they talked about the pitfalls of too-broad indemnity clauses and master services agreements, which almost forced one engineer's company to cover the cost of a contractor's change order for which they were not consulted.
In February, they compared brands for transfer switches and generators. They discussed supply chain issues plaguing the acquisition and refurbishment of transformers. There was a lengthy discussion of the pros and cons of different generator placements: putting them at ground level is cheaper but can draw the ire of architects and city planners; putting them on the roof is more aesthetic while also being more expensive and complicated to install and maintain. They ended their conversation by comparing Design Master's arc-flash reports to those of other programs (spoiler alert: we're better).
Learn how Design Master calculates wire lengths. We will look at all the settings and options that exist for feeders and branch circuits. We will talk about the default lengths that are calculated and when you might want to override them for more precision.
April 20, 2023: Voltage Drop Calculations
Learn how Design Master calculates voltage drop. Dig in to both the calculations themselves and all the settings that you can adjust.
Documentation Updates
Knowledge Base Updates
The following articles have been added to the knowledge base:
Electrical
Ground Wire Is Too Large: If you upsize your conductors, Design Master will automatically upsize your ground in accordance with NEC 250.122(B).
Solar/Photovoltaic Systems in Design Master Electrical: Design Master can't perform calculations for DC systems like solar arrays, but you can model them as generators to connect the AC side to your system.
Electrical RT
Ground Wire Is Too Large: If you upsize your conductors, Design Master will automatically upsize your ground in accordance with NEC 250.122(B).
Photometrics
Where to Find IES Files: Design Master does not provide IES files for use in projects. They are provided by the light fixture manufacturer.
Training Videos
The following training videos have been added to the knowledge base:
