To begin piping, select the Pipe button on the Irrigation Toolbar, then select Draw Pipe from the Irrigation Piping floating toolbar.
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All of the piping functions are located on the Irrigation Piping floating toolbar. These include drawing, verifying and checking, sizing, labeling, and editing.
Imagine the Draw Pipe function as placing actual pipe in the field.
When you select the Draw Pipe function, the command line will read:
This indicates you may:
F Remember: The AutoCAD Ortho function, either F8 or the Ortho Button, can be activated and the pipes will be drawn in a ortho relationship to the crosshairs. This can be freely toggled on and off while drawing piping.
Select Draw Pipe and click on a head. Notice that the head is highlighted, indicating that it was selected. Move the crosshairs to another head and select it. The second head will be highlighted, and a pipe will be drawn between the two.
F Remember: The highlight that occurs when you draw pipe is color coded so the End User is fully aware of what is being piped:
Pipe a row of heads as indicated below. With ortho off, the pipe will snap to the center of the head symbol as you move from head to head. As the heads will be placed slightly left or right from each other, it may be the Designers preference to turn ON ortho after selecting the first head.
F Remember: When you are finished drawing a section of pipe, press Esc or right click to exit the piping function.
For best control of the clarity of the drawing, toggle ortho ON and OFF as necessary during the piping function.
Pipe the edge heads to the far left of the sample area.
Now pipe a main branch from the valve to the various pipe segments to complete the station piping.
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The Highlight Station function will highlight any equipment connected by lateral or mainline pipe. You can click on a valve to see what heads it is running, or any piece of lateral pipe or head to see what that item is connected to. This is a “must use” function during the piping process, to confirm that heads are being properly connected, and that all of the heads are connected to the valve. This function is also convenient when generally reviewing a finished Irrigation Plan. The user can use this function to quickly see what heads are connected to a selected valve.
Selecting Highlight Station will result in the crosshairs being replaced with just a pickbox, and the command line will read:
Click on a valve that you have completely piped to, and the valve and all heads attached to that valve will be highlighted.
Select Highlight Station and use the pickbox to select a piece of mainline pipe, or any equipment on the mainline other than a valve. All items connected by the mainline, including the point of connection, the backflow, any valves, and hose bibs (or quick couplers) will be highlighted.
This function allows you to insert a sleeve at a particular pipe, and automatically allow that sleeve to be indicated in the Irrigation Schedule when run.
Note that you do not have to select a pipe, if you select any point in space, you can insert a general sleeve. Also, you can use the Pipe Label functions on sleeving, in order to label it.
The Pipe Arc function allows the End User to insert an arc in the piping when there are piping conflicts within a station, or from the piping of other stations.
Selecting the Pipe Arc function will result in the command line asking:
Select the pipe you wish a pipe arc placed on. This selection can either be a general one where you will further define the first point of the arc, or at the location on the pipe for the first arc point. When you select the pipe the command line will ask:
If the point on the piping you selected was the first point of the desired arc location, then simply select the desired location of the end point of the arc.
If you wish to define the first and second points after selecting the pipe, right click or press Enter and select the first and second point of the arc. The command line will ask:
After selecting the first point, the command line will ask:
Define the end point, or press Enter to re-define the first point.
F Remember: You can draw the pipe arcs before or after sizing the lateral lines. The sizing is unaffected by the pipe arcs.
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After all of the heads in the project are piped, select the Verify Piping command to ensure that you have not missed any heads.
If any of the heads are not piped correctly, the following dialog box will appear:
Select OK and review the heads that are circled.
A “Circular Pipe Error” is when the system finds itself back at a head it has already tabulated for that system. It is easy to create a circular pipe error as a test, by simply piping several heads together in a loop. In practice, however, it is obviously not intended, and may be more difficult to resolve. Note that Verify Piping will attempt to highlight the offending pipe as well as heads that are part of a circular loop. The most common cause of a circular pipe error is when a user uses the AutoCAD Copy command to copy heads and pipe to a similar location. The hidden markers that Land F/X uses to connect piped equipment gets copied with them, resulting in the newly copied system appearing to be connected to the source system. In short, do not use the AutoCAD Copy command to copy piped heads, and always use the Verify Piping function to verify a system before sizing.
If all heads are piped correctly, the dialog box indicates No unpiped heads.
