Tuesday, May 1, 2012

It's not BIM...it's FIM - Fishing Information Modeling!

Ya'll know I'm a redneck....but at least I have a little sophistication...sort of. As a graduation present for elder boy from NC State, he's getting a trip to Key West to fish for a while. We're definitely getting our geek on - we're taking the Sea Fox, but also taking a 2010 Yamaha FX HO Cruiser Waverunner:

My toy...
Now, the idea was to just chase the boat, and take some cool video and pics of the boys fishing...but then the redneck in me came out...what if I could fish from the jetski, and catch my own trophies. After several minutes of exhausting research, and seeing what other like minded nutcases were doing (re: http://jetskibrian.com ), we embarked on ways to accomplish this.

First up - design a cooler/rod holder rig. Being a Sunday afternoon with no NASCAR, I came up with a little model in Revit MEP 2012, that used the default PVC pipe fittings:

Schematic Design...it don't look exactly like this...
That's where I found a flaw in the default fittings - while the elbow has the hub connection inside of the fitting, the tee's connection is on the face. Subsequently, I have downloaded the latest version of Charlotte Pipe's Revit PVC fittings, for the rest of my users to enjoy (http://www.charlottepipe.com/Default.aspx?Page=RevitGroups gets you complete libraries - very quickly).

The error in the fittings created an error in my pipe cut lengths on the schedule I defined, so I had to sort of wing it to get the shape correct. We've purchased Berkley adjustable rod holders (of the clamp on variety - https://www.nssnc.com/shop/product/berkley-baarh45-45-rod-holder?ct=10%2C207&sb=brand from my buddies at Neuse sports Shop in Kinston, NC) to attach to the sides of the rig, so I should be able to pull two rods and a net with no issues.

Next up is the installation of a Humminbird 385CI Combo GPS/Fishing finder with Downscan Imaging - this one should be interesting, we're using a RAM mount in the cup holder next to the dash (never could figure out why that was there - the bottles never stay there at 70mph).

So we're in assembly mode - when I get all this put together, I'll add another post with pics for you to enjoy...

Who says BIM geeks never get out...!

Later - David B.

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3 comments:

Erik said...

And the Geeks shall inherit the earth.

May 1, 2012 at 6:00 PM
Jason said...

David, regarding your comment that the default fittings are flawed because the pipe connectors are on the face, this is done for a reason (I think). If the pipes extended into the hubs as they would in the real world, Revit would have to calculate A LOT of hidden lines for all of those overlaps and could hurt performance, depending on the amount of piping in the project. Of course, as you point out, this affects the pipe length totals.

June 4, 2012 at 12:11 PM
David Butts said...

I can answer that one - I'd rather have the right pipe lengths. We've also not noticed a performance hit when the connector engagement length is correctly assigned. And it's not consistent now - some of their fittings are right, others are not. I did find that Charlotte's PVC fittings are all made this way, so the correct laying lengths are critical, especially when you get to the field. One note - we are using more of the pipe placeholders for small stuff (less than 2") but still assigning the PVC pipe type, so it can easily be swtiched when needed. That'll help performance all around...but good warning!

June 13, 2012 at 3:15 PM

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