Hydronic Symbol Library for CAD program?

[Gooserider]

I'm running into a minor delay factor on doing my diagrams for planning out a system...

I'm trying to draw it out in QCAD, which is a Linux (and other O/S) based CAD program that is essentially a low cost clone of AutoCad... It works with *.dxf files as it's native format, including it's block symbol library. Unfortunately, while it comes with a fairly extensive library of pre-defined symbols, hydronic components like circs, the various valves, and so on, are not among them...

I can make my own symbols, but it is a real PITA to do so, as I have to draw each part and save it into the library. What I've been doing is saving the graphics image files from posts and pdf downloads from different sites, pulling them in as background photos and "tracing" them to make my own library. It takes an hour or two per part, it would be far easier if I could download a standard parts library instead...

Does anyone know of an existing hydronic symbol library that one could download? Pointers appreciated...

Gooserider

 

[DaveBP]

John Siegenthaler has a symbol library for hydronics in .dwg format. Calls the package Hydrosym. Probably about as elegant as you can get without buying the much more expensive full-blown software.

(broken link removed)

I notice the price has gone up quite a bit since I almost bought it last winter.
I never found anything free out there. Just made my own primitive blocks for my rough sketches (nothing a pro would want to work from).

 

[solarguy]

Try looking at the Autodesk web site (AutoCad). they may have something to downlaod for free.

Bob

 

[heppm01]

Taco has a free layout program with a reasonably complete symbol library:
Taco Hydronic System Solutions (URL is not working correctly; try this: (broken link removed to http://taco-hvac.com/en/products/) Taco Hydronic System Solution® (HSS)/products.html?current_category=84)
No idea if you can export the library or drawings, but perhaps you or someone else will find this useful.

edit: grrr - still not working. Go to taco-hvac.com, then Products, then Design Tools, then Taco Hydronic Systems Solution

 

[Gooserider]

Well, no luck so far...

I couldn't find any sort of libraries on the Autodesk website

The Taco layout program looks neat, but it doesn't seem to work under WINE, which is as close as I have to a Windows system... (It also looks like it uses it's own proprietary format, rather than *.dxf, so I don't know if I'd be able to export the symbols.

OTOH, I have started to work on my own library, using stuff (so far) from NoFossils and Caleffi as a loose starting point. When I get it done, I might see about sharing it... (GPL-V3-Affero license presumably...) I am up to about 17 elements so far...

Gooserider

 

[Sting]

I have noted some things drawn up in VISO ??? from Microsoft Office that are complete!

 

[Gooserider]

I have noted some things drawn up in VISO ??? from Microsoft Office that are complete!

Well that doesn't do much for me, since I don't do Microsoft... However I've been plugging away at my .DXF library, and am now up to about 25 elements...

Gooserider

 

[Nofossil]

I am MOST interested. I use Visio reluctantly because I have to have it for my other job, and because it has nice symbol libraries. I'd love a non-MS solution.

By the way - what useful things have you gotten from me? I'm glad to have been of some help, but I can't imagine what I have that would fit what you're doing.

 

[Gooserider]

I am MOST interested. I use Visio reluctantly because I have to have it for my other job, and because it has nice symbol libraries. I'd love a non-MS solution.

By the way - what useful things have you gotten from me? I'm glad to have been of some help, but I can't imagine what I have that would fit what you're doing.

Well for a nice general purpose CAD program, that runs under Linux, (and that other evil O/S) I have been very happy w/ (broken link removed to http://www.qcad.org/index.html) I did a lot of looking, and didn't really find any Open Source CAD programs I liked, although the Open version of QCAD isn't bad. However I reccomend the package with the Pro-Version and the book, which is a very good intro to getting the program to do what you want - I found that the standard manual was a bit hard to follow until I had gone through the intro book to get a better idea of how the command flow worked. If you have previous experience w/ AutoCAD or similar, you might not find it as hard...

The Pro version has a couple of features the Open version lacks, possibly the most useful being an "Auto-snap" function that looks for the significant point (intersection, reference point, line end, etc) closest to the mouse pointer, and goes to it (with a tag saying what it's picking) automatically - I find it guesses right about 90% of the time, and it is relatively easy to override when it doesn't...

As to what I found of yours that was useful - I snagged a couple of your posted piping diagrams, (I think it was your simple open storage diagram) which had a key and approximately copied the symbols out of them... I don't know how many I will end up using though, as I have since found a really nice key page from Caleffi with a much more complete set of symbols that I'm now using for inspiration. The biggest challenge with their symbols is that they use many different colors and line styles, while I'm trying to keep all my created blocks simpler - one layer, one color, one line style, as that seems to be the easiest to work with later when inserting them into a drawing.