Sounds

How do I determine how much wire I will need for a specific run?? Is there a way to measure the wire you are using on a drawing? (Not sure if that makes sence or not)

If I am running Cat5 from a bedroom to a panel in a house?

SenoS

There is no real way to determine this with SI. If you insert a CAD drawing of the floorplan to scale (see the Round Tripping in AutoCAD doc posted elsewhere on the forum), you could technically use Visio measurment tools to determine a "rough" distance between locations. However, this is a horizontal measurement and does not account for height of walls, having to manuever around joists (you can drill through them all, right??? haha), etc.. It is always best to overbid on the wire length so you make sure you order enough for the job. Bidding 100 feet on every drop might be excessive so you can adjust this on a per/drop basis.

curt.hayes

I created prewire packages to simplify this process. Depending on the size of the project, I have 30 and 50' packages for equipment located w/in a room and 75/150/250' packages for remote equipment. Of course, I also inlcude all of the plates, connectors, etc. to get through trim...making prewire proposals a breeze.

ESDJRT

What I do here is determine the location of my LV panels - then I populate my plans with our shapes (EO's, TV's, Phones, etc.). Once this is complete I draw a temporary line from the LV panel location to say an EO - click on that line and it will give you your direct length as well as your X/Y coordinates. I usually use the X/Y coordinates then add @20'-30' depending on the complexity of the home (that accounts for vertical runs). I then just move line around (keeping one end point approx. where the LV panels are). When moving to a location where the plans do not actually show the panel location - find a common base point and copy that line to the other plan. This would give you the approx. location of the panels for that plan.
That's if you are trying to do precise measurements. In a pinch I typically use @80' for homeruns in homes ranging from 4 to 7K (win some lose some when it comes the covering cost of wiring - but has been averaging out). Above 7k to 10K we use 110' - above 10K I take the time to be as precise as possible.
Hope this helps.

Sounds

Awsome...This is some great information..

JordanC

Get the floor plans, determine your location scale the length from one end to another, add 10-15%, and use that as your length. It's what I have been doing, and from the past three jobs, I have been within 500' of all wire lengths from my estimates, to what was actually pulled.

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CJepp

Originally Posted by SenoS

There is no real way to determine this with SI. If you insert a CAD drawing of the floorplan to scale (see the Round Tripping in AutoCAD doc posted elsewhere on the forum), you could technically use Visio measurment tools to determine a "rough" distance between locations. However, this is a horizontal measurement and does not account for height of walls, having to manuever around joists (you can drill through them all, right??? haha), etc.. It is always best to overbid on the wire length so you make sure you order enough for the job. Bidding 100 feet on every drop might be excessive so you can adjust this on a per/drop basis.

This is the closest post related to my inquiry. Any help would be appreciated.

Inquiry:
On a plan view page, selecting a 'rough-wire shape' shows the [Length] of that line (per page scale) in [Size & Position] window. Is it not possible to reference this data in the Product Data field for [Length]?

The broader question here is: Can any of the D-Tools Product Data fields be programmed/coded to derive their values from Visio Shape Data?

Please advise,
Thank you.