Getting Started

MEP Hangers is rule-based software that places hangers and supports. To quickly start working with it, you will need Revit families of hangers and supports and configuration files.

Loading Families

To load Revit families of hangers and supports into your project, find the Load Families button in the MEP Hangers toolbar.

In the Load families window, you will find libraries of Revit families that we provide. These libraries contain generic products of commonly used hangers and supports. The provided families can be customized to use different rod or unistrut sizes and more.

Here you can see either metric or imperial libraries depending on your project units. We have created dual libraries so that all the provided families can be classified in both the Structural Connections category and the Mechanical Equipment category.

Some differences between the two:

Structural Connections library	Mechanical Equipment library
Possible to create very accurate bills of materials because all components (rods, washers, nuts, clamps, etc.) are created as shared nested families and can be accounted for in Revit schedules	Hangers are visible in view even when above the cut plane Faster performance in Revit projects

Our recommendation is to start with Structural Connections families.

The first time, you will need to download the library from the web. Tick the checkbox for your preferred library in the ‘Load from Web’ column and click OK. Families will be loaded into your Revit project.

In the future, since the library has already been downloaded, you will be able to load it straight from your computer.

Configuration Files

Sample configurations are created automatically. Depending on your project units, you will get either metric or imperial configurations.

You can select MEP elements in the view and hit ‘Insert Hangers’. The software will show configurations depending on the category of the selected elements. Choose an appropriate configuration – e.g., if you have selected a duct run below a floor, choose the Floor-Roof (Search Top) configuration. Hit the ‘Insert Details’ button to insert hangers.

To learn more about the configurations of MEP Hangers, read this article.

Configuration Files for Mechanical Equipment families

Sample configurations have the names of the Structural Connections families, so if you are using the Mechanical Equipment library, there are two ways to update the configurations. The simplest way is to slightly modify the configurations.

When in the ‘Insert Hangers’ window, click ‘Edit’ and you will be directed to the ‘Hanger Configurations’ window. In the ‘Hanger Selection’ section, select the Mechanical Equipment category and then the preferred hanger family. Hit ‘Save & Close’. From now on, the selected Mechanical Equipment family will be placed with this configuration.

The other way is to download all the Mechanical Equipment configurations.

284KB

Configurations - Mechanical Equipment - Hangers & Supports.zip

archive

Once you download it, place the downloaded ZIP file to a folder where you prefer to keep your configurations. Extract the compressed ZIP file to a folder. You can delete the ZIP file afterward.

In MEP Hangers toolbar, go to Settings -> Configuration Filesʼ Location.

In the next window, specify a folder location and click ‘Save & Close’. Make sure it is the extracted folder. All configurations are now available to use.

You can also use ‘Configuration Files’ Location’ to specify the folder with your existing configurations. If you specify an empty folder here, sample configurations will be created in that folder.