• Welcome to The Building Code Forum

    Your premier resource for building code knowledge.

    This forum remains free to the public thanks to the generous support of our Sawhorse Members and Corporate Sponsors. Their contributions help keep this community thriving and accessible.

    Want enhanced access to expert discussions and exclusive features? Learn more about the benefits here.

    Ready to upgrade? Log in and upgrade now.

Simpson Strong-Tie AutoCAD symbols

Yankee Chronicler

Yankee Chronicler

SAWHORSE
Joined
Oct 17, 2023
Messages
3,963
Location
New England
I don't do much architecting or AutoCAD these days, and I haven't done much for fifteen or twenty years. I still have an older copy of AutoCAD on my computer, and I occasionally fire it up to draw something. A friend has asked me about drawing plans for a barn he wants to build. Easy gig -- I think.

It occurs to me that it would be nice to get symbols (blocks) for the various Simpson Strong-Tie joist hangers and hurricane clips, etc. Does anyone know if there's a collection of this symbols available somewhere? Looking on Simpson's web site, it looks like they want to to somehow navigate to each connector and download the symbol individually. I don't mind having them as individual symbols (in fact, I prefer it), but I find their web site to be particularly user-unfriendly. I can't find the ones I want.

What's out there?

Thank you.
 
I agree they are a pain to download individually, but how many different connectors/holddowns/caps/bases/etc. do you plan to use?

A few years ago a fellow DataCAD'r (I use DataCAD, AutoCAD, and BricsCAD on a daily basis) took the trouble to download a boatload of the Simpson CAD files and turned them into DataCAD symbols ("blocks" in ACAD and BCAD) which he graciously offered to give to anyone who asked .. but they are DataCAD format and won't do you any good with Acad.

They have what they call "Drawing Finder" online (https://www.strongtie.com/search?v=:relevance&tab=drawing) that might help you download what you need to start, or (depending on how old your Acad is) they also have a "Drawing Finder Plugin" for Acad, Bluebeam, Revit, and IntelliCAD (https://www.strongtie.com/products/software/drawing-finder-plugins). I've downloaded it but haven't installed it yet and can't attest to how useful it may or may not be.

Good luck!
 
I installed the plugin with my IntelliCAD version ("CADirect Pro 2026") and it installed without a problem. It adds a new ribbon bar that mimics the online Drawing Finder. It is pretty slick I have to admit. It appears that the lowest they support is Acad 2019, and if you have another CAD (like BricsCAD and not a flavor of IntelliCAD) it won't install.
 
Long time autocad user - ver 1.1 in 1983 and now on 2017 in retirement - and just drew my porch. I just looked at online dimensions and created a block. Has generally been my method over the years - trace a jpg or PDF. I don't really like how literal Revit is.
 
'Back in the day ..' hand-drafting, we'd just do similar to what bill1952 mentioned .. get the basic dimensions, draw a few lines (like for a U26 hanger) and wah-lah! you had a hanger shown on the section/detail/whatever.
 
bill1952 and MtnArch -- I have AutoCAD LT 2014. I have been doing basically what you suggest. Each time I need a Simpson hanger or connector for a detail, I draw it in that project and convert it to a block. It's becoming tiresome. I could pick a few of the Simpson products I'm most likely to use and spend a few evenings creating blocks for each to save in a standard symbol library, but I hoped there might be a library already available to save me the trouble.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top