Excluding bolt/hole sizes on drawings automatically

Excluding certain bolt/hole sizes on drawings

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This article will explain the process of how to exclude certain bolt/hole sizes on drawings automatically. This is done if you have a typical bolt or hole size callout in a title block and you don't want to clutter up your drawing with redundant call outs. 

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In order to exclude bolt/hole sizes on drawing we will need to set up 3 advanced options that will make all this possible. Below I will show those 3 different advanced options which you can find by going to Tools > Options > Advanced Options and then look under the Marking: Bolts category and a short description for each. 

XS_OMITTED_BOLT_TYPE

Use this advanced option to define which bolt types to omit from drawings when the Bolt size limit option is used in drawing properties. Enter the name of the bolt standard, for example, 7990. You can also use wildcards, such as * or ?. By default, no value is given, which means that no bolt types are omitted.

Example: To filter away all the marks of A325N, A325X and A325SC types of bolts, set this advanced option to A325*.

This advanced option is model specific and the setting is saved in the options database.

XS_OMITTED_BOLT_ASSEMBLY_TYPE

Use this advanced option to filter out the given type of bolt marks when the Bolt size limit field is used in drawing properties. The options are:

SITE (default)

SHOP

SITE_AND_SHOP.

The default value SITE filters out only site bolt marks that are outside the bolt size limit, whereas workshop bolt marks of all sizes are shown in drawings.

XS_OMITTED_DIAMETER_TYPE

Use to define which diameter marks to omit in drawings. The options are HOLE or BOLT.

This advanced option is model specific and the setting is saved in the options database.

Image There is one more option that is shown below, this is not required to be used for assembly drawings but if you want to limit GA drawings then you would want to set this.  XS_GA_OMITTED_DIAMETER_TYPE Use to omit marks for specific diameter types in general arrangement drawings. The options are HOLE or BOLT. This advanced option is model specific and the setting is saved in the options database.

Example for setting up these settings

Here I will show an example of using all three of these settings. In my Project Properties, I have set up a typical hole size, bolt grade, and bolt size, these will display on my Titleblock on my drawings so I do not need to call out any bolt sizes that are the same as the typical size. 

The typical information is 

Hole Size=13/16"
Bolt Size=3/4"
Bolt Grade=A325N
This is typical for Shop and Field bolts

Here is a snapshot of what I would put in the advanced options mentioned above. 

Now that I have those options set everything outside of the drawing has been done and now we are ready to set up the drawing properties. In Tekla go to Drawings & Reports > Drawing Settings > Assembly Drawings this will bring up the Assembly Drawing Properties and from here you want to navigate to the Bolt Mark button. See below, in the Bolt Mark properties navigate to the General tab. Here you will want to adjust the Bolt Size limit option since I set my typical bolt sizes to be 3/4" I will put 3/4" in this option to exclude bolts that are 3/4" in diameter. 



Now I want to Apply the changes you made in the Bolt Mark dialog and in the Assembly drawing properties do the same and Apply those settings. Now I will create my assembly draiwng, using the properties I just applied and you can see the result below. 

Now you are ready to set up your typical bolt and hole sizes for your drawings.